NTFSis more secure. We lost password once in a crash. It would not accept the password. A tech came in and recovered it and claimed that if we had NTFS, it would not have been possible to have done so.
So, a clever computer tech can get into a FAT 32 system.
An even smarter one can get into NTFS, I just spent Monday recovering an NT system and I’ll be recovering data from an NT HD that "a clever computer tech" said was toast.
If you don’t know NTFS then it seems "voodoo", but there are ways to use NTFS and still see it with a WIN98 startup disk.
Obviously what you don’t know can hurt you.
Stuart is right, the recovery console is much better and an ERD is virtually useless.
Useless? Worse than that. When things started crashing around my ears a few weeks ago, I tried the ERD. The OS wouldn’t even recognize it, even though it was only weeks old.
Clever comes in many flavors. If I had the backround, I would have immediately taken up the challenge.
The recovery console is rather involved. I have the W2K Resource Kit, and have used it to study the console. If I don’t use it often, I won’t remember the procedure when I need it. It’s only lately that I am at all comfortable with editing the Registry. So far, I haven’t had to restore. (No, I didn’t do a registry edit before the BDOD’s that ran rampant a few weeks back)
Well let me give a bit of math here. A .5 b/s versus a 4K b/s, there are essentially 8 times as many sectors in the hard drive partition. While it makes the most effective use of hard drive space, the problem is that the Master File Table as to have control over 8 times as much sector information and will slow disk access down.
The smaller sectors are more easily fragmented and will slow down disk access very quickly and will take longer to defragment. Also with the larger b/s, smaller files actually totally reside in the MFT rather than containing a ‘pointer’ to the sector where the information would normally reside outside the MFT.
A disk utility that can defrag your MFT is very important, this can only be done outside the OS during a reboot. A full version of Diskeeper can do this, but other than this point DK is no better at general defragging than any other utitilty. Their claims of 70% improvement in disk i/o are completely unfounded and outrageous. I proved this to be so and forwarded this information to their company. They essentially could provide a .01% increase over the defrag utility I use and if I defragged with my utitily over top of a DK defrag, there was a 2.1% increase.
With a 4K b/s, I only defrag my system every two months or so and even then, there is hardly any fragmentation. I use the machine seven days a week (the lot of the self-employed) as a graphics designer and anywhere from 6-14 hours a day. Occassionally I turn it off and get a life.
Dave: True, but with larger disks and where "smaller files actually totally reside in the MFT" which is a rather large, reserved space at the beginning of the partition (although they are known to ‘float’ on some systems), not the most important trade-off.
I guess what Scott meant to do is to emphasize NTFS over FAT. I just didn’t see his one word statement as such at 10:30 PM!
I understand the math, and went through that when first installing W2K several years ago. Now, so far as defrag, I do it every weekend. I use the utility that comes with the os. Most of the time, it tells me I don’t need to defrag, but I do so anyway. Once in a while it actually recommends defragging, especially if I have been moving files around.
I don’t understand defragging outside the OS. I did a trial of another defrag utility and it also worked inside the os. Are you speaking of defragging the OS and program files themselves? That I can see would have to be done outside the os. Disk cleanup wants to run some of it’s functions before reboot also.
Neither of the defrag utilities wanted to touch the os. I often wondered about that. Some of those files (shown in green) do float.
Have you ever noticed files tagged "unmoveable"? Well they are currently in use by the OS and may not be in the prime location. Boot-time defrag allows you to do this, you can also defrag directories and the MFT.
As far as defragging once a week, well maybe for a data server, but it really is a waste of time for a workstation, but that’s your choice. I do a new 4-colour magazine every week with lot’s of new images and ads, I still rarely see more than a 1% fragmentation every two months.
at least you haven’t lost all sense of reason since you got your fancy-shmancy new super-computer.
which btw, xp forced me to format the serial ata drive as ntfs! It wouldn’t take a FAT32 system.
another thing to keep in mind about xp (not sure about 2k) defragging is that it optimises most often used prorams and all their related files contiguously and towards the start of the partition so they start faster!
