Intel 330 Series SSD with Windows XP

Tynted

Junior Member
Aug 11, 2012
3
0
0
Hello there,

I did some searching here but found nothing of what I was looking for. I'm wanting to get a SSD to be my OS drive in order to hasten my boot times, maybe try a game or two on it idk about that.

Now, someone will probably come in here saying to go to win7. I will not be switching to win7 for as long as I possibly can. I play some games competitively (quake live, xonotic etc) and I was never able to replicate my sensitivity and get the same feel on win7. It felt different and made me way worse, so I went back to XP after a few months of trying to get used to it. I have a laptop with win7 for any serious work I need to do.

So, I'm looking at the 60GB intel 330 series for 60 bucks on newegg. The SSD will have my OS/web browser on it and that's basically about it if I don't put some games on it to see how they do, and my 1TB WD black will have Steam/all my other games and files on it.

My questions are: What all should I do when I install the SSD? I know I'll need to install intel's SSD toolkit and TRIM the drive as well as monitor it a couple times a week. Should I disable the windows paging file for this drive also? I read some things saying it doesn't hurt to leave it on and some saying to turn it off. Would it affect my WD at all? Are there any other things I need to consider?

Thanks!
 
 

Coup27

Platinum Member
Jul 17, 2010
2,140
3
81
1) Install SSD into the laptop.

2) Run your Windows 7 installation CD/USB. When you get to the partition table, make your partitions how you see fit. If you only want one single partition, then make one, delete it, then extend the 100MB system partition into all the available space. That will give you one single partition aligned to 1024KB. Quit the Windows 7 installer.

3) Run your Windows XP CD/USB and install onto the newly created partition, using the "format in NTFS quick" option.

4) Install all your drivers updates yada yada. Install the Intel SSD toolbox for TRIM function and it will disable superfetch for you as well. Disable indexing if you want.

5) Ensure hibernation is off. Disable system restore if you want to. Leave page file alone unless you have more than 4GB of RAM in which you could probably limit it to 2GB.
 

Tynted

Junior Member
Aug 11, 2012
3
0
0
Awesome, thanks!

Couldn't I simply run the acronis alignment tool also instead of using win7 to align it for me?
 

hhhd1

Senior member
Apr 8, 2012
667
3
71
Make sure to disable the defrag,
also there is other service in xp (can't remember its name) that re-organize file on disk, and bringing some stuff in the begging of the partition, .. disable that too

google for it.
 

Coup27

Platinum Member
Jul 17, 2010
2,140
3
81
there are many ways to deal with partition alignment, thats just the way i prefer to do it. i have never used any alignment tool before because i prefer to make sure my partitions are aligned before i start
 

Auric

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
9,591
2
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You're not going to unnecessarily install from scratch rather than simply cloning the current setup with free tools from the drive manufacturer, are you?
 

Tynted

Junior Member
Aug 11, 2012
3
0
0
You're not going to unnecessarily install from scratch rather than simply cloning the current setup with free tools from the drive manufacturer, are you?

Yes, I intend to do a fresh install to clean out my registry/documents/downloads/games I don't play currently/etc and have a nice lean system.