Just installed my 7200RPM Drive - the Good and the Bad

[iamdmc]

Is this ever sweet...

I just installed my new 7200RPM Seagate hard drive in my X61s, and after a grueling 2 hours of Lenovo System recovery, it finally booted up to Vista Ultimate. The boot time from the Lenovo screen to the first image of the desktop was 36 seconds! The time it took to get everything loaded (including the power manager on the taskbar, which is usually the last thing to load) was just under one minute.

THEN, I installed everything - programs, windows updates, Vista SPI RC, etc. After the Vista updates (but before SPI was installed) the system slowed down. It takes about 1 minute to get to the desktop now and about 2-2.5 to get to the point where the battery is loaded. Any ideas on how to improve this number?

On the bright side, there is a very noticable difference in performance. It is also much quieter than my old Hitachi 5400RPM drive, which I actually sold this morning. Total upgrade fee: $60. Furthermore, after uninstalling the bloatware, the system works very well.

I HAVE A CONCERN, though:
The power manager will not give me details on the battery, or "system information" like it did with my old setup. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this? It's updated to the newest version through Lenovo System Update.

Conclusion: Worth the trouble and the cost. I'd never go back to 5400RPM. Now onward to SSD (that is, fast SSD)

[carbon_unit]

When you opened the Power Manager and clicked the Battery Information tab did you click the little arrow next to battery details? It expands the detail view.

[iamdmc]

Reinstalled the power manager and now it seems to work.

[dfumento]

There are various program which will show you which programs are started at startup and let you de-select them. This sort of program will help with reducing startup times.
I use Windows Live OneCare for virus/spyware/firewall, etc. and it has a feature that shows these startup programs. I disabled most of them and I have a very fast boot time.

[iamdmc]

Wouldn't "msconfig" or disabling some startup programs using Windows Defender do the same thing as "windows live onecare"? I wouldn't really trust a windows program for antivirus/spyware . I tried msconfig, but I think I'm disabling the wrong programs, and Firefox no longer works, or Aero gets disabled...

I'm wondering if my antivirus is slowing down my laptop (or at least startup). I'm using AVG Free.