I can't remember exactly the way the winzip thing works, but I used to get errors downloading aircraft (probably due to a bad internet connection) and I could often get them flying with maybe only a missing texture on some part for example.
I do remember that when you get the error screen in winzip, you don't click the obvious, but you make another selection....... I'm sorry I can't be more specific on that, it's been a while.
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Try to avoid a dual boot system and get away from Win'98 if at all possible. Update your software to XP standard or use a comparible Win XP compatible program..... or try to run Win'98 programs in compatibility mode using WinXP.
I say this because Win'98 is supported less and less these days, but more importantly, I had some bad experiences using dual boot systems with win'98 and Win XP. This always lead to my XP system getting corrupted and I was never able to boot into it again. Restoration of my XP partition required the destruction of my Win'98 partition as well! After many formats and installs, I use only XP with SP2 now and have very few issues and better stability than ever.
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To understand the way hard drives work on IDE, you need to be aware of basic IDE standards and the way that most chipset and mainboard manufacturers incorporate them.
Almost all mainboards have two IDE connectors on them, a primary and a secondary IDE. They are numbered on the mainboard's PCB next to the connector itself, and appear something like this when you look at the connectors on the mainboard :
IDE 0 ----------------------
----------------------
IDE1 ----------------------
----------------------
or perhaps they say Primary and Secondary.
Newer mainboards often use a blue connector for the Primary IDE.
EACH IDE channel (primary and secondary) supports two devices, MASTER and SLAVE.
Thus, a total of four IDE devices can be used on a PC.
eg. 2 x HDD and 2 x CDROM drives.
IDE cables have two device connectors on each cable. One connector is at the end of the cable, the other near the middle of the cable. The other end of the cable fits into one of the mainboard's IDE connectors.
Each IDE device needs to be configured as either the Master or the Slave device on it's respective IDE channel. This is done by one of two methods.
Method one is by setting jupmer caps at the rear of each device to either slave or master position. Only one slave and/or one master device is allowed on each IDE channel/cable.
Method two is by setting all devices jumper positions to "Cable Select". When this configuration is used, The device at the long end of the cable becomes the master device, and the device at the mid-cable position becomes the slave device.
Many mainboards use different ATA speed support for the Primary and Secondary IDE channels, with the Primary supporting ATA 100/133 and the secondary channel supporting only ATA 66 speeds. The hard disks should be placed on the faster IDE channel. Newer boards support ATA 133 on both channels usually.
IDE is a tranfer protocol and it will transfer data at the protocol's rated speed as long as the hardware supports those speeds and the devices are configured correctly, so you don't lose performance by adding devices.
ATA 133 is currently the fastest IDE standard as far as I'm aware.
SATA hard drives are rated at 150 as far as I know, so it's not very much faster really.
RAID arrays can turn an array of devices into a much faster transfer system, but this requires the purchase of more hard drives. (please ask someone else about RAID because I have never really looked into it.)
I'm sure someone is gonna tell us how fast the "Raptor" hard drives are now!
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I usually buy cheap and nasty Power supplies, so I like to see 450-500watt ratings on them. (I doubt they would provide 500 watts continuous power without some problems! Australian mains power (up to 250volts plus spikes) wreaks havoc on PSU's, and failure is fairly common. I never recommend 350 watts here, but a quality PSU with a continuos output of 350 watts should be ok for the average PC.
The wattage required depends on the total draw of your devices.
Basically, I trust a cheap 500 watter in the average system. I've had one single 500w PSU failure in a PC I built for a friend, the PSU was obviously a dud as it lasted only a couple months in a lightly loaded machine.
The reason I use cheap and over-rated PSU's is financial, with the quality PSU's costing ridiculous amounts of money here. Meanwhile, the high output "el cheapos" cost little or no more than a 350 watter and seem to hold up pretty well.
Basically, I'd rather put the savings into other system components in pursuit of performance. Likewise, I go for cheap cases, and again place the savings into better performing core components.
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