I have the partition that Photoshop uses for scratch formatted as FAT32, and the rest of the partitions/drives as NTFS. My reasoning is that smaller cluster sizes would not increase efficiency on a drive dedicated to the huge files Photoshop generates for scratch. Running Win2K. Never any need to defrag the partition used as scratch, since no data resides there once Photoshop is shut down.
Right. If there is data on that drive when not in PS, something didn’t get deleted. That has happened to me.
While I see your point about the differences in size, why Fat 32 over NTFS? What is the advantage? Can you see a speed difference? Does there occur any problems reading files in a different format?
What I really got out od the article is the need to defrag the MFT. Until now, I didn’t know it exists. Amazing that the defrag utility shipped with the os does not defrag a key part of the system.
Do you use the third party defrag, and which do you prefer?
I still don’t get why the scratch disk is formatted FAT 32, except if it is over 2GB and you partition at installation, Windows automatically sets the file as FAT32.
I don’t use FAT32 at all anymore – NTFS has better sector sizes and is more recoverable (mor redundancy in some of the data structures).
Note that as of Windows XP, the built-in defrag utility can be called from the command line, meaning for those who are so inclined that an automatic schedule can be created.
However, doing so means you should keep a better eye on the stability of the drive structures. While I’ve never had a problem with Windows XP, I still keep a pretty good eye on things, with a chkdsk at least once every couple of weeks. If things, for whatever reason, did start to go south in the disk file structures, defragging would be a sure way of making things worse a whole lot faster.
Lawrence: I use WIN2K, all service packs, I have four drives with separate partitions for OS, Sysfile, App Temp, Client Files, Type 1 Fonts (this is probably the best speedup you can do for a system, put all your fonts on a separate partiton, I currently have 4,000 fonts installed and almost 3,000 active), downloads and CD burning. I think that keeping the animals apart is the best approach to not fragging a drive partitions.
If things, for whatever reason, did start to go south in the disk file structures, defragging would be a sure way of making things worse a whole lot faster.
defrag in xp (even 98se and ME IIRC) performs a chkdsk (scandisk in 9x, of course.) before proceeding, stops if it finds errors, and recommends you do a standalone chkdsk with the fix options set.
2000 pro is the way to go. Very stable and not to new. XP is just to new and full of bugs still. Give it a year or two untill you convert to XP I know I will.
NTFS is also the way to go. Very easy to use the recovery console it pretty much does everythign it self any way.
Create a separate font partition, defrag once and it will never frag again, unless you add more fonts, but even then it is highly unlikely or hardly noticeable. You can use ATM to start and stop fonts all you want without fragmenting the fonts in the partition.
My startup for Photoshop is about 8 seconds, InDesign is about 12 seconds and that is with all those fonts loading. The other great thing is you know that it is very unlikely you will have a font get corrupted under these conditions.
I get ads from every source you can imagine and it is too time-consuming to load and unload fonts. ATM is a sucky little app, you’d think that Adobe would put a little more effort into it.
DV8R, that’s interesting! I also run 2K and have been puzzled by the spate of XP probs. Perhaps it is because of the possibility that far more users are running XP, and is only a statistical anomaly, but at the same time, it seems that the occasional 2K problem is of a different nature than the XP.
I had a serious crashing problem on my sys, but it was traceable to dirty contacts on the ram ships, particularly. And all that was before installing CS. A new HD to boost the storage, fresh install of 2K and CS seems quite happy.
While on the subject, I am considering re installing PS 6 and using that for images that simply do not need the power of CS. Everything runs faster on 6, and even importing and global corrections only in 16 bit is faster.
Finally, the final step in Save in CS takes forever with 16 bit files with layers. Minutes even.
I would like some feedback from Chris and/or dave on this. Dave, you have the Intel board and chipset. Is it paying off in processing speed? What is the size of your RAM?
My XP systems are all rock solid. I see no advantage to running 2K over XP anymore. I do recommend using the classic mode in XP as I find the default interface to be a useless resource hog. I feel bad for the people that know so little about keeping things organized that they actually like having XP show them their most recently run applications. I also recommend disabling the fade and menu shadows, they serve no real purpose.
I see so many computers where people run themes, modified cursors, visual and sound effects, screensavers, all downloaded from companies that install spyware. And they wonder why their system is unstable. On top of it all they install every system cleanup utility, antivirus and software firewall known to man not realizing how much worse they are making things.
