Small change of Windows XP driver from IDE to AHCI made friend’s workstation blazingly fast and quiet, though it required some registry-level tweaking. Excellent description was provided by xisio, he posted it all right here. Not clear why Intel and Microsoft haven’t provided it all straight and clear.

Now as this summer is going to be quite hot, more disks will fail due to overheating problem – note +43 degrees Centigrade on the screenshot below?  Summer fall is on it’s way.  (Λ)