PC Angel & HDD InstallationQuestions

Alright guys, ready for this one?

Emachines T4010 (XP Home); Specs

Now ever since I got this bad boy out of the box, it was extremely slow (i.e. start-up, shut down, and program loading times). Much slower than my other emachine with simliar specs. After over a year of putting up with the slowness (I didn't use it too much, and it never bothered me too much), I ran HD Tach, only to discover my burst speed was 3.5 MB/s,with 100% CPU utilization. Interesting.

So here's my plan. Get a new, bigger HDD, copy the image of the old HDD onto the new one, reinstall the new HDD as the master, reassign it as C:/ then use the old HDD as extra storage. (slow, BUT still operational) and keep on chooglin, right?

So I bought a new, unopened WD 160GB HDD from homeboy ($20). Did a quick install, (running with the same ribbon as the old HDD) used the Data LifeGuard tools from WD, to copy from Old C:\ to New L:\ after format and partition. Next, I ran HD Tach on the newly installed HDD. Results: Burst Speed 90.5 MB/s with 4.5% CPU utilization. Acceptable. Everything's going great!

Now for the problemo. Still running off the C:\ OS, I try to open L:\ from the My Computer screen, and I get an Internet Explorer Window:


Recovery Partition Warning! This area of your hard disk (or partition) contains files used for your system recovery. Do not delete or alter these files. Any change to this partition could prevent any recovery later.

Protected By PC Angel


I can still access the drive by *right click -> Explore. But thats not the point. I'm just a little smurfed at GD PC Angel for not letting my look inside MY storage device. I visited their website (useless). I tried calling their tech support. Their tech support was some dude's VM "please leave your name, number and blah blah".

What if I wanted to use the HDD as extra storage? or Dual Boot? PC Angel says I can't even look at it.

Ok, F*ck you, PC Angel.

PC Angel

All I want to do is insure that I won't have this problem with PC Angel when this HDD becomes my Master C:\. How do I uninstall or remove or disable PC Angel little pop-up on my new HDD? I would actually prefer to PERMANENTLY UNINSTALL it, since I never have use for the recovery partitions, when I back up my data, and keep my re-install cd's frosty.

Any thoughts on my methodology? Is this an acceptable method of replacing the original HDD? Why would emachines sell me a HDD that was so slow, yet still operational? And yes, I know I should have used my warranty period.

Thanks in advance Major Geeks.