Even though the ice level looks static, there may be more intensive shader effects being applied to give the environment its appearance.

As for the disc clicking - do you have another system/drive to spin it up in to see if the drive is a problem?

You can install your old hard drive in the system and copy your data off of there, but you cannot use the existing Windows XP install from your old system to dual-boot. Windows XP will not boot properly under the entirely new set of hardware in your new computer. To do a dual-boot, you will have to format the old drive, install Windows XP from scratch and reinstall all the drivers, games, and programs you wish to run on it.