X21: WIN2000 preloaded VS XP SP3;best choice?

[OMNIBUS]

hallo,
i have to reinstall my os after 2 years of using on my tp x21 but i think to upgrade to win xp sp3 ; is it the best solution or i will have issues about speed and perfomance of pc?
in any case i would keep my preload hidden partition with original win 2000 that i think is done with " rapid restore" (f11 option appear before booting) how can i do it if i'll install win xp? how i have to install it? some suggest?
i saw that rapid restore is no longer avaible on ibm/lenovo site ..so where can i download it?
if i would upgrade to a larger hd how can clone the hidden partition with the preload win 2000 and the recovery f11 option to a new larger hd?(i dont care of currently data i backuped them but only to keep the recovery option of f11)
can i do a recovery cd in some way? how?
all helps will be appreciated
angelo

tp 390E, 390X, A31, R50, X21, X30, T20, T21, T22, T23

[NorrisCell]

It ultimately depends on your hardware, but if it were me, 640 MB of RAM wouldn't be enough to properly run XP. Win 2K would run much smoother with the X21 hardware.

[DrThinkpad]

My cousin's T23 has 512mb and runs XP very smoothly. Amazing how these little machines can still be pretty sharp after all those years. I'd take XP Pro SP3 if I were you .

[OMNIBUS]

thankyou for your help..but what about the other question i did? can somebody help me?

[Raceboy]

X21 has maximum of 320MB memory if low-density 256mb stick is installed and with this XP runs ok. I used XP SP3 on my X20 (PIII 600/320/5400rpm HDD) and it was very smooth.
Of course, I turned off alll unnecessary startup crap that wants to appear on tray.

[Maccess]

I have two X22s that I use as netbooks. One has Windows Xp, the other has Windows 2000. The W2K one runs much smoother and quicker. Its boots faster, gets out of sleep faster. It's a challenge finding all the updated drivers. The ATI driver was a tough one: The lastest ATI driver version I found that worked on W2K was the Omega Driver with 7.1.2.