Need some HD advice

[Paratus]

My desktop recently was infected with a virus I can't seem to remove. It's hijacking occasional Google links and Regedit and the DOS window no longer work. So I've decided to reload windows.

Since I don't want to loose anything critical on the pc I was thinking about reloading windows to a new HD and that way I could pull anything I needed off the old drive before wiping it.

I was thinking about picking up a faster boot drive than the one I currently have - maybe a velociraptor or SSD. Although I'm not sure what kind of improvement I'd see over my old WD 160GB 8mb cache, 7200RPM SATA drive.

PC specs:

P4 3.2E
Asus P4P800 E Deluxe (i865pe) SATA 1 (1.5gbs)
WD 160GB 8mb 7200RPM boot
WD 500GB 16mb 7200RPM storage
2G DDR 400

What would you do?

 

[LokutusofBorg]

I use dual drives (or dual partitions before I had two physical drives) for just this reason. I have all my critical data stored on the second drive, so if anything goes wrong, I can wipe and reinstall on the main drive without worrying about anything. I typically use the smaller drive for Windows and programs, and use the second drive for games, video renders, and storage space so I like that one to be bigger/faster. If you have enough RAM then using the better hard drive for your boot drive is a waste.

I know you didn't mention this, but I never reinstall Windows without formatting the drive. I used to work in a computer store and had to do in-place installs to fix problems for people, and it got them going again but it was merely a limping along. It was back then that I started doing the dual drive/partition thing.

If your computer currently *works*, you can just copy your stuff to your second drive and wipe and reinstall on your 160. No need to buy a new drive unless a) you need it, or b) you aren't sure you can identify all the stuff you need to copy off (in that case, just do a Windows Backup of your whole C.

This goes without saying, but make sure to get a good antivirus program and install it as soon as you're done reinstalling Windows.