Increase SATA Disk Drive Performance

You can squeeze a more performance out of your SATA hard disk drive
by enabling write caching.
The price though, is an increased risk for data loss/corruption should
you experienced a power loss - this risk is less in a laptop because
of its battery:
1. Click on the Start Button, enter Device Manager and hit Enter.
2. Expand Disk Drives.
3. Right-click on your hard disk drive and select Properties.
4. On the Policies tab, check Enable Advanced Performance.
5. Click OK and close Device Manager.

Source: www.vistaultimate.com