6860 Upgrades and Setup Questions

Hi, I recently purchased the P-6860FX (still awaiting it's arrival) and I'm thinking about adding another HDD to it. I want to do this so that I have a Windows hard drive and a separate Ubuntu HDD rather than just separate partitions.

A few questions:
1. If I'm not going to set up a Raid configuration do my HDD's have to have the same RPM's?

2. What is the brand/model of the current hard drive? Also what size (physical dimension) is it (ie what size do I need to buy for the other slot)?

3. How difficult is it to add a new HDD? I hear it's pretty simple but I dunno.

4. Since I'm sure this laptop comes filled with bloatware I was just wondering if it's recommended to do a clean install or is it best to just go to add/remove programs then run CCleaner or something? Will a clean install remove important firmware like running multimedia keys?

Thanks for any help.

 

4. some people recommend clean install, i just uninstalled the bloatware i used
http://pcdecrapifier.com/
then run ccleaner or tuneup utilities (not free) to clear the registry of leftovers.
if you decide on doing clean install make absolutely sure you use the gateway recovery center to make a driver dvd before you do anything else.

3. as easy as it can be.
2. wdc wd3200bevs.
1. nope no problem.

 

Congratulations on the lappy. Thats pretty much what i did

nope the second HDD can be anything you want. But the 320gb WD 5400RPM one that matches the computers other drive is really nice and pretty cheap

Its a WD 320gb 5400RPM Drive. Its a 2.5in 9.5mm Drive

Insanely Easy. The whole process takes about 5-10 minutes. Just pop off the back cover. Put the second drive into the caddy. Slid it in place. Reattach the cover. After that its just a matter pf playing with your management settings to initialize the hard drive

I guess its always "recommended" to do a clean install...but gateway surprised me with this computer. I think theres like 3 bloat ware programs on the system and i just manually cleared them out, then ran CCleaner. Took about 20 minutes to search through the system to find everything and make sure it was running how i wanted. I'm sure i would get slightly better numbers in a benchmark test with a clean install... but its not something I'm worried about for 100-300 points in a 3dmark06 test

 

As Kamin stated, Gateway really does well with the bloatware on this model. Heres what I do with every new machine I buy(The Gateway just made it easier with less crap):
1.) MSCONFIG-Disable every non-necessary startup programs (Pretty much everything), click services and Disable Defender and Windows Search. Then click the "do not show Microsoft services" box and uncheck every non-necessary service.
2.) Uninstall the crapware (ie Norton, BigFix, etc). Reboot.
3.) After reboot, let Windows settle and load SuperFetch, then I start installing my stuff.

This worked great on the 6860, that is until I got another HD and wanted to setup RAID, at which point I had to re-install. But the good news there is the restore CD is basically a pure Microsoft Vista CD with no added crapware.

 

Cool, thanks for answering all my questions. One more though, the restore CD that comes with it, I assume that has all the drivers and stuff on it too right?

 

yep but i dont think you can extract only the drivers out of it, its a full factory restore solution.

 

No. Its just the vanilla Vista install. You have to create the "Driver and Applications" disc from the gateway tools pre-installed from the factory. I actually prefer it this way, as you get zero bloatware upon reinstall.

 

I had a couple setup questions myself:

1. Since you guys recommend uninstalling it, what is a good alternative to Norton? AVG?

2. Is BigFix worth keeping? It doesn't seem to be too intrusive.

3. How do I get rid of the "Ebay" and "NetZero" links in the welcome center? I deleted the files/folders I could find, but they still appear there.

4. Any other necessary apps for virus/spyware protection?

 

1. Since you guys recommend uninstalling it, what is a good alternative to Norton? AVG?
I use and highly recommend Eset NOD32. It works wonderfully and is light on resources.

2. Is BigFix worth keeping? It doesn't seem to be too intrusive.
No. It's redundant. You get your needed updates via Windows Update.

3. How do I get rid of the "Ebay" and "NetZero" links in the welcome center? I deleted the files/folders I could find, but they still appear there.
Try uninstalling the programs via control panel. However, if you've deleted the folders for said programs already, you may have a problem. I usually just turn off Welcome Center anyways.

4. Any other necessary apps for virus/spyware protection?[/QUOTE]
Nope. ESET does both Spyware and Virus.

This, of course, Is one mans opinion and I'm sure there will be others chiming in with their flavor of Malware prevention. However, I have tried many and keep coming back to Eset.

 

yep what he said no32 ftw

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Happy to help.