Build a PC for work and PVR

[latamesh]

My 3 years old PC is giving me the hiccups. I have a new HDD and I'm still running CHKDSK after every other bootup. So I'm gonna use my tax refund to buy a new PC.

I want to build it around the usual business stuff - Firefox, MS Office, DVD burner, Dreamweaver, etc. I don't play games though. So I don't need a powerfully fast PC.

I also want to get rid of cable tv so I want to add the top of the line Hauppauge card ( WinTV-HVR-2250 Dual Tuner PCI Express TV tuner) with a nice big HDD.

Backup is very important to me! I have a reputation of destroying HDD!
I want to be able to swap HDDs for backups. I used to have HDD dock or removable rack but never worked on this PC so I want it workable on the new PC. I have USB Removeable HDD but I'm tired of backing up files. I just want to clone the HDD to the removeable HDD and put that backup in the safe so should my PC ever go down, just swap the HDD and I'm back up and running. I use Carbonite for online backup and once the contact expires buh, bye Carbonite. Would be nice to use RAID but I think it's an overkill for what I need.

And the tower - Please recommend a brand for quiet fan. My PC is extremely noisy!

Mobo - tell me whats good. I can't remember what brand I'm using but this is one area I do not want to skimp. I've had a really bad experience with one mobo but I can't remember the brand name!

CPU - I prefer AMD. I don't need the latest or fastest. My current CPU is AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3000+

OS - Win XP, skipping Vista, may be Windows 7 ready.

RAM - No less than 1GB, expandable for Win7

HDD - no less than 200 GB for new PC as master and add 1 HDD for slave for infrequently used files.

Videocard - I use two monitors so that's a must. This old PC has Nvidia GeForce FX 5200. I've never had any problems so would like to continue to use Nvidia.

I can put it together or take it to the local PC shop and pay a fee for them to put it together for me. (Or better yet, compare the prices and see if they can do it all for me).

Thanks for advice.

[glc]

I won't try to give you advice on the AMD side of the house, but I'd like to address your backup concerns.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817362003

That is Apricorn's newest external housing. It's dual input - USB and eSATA. It comes with cloning and imaging software - an OEM version of Acronis True Image. Just add a SATA hard drive of your choice. If it's going to be used infrequently, you can get this dongle that comes with the same software:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812161002

Note that this is USB only.

With today's ram prices, get 4gb. Also, with today's hard drive prices, get one large drive and partition it. With a backup system, 2 separate internal drives are a waste. Note that SATA does not have "master" and "slave".

It may be larger than you want or need, but I've built with the Coolermaster RC690 case. It's roomy, quiet, very well ventilated, and very high quality. I also like it because it looks classy, not like something out of Star Wars.

[latamesh]

I just remembered that I have two forms of USB Drives for backups
1) Fantom Drives (120 GB drive built in)
2 ) ADS Tech USB 2.0 Simple Touch HD Kit

I've just started using Macrium Reflect for backup. I had frustration with Acronis and Paragon.

If I have a big HDD with 2 partions and if one partition goes crap then wouldn't the entire HDD be crapped just as well?

[glc]

Not necessarily. It depends what kind of failure it is - software or mechanical. If you have backups, it really wouldn't matter anyway.