"I see so many computers where people run themes, I see so many computers where people run themes, …"
I agree heartily with this, P.H.
It is incumbent upon us to learn to manage our sytems for efficient, trouble-free service.
I have little pity for anyone who installs crap like you’ve described, then bawls like a baby when they can’t keep their core functions and key applications running smoothly. I came out of nowhere, late to the game of computers in general, and DTP specifically, with NO formal training, and I immersed myself in learning how to keep my system well-tuned. If I can do it, just about anyone should be able to.
While I can’t precisely back it up with facts and figures, one reason I chose FAT32 for the scratch volume was precisely BECAUSE it seemed to have less going on in the file management department than NTFS. Less overhead = faster read/write, was my thinking. I don’t care about security, encryption, indexing, or recovery when it comes to the Photoshop scratch file. I care about read/write speed. Others may disagree, but it seemed intuitive to me.
2000 pGro is the way to go. Very stable and not to new. XP is just to new and full of bugs still.
Get outta town! XP was realeased in 2001. Too new?!! It’s almost about to release sp2!
( G ) ive it a year or two untill you convert to XP I know I will.
In a year or 2 it’s almost 2006. Just in time for MS Longhorn. XP’s replacement! Do you still use an abacus too? There’s this new thing out called a "calc-u-lator". Does math and stuff wicked fast. Still a little buggy though. Better wait.
Get XP. 2k is a pig and a dying OS. All futute brances will come from the XP builds!
(This post was a fecitious attempt to get you to go to XP over 2k. No farm animals were mutilated or tortured during this post. Just kidding – but not about the farm animals. Do not remove tag under penelty of law. Shake well before using. Your milage may vary. Void in Oregon. Blah. Blah. Blah. Don’t sue me!)
Right, dave! But,void before you get to Oregon. Can’t have any NJ stuff around. 😉
PH and Phos, I am in agreement here. When I saw how casually one can get into trouble with MS operating systems (I’ve worked with everything from 3.1 to W2K) I decided that I had to be in control, because MS certainly doesn’t care much.
I don’t use XP simply because I don’t see the value. 180 bucks for an upgrade isn’t on my horizon.
To be fair to those who don’t take the time we do, it must be said that the expectation is for things to run if they are designed for each other. I know, I know, plenty of examples in other areas where this is just not true. But, in most cases, if something doesn’t work right, you remove it, return it and that’s that. Don’t like the DVD player? Return it. Your TV is non the worse for it.
The trail left by software vendors upon uninstall is obscene, in my view. It took me a while to catch on. Let’s face it. Registry and dlls are way beyond the average user, even PS and other Adobe products users. Why on earth would they suspect such an outcome to the future stability of their computer as a result of the garbage left behind? It’s like the streets of the middle ages, open sewers. At least there you could see the sh*t!
Gad! I’m talking myself into a Mac!
$1300 to $1500 just for the parts to build a PC the way I like. The G5 starts at what? $1800, I believe. Of course, there is all the software to replace.
Phos, With Longhorn, MS will really have us by the short hairs! 😉
Different kind of computer with different kinds of problems. Not only will it have just as many problems they will be new problems. The learning curve won’t be as steep but there Will still be one.
Don’t give in to the dark side Lu… err Lawrence. 🙂
Phosphor,
Then all we would do is complain about how much slower it is than what we have. That is what is great about trade shows you can test things on top of the line computers from all the major manufacturers. Software vendors have PC’s and Mac’s side by side in their booth.
True. As much as I hate OSX, it is exactly what most home users want to see. I mean we are talking about people that actually like the new XP interface.
Of course it wouldn’t take long for the antitrust suites when Apple started showing that OSX runs faster on Mac’s than PC’s. Get PC users interested in the operating system and software then it is that much easier to get them to switch hardware.
I just hate seeing the direction OS’s are going. There is a fine line between user friendly and bloated clutter.
I agree, PH. It’s just that, by the time I spec out a really fast PC, I’m within a few hundreds of the G5, sitting on 64 bit architecture. That’s food for thought.
Believe me, if we are only talking G4, no problem. Stay PC.
I’m not afraid of the learning curve. I don’t like it, but, as a semi-retired EE, I have had this problem forever.
I learned my trade on vacuum tubes. You cannot imagine the frustration having to deal with PNP transistors. They defied all protocols for circuit design.
Back all those years ago, when I was taking electronic engineering courses, my goal was to learn all I could about vacuum tube circuitry because I wanted to build the BEST all-tube guitar amps on the planet.
Imagine my dismay when, upon polling the instructors, the consensus was that tubes were squeezing out their last electrons, and would soon be fully replaced by all solid state signal emulation. The coursework only very lightly touched upon tubes. I bailed on that line of schooling.
Nowadays, there’s some great digital emulation circuitry, but I still can’t find that warm sweet sound that’s available from tubes. Tube circuits—as unpredictable as they can be—still rule the sonic roost when it comes to guitar amps.
I did tube design professionally, up to about 1960,63. I built high powered pulse generators for deflecting 4 MEV proton beams (yes protons) at Argonne National Labs. That was quite the chore! The Van de Graff was one hell of a crt! No, not crt, art. Well, not that either. 😉
Of course, I also built some pretty nice tube amps for audio, especially preamps. The favorite preamp with afficianados was the Heathkit (unless you could afford MacIntosh (Jeeze! Mac again!)). So I set out to better the Heath, and had a very spare design, using two tubes only.
Sigh!!
I don’t think heavy metal would be as edgy with tubes, however.(?) That is a transistor sound.
So, what did you do when you bailed out? Transistors wouldn’t go away.
I just noticed my misspelling of your name. Hey, add a number and we could know your mood pHos 7 and all is well. pHos 1 or 11 and watch out. 🙂
That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the capital H.
Catch me on a rare night (like once in 20 years) when I get a mean drunk going and I go all the way to 14.
What did I do when I bailed on school?
Started playing music professionally through tube amps rather than scraping my brain trying to figure out how to build them. Eminently more satisfying for my mindset.
But there will always be a huge part of my soul that lives for the sciences.
Remember the old Ultra-linear" where you connected the screen grid on the pentode output tubes to a tap on the output transformer?
Really, isn’t it more pleasant today to just recover the playing action electronically, digital process it to what ever you wish and then amplify it? A lot more flexible but perhaps not as "old fashion".
Funny, how tubes are supposed to be the best sound, when in fact, tubes are rife with non-linearities. I mentioned the 6DJ8 earlier, and I likes it because it is so linear. Consequently, circuits using this tube sound more "Transistory".
I am not going to argue the sound quality of the tube. It has remarkable musical qualities, primarily because it is easy to suppress the 7th harmonic, which is inharmonic so far as the tempered scale is concerned. That is why so many people do not like organ music, especially loud reeds. The same is true of heavy metal. Lots of seventh harmonics. Contemporary pianos sound so sweet because judicious placing of the hammer on the string also suppresses the seventh. Transistor amps also have that problem, but very careful design, like Class A stages driving current sources in output stages, allow better control of the phenomenon.
Scroll down to Executing Existing Software and read from there (the first bit, funny — and true — as it may be, is more about John Dvorak than Apple or OS X).
What’s to hate about it?!! It’s Unix with a stable GUI. Sounds like geek heaven to me!
It *is* heaven… even with the inevitable growing pains of a developing OS it’s still easily the nicest, most intuitive OS I’ve ever used (and I’ve pused many, from DOS to all flavors of Windows, Linux, BeOS, MacOS from System 7 to OS X). And it’s only going to get better from here…
If he decided he liked it enough to explore it at greater speed, he’d then be better informed in making a larger investment to get the speed he’s used to.
No way will I slow down, Phos. CS already slowed me down. If I invest in Mac, it’s all the way. Yep, a learning curve, but it can’t be as bad as jumping back in the industry full time after a 20 year hiatus, complete with having to come up to speed on OS’s, schematic capture, board layout, OSA’s, Labview (on Windows 3.1, no less!) and Fabry-Perot laser characterization, all in one huge package.
What it has I don’t need or want. I just don’t like the direction OS’s are going and Apple is going that direction a lot faster. Don’t get me wrong Xp has annoyances as well. I really miss find having it’s own interface (F3 -> Type criteria -> hit enter). Fortunