dgallinger

I have a Wester Dig WD800JB-00FMA0 ATA 133 80 Gig I got for around $80.00 just after Christmas last year. There were some reports that a number of the WD drives came dead or failed. Mine has worked perfect. Note: I was very careful to use the WD utility to partition the drive initially but that was it. I then let XP do the rest. I am normally partial to SCSI because of their flexability and if you want to spend the money their speed. As it was in the beginning rotating media is still the slowest link in the chain. The other consideraton you need to add is that some gear works better that others with whatever motherboard you have. Regardless of the standards, manufacturers decide on a design, and all designs have their pros and cons, and some matches bring out the best and the others don't. Putting a PC together from scratch used to be easy but with the speeds, thermal issues and silicon being pushed to its limits it's a wonder the stuff works at all. Anyway I digress. I have personally found that if I do the required effort on the front end my computing life is much easier. “The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” - Tacitus (A.D. 55?-130?)