OS and Hard drive set up? best way?

Mercury_Tilt · 21-06-2004 5:51pm #1

This post has been deleted.

KdjaCL · 21-06-2004 5:54pm

Use your fastest/newest drive for the OS, it doenst really matter which way round they are once you have the fast one as the OS means windows will run faster.

You could use the small one as OS with some program files then install everything big like games onto the large one.

Kdjac

joePC · 21-06-2004 6:18pm

If you have one drive & want to keep them separate make 2 partitions, one just big enough to how OS and another for everything else. Pointless really.

As for two drives, Yes fastest one for OS & Progs, slower one for files / backups etc...

Thanks JoePC

stuey · 21-06-2004 6:20pm

you will also get a nice preformance boost if you move your system pagefile to a drive which is not ur system drive.

hostyle · 21-06-2004 7:15pm

Originally posted by joePC
If you have one drive & want to keep them separate make 2 partitions, one just big enough to how OS and another for everything else. Pointless really.

Why is it pointless? I've seen loads of people on boards crying about how they lost all their data when their OS went down the toilet and all their data was on the same partition. Its a much better didea to have more than one partition / drive and keep your OS and data seperate.

joePC · 21-06-2004 7:22pm

Recovery data from a drive where the OS went down is very easy & fast even if the OS was on a different partition you would still have to recover the data in the same way. The only problem would be if the user was always signed on as administrator, this would cause problems recovery the data, still there is a easy work around.

I understand your point & think it would be better for the drive to be partitioned, Note: Installing programs the default will always be the C: drive so you would have to change the path.

Thanks JoePC

Mutant_Fruit · 21-06-2004 8:08pm

I understand your point & think it would be better for the drive to be partitioned, Note: Installing programs the default will always be the C: drive so you would have to change the path.

That can easily be changed if you so wish...

And seperate partitions are always better, as it allows you to format c: to blank the old windows partiton, and still keep all the important data nice and safe in the other partition.

KdjaCL · 21-06-2004 8:11pm

Thats only true for readable files ,installed programs will still need to be reinstalled as their registry settings will be gone.

Needed stuff on 2nd drive and 1st (cant be too safe if its needed) OS and main program files on main fataest OS.

Imo thats the best way to go.

kdjac

delly · 21-06-2004 8:13pm

We all know that NTFS is meant to be better than FAT32, but for some reason I've stayed with FAT32 when zapping my hard disk. Somewhere in my head I think its easier to recover data from.

Explosive_Cornflake · 21-06-2004 10:14pm

Your big problem(well one of them) is that FAT32 has a file size limit of 4gb. It can cause a problem sometimes when using DVD images.

delly · 22-06-2004 8:38am

Well I hate to break the myth, but my hard disk is FAT32 and is a 20GB partition

sceptre · 22-06-2004 9:23am

Originally posted by delly
Well I hate to break the myth, but my hard disk is FAT32 and is a 20GB partition

I'm sure you loved breaking the myth:). You haven't broken the myth because it isn't a myth. It's a file size limit of 4GB, not a partition size limit of 4 GB.

Mutant_Fruit · 22-06-2004 9:28am

Go with NTFS, if anything it is easier to recover data from. Apart from the fact you can have longer path lengths allowed, and larger file sizes allowed, data is also safer on NTFS as you can encrypt if if you need it also has built in data protection (so i hear), but i'm not sure how good that is. But apparently NTFS is safer for haveing data on, and as i said, easier to recover data from.

delly · 22-06-2004 9:30am

Well I'll just eat up all that egg then, thats currently making its way down my face.

Actually, that may cause problems in the future then, DVD related.

whosurpaddy · 22-06-2004 11:31am

Originally posted by delly
Well I hate to break the myth, but my hard disk is FAT32 and is a 20GB partition

limit with fat32 is 32gbs if im not mistaken, hence fat32

Scruff · 22-06-2004 12:59pm

Originally posted by whosurpaddy
limit with fat32 is 32gbs if im not mistaken, hence fat32

nope its 4 GB minus 1 byte (2^32 bytes minus 1 byte)
the 32 is the number of bits

Scruff · 22-06-2004 1:02pm

i'm gettting a new hd and want to put 2 ntfs partitions (main o\s and programs) and a 3rd partition of FAT32 for Windows98SE install (for all meh old games).
any problem with that config or does the entire HD have to be formatted in the one type?

Explosive_Cornflake · 22-06-2004 5:04pm

No, no problems, you can partition a Hard Disk how you like, you just format that partition to a particular file system, thats how you get linux and windows on the one disk.

Mutant_Fruit · 22-06-2004 7:48pm

i had an 80gb harddrive formatted in fat32 .

The thoeretical limit of FAT32 partitions is actually 2TB, and in winXP/2000 you can mess with settings to make FAT32 partitions up to 8TB in size, but this isn't really recommended.

WInXP will only format fat32 partitions to a max of 32gb, but win 9x will format as large as you want to go. Microsoft do recommend NTFS for large drives, as space wastage in FAT32 jumps HUGELY once your partition gets over 32gb.

stuey · 22-06-2004 8:53pm

You should just go ntfs. Its the the most straight forward way. The only reason why shouldn't is if your dual booting with 98 or me. I know you can force ntfs drivers into 98 and me but there not that great.

If a Fat32 partition goes a bit wonky you pretty much screwed Becuase the system relies on 1 File Allocation Table (FAT) which is basically and index of all thats on your hard drive. NTFS doesnlt rely on 1 allocation tables. So its not going back to the same allocation all the time. This means its faster. And if it does go wonky it can fix itself. Fat32 just aint up to it

hostyle · 22-06-2004 10:00pm

Originally posted by stuey
If a Fat32 partition goes a bit wonky you pretty much screwed Becuase the system relies on 1 File Allocation Table (FAT) which is basically and index of all thats on your hard drive. NTFS doesnlt rely on 1 allocation tables. So its not going back to the same allocation all the time. This means its faster. And if it does go wonky it can fix itself. Fat32 just aint up to it

Linkage please. I've had NTFS go tits up more often than FAT32, but that could be just me

Mutant_Fruit · 22-06-2004 10:30pm

http://www.ntfs.com/data-integrity.htm

http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_basics.htm

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/ntfs/index3.html

http://www.qvctc.commnet.edu/classes/csc277/ntfs.html

http://www.thundercloud.net/information-avenue/ntfs-vs-fat32/

hostyle · 23-06-2004 8:50am

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
http://www.ntfs.com/data-integrity.htm

http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_basics.htm

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/ntfs/index3.html

http://www.qvctc.commnet.edu/classes/csc277/ntfs.html

http://www.thundercloud.net/information-avenue/ntfs-vs-fat32/

Thanks. First two links are MS propaganda though

I'll go read them in full later.

stuey · 23-06-2004 12:29pm

The info I gave you is all just from personal experience from workin in IT support

knucks · 26-06-2004 7:58am

I've had an NTFS drive give up on me..... OS gone..... all progs gone.... but when I mounted it as a slave drive on another system, the entire Documents and Settings folder was visible, with all users docs etc......

Needless to say, I was pleasently surprised, and have never looked back to FAT32....

k

OS and Hard drive set up? best way?

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