Recommendations for hard drive and operating system

[bigTillyMint]

Our PC has finally succumbed to a virus (after 9+ years!) and we need to get a new hard drive. naturally DH is not making much headway with this

Any recommendations - it's a home PC, just used for internet surfing and a bit of home admin really.

Also which Windows OS would you recommend - I have heard about problems with windows vista?

TIA

I'd go for XP myself. I find it very stable and reliable.

Maybe I am biased because I'm so used to it and just don't want to change, but I've heard enough complaints about Vista. I expect you can get a bargain with XP anyway as Vista requires the most recent hardware.

Great, thanks!

XP works with itunes, doesn't it?

Oh yes XP will work with Itunes.

Can't really recommend a place to buy the PC because I assemble my own using some of the parts from the oldest PC. Really any PC with XP on it will be good enough for surfing/admin. It only gets tricky if you want to place the very latest games or convert movies etc.

You should look for one with 1gb of ram (vista requires more) and a hard drive at least 80gb but 160gb is better (they fill up faster these days)

Ooh thanks! you build your own

A virus shouldn't require a new hard drive. Are you getting a whole new machine?

Probably after 9+ years you do need a new PC anyway as it will just not have the processor capacity to handle complex graphics and other media very well.

Windows XP is fine and stable.

Yes BetaDad - that's what the guy who came round to fix the PC said about the hard drive. It would cost as much to mend it and put a new OS on as to buy a new one really!