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When considering a personal computer upgrade, your first step is to check your PC's documentation for information about what upgrades can be performed. The manufacturer may offer upgrade kits that are specifically designed for your computer. The following sections address some specific upgrades that you may be considering.
Choosing a new hard drive
Big, cheap hard drives are a popular PC upgrade these days. Digital video consumes a ton of hard drive space, so you may be considering a hard drive upgrade. If so, consider the following items before you nab that new hard drive:
- An EIDE interface: Your hard drive connects to the rest of the computer through a special disk interface. Most modern PCs use the EIDE interface — and such drives are both fast and widely available. Check your computer's documentation to make sure that it uses this type of interface. Most new high-performance PCs use a Serial ATA connection for hard drives. A few computers use the SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) format, which is also fast, but SCSI drives are expensive and increasingly hard to find. If the PC is older and just uses a regular IDE interface, it probably isn't fast enough to work with digital video. It may also not support the large size of modern hard drives.
- Drive speed: EIDE drives are commonly available in speeds of 5,400 rpm and 7,200 rpm, while virtually all Serial ATA drives turn at 7,200 rpm or faster. This speed is always clearly marked on the drive's packaging. For digital video work, a 7,200-rpm drive is virtually mandatory.
- Windows installation: If you're replacing your old hard drive with a newer, bigger drive, you must (you guessed it) reinstall Windows. Do you have a Windows installation CD? You should have received an installation disc with your PC. If not, figure on spending at least $199 for a new Windows CD. (You'll need to buy the full version, not a cheaper upgrade version.)
- Support for big hard drives: Maybe your computer can't support the biggest hard drives that are on the market today (admittedly a remote possibility). Check the BIOS section of your PC's documentation to see whether your computer has any drive-size limitations.
Upgrading to Windows XP
If you don't already have Windows XP, you need to upgrade. If you already have a version of Windows on your computer, you can purchase an upgrade to Windows XP Home Edition. If you don't already have Windows, the full version of the Windows XP Home Edition will cost about twice as much as the upgrade, and the full version of Windows XP Pro costs even more. Windows XP Professional is nice, but so is XP Home. If you don't need the extra networking tools that are built into Windows XP Pro, XP Home is just fine for video work.
Follow these tips when upgrading your computer to Windows XP:
- Avoid installing Windows XP on any computer that is more than 2 or 3 years old. XP is a snob about modernity, and it may not support some of your older components and hardware. A quick way to check the hardware in your computer is to use Microsoft's online Upgrade Advisor. Visit the following Web site for instructions on how to download and use the Upgrade Advisor:
• Microsoft.com
The Advisor inspects your system and advises you whether your computer can accept Windows XP.
- Perform a "clean" installation. Although the installation CD provides an option to upgrade your current version of Windows, this approach will most likely cause you troubles in the near future. So back up all your important data before you begin installing, and let the installer program reformat and repartition your hard drive using the NTFS (NT File System) when you are presented with these options. (NTFS hard drives are both faster and more reliable in case of a lockup or power failure.) The rest of the installation process is pretty simple. (Oh, yeah, you have to restore all the data from your backup onto that reformatted hard drive. You could be at it for a while.)
- Check for online updates immediately after installation. Microsoft is constantly developing updates and fixes for Windows XP, and you can quickly download and install those updates by choosing Start --> All Programs --> Windows Update. You must connect to the Internet to do so, so make sure that you have all the necessary information handy to reinstall your Internet service's software.
Installing a FireWire card
If you have a PC and want to work with digital video, you probably need to install a FireWire (IEEE 1394) card. A FireWire card is crucial to capturing video from a digital camcorder to your computer.
To install a FireWire card, you need to have an empty PCI slot inside your computer. PCI slots usually look like the open slot that's shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Make sure that you have an empty PCI slot to accommodate a new FireWire card.
If you have an empty PCI slot, you should be able to install a FireWire card. Numerous cards are available for less than $100. Many FireWire cards also come packaged with video-editing software, so consider the value of that software when you make your buying decision.
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