Increase Hard Disk Speed in Windows XP/2003

Last Update: Sep 17, 2024 | Published: Jan 07, 2009

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How can I increase my hard disk speed in Windows XP/2003?

To speed up your hard disk speed we need to configure a special buffer in the computer’s memory in order to enable it to better deal with interrupts made from the disk.

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This tip is only recommended if you have 256MB RAM or higher.

Follow these steps:

  1. Run SYSEDIT.EXE from the Run command.

  2. Expand the system.ini file window.

  3. Scroll down almost to the end of the file till you find a line called [386enh].

  4. Press Enter to make one blank line, and in that line type

Irq14=4096

speed hd1 small

Note: This line IS CASE SENSITIVE!!!

  1. Click on the File menu, then choose Save.

  2. Close SYSEDIT and reboot your computer.

Done. Speed improvement will be noticed after the computer reboots.

Update: The most speed improvement is visible with IDE drives, however there are reports that this tweak also does good for SCSI disks. In any case, it won’t harm your system, so why not try it yourself and let me know what you find.

I also recommend reading the Increase Broadband Connection Speed in Windows XP/2003 tip for more speed tweaking.

Links

Hard Disk Cachelink out ico

The Geek Guide : Creating a Windows 95/98 Speed Demonlink out ico

More Windows Speed Trickslink out ico

Tip derived from: www.microsoft.com/israel/windowsxp/expertzonelink out ico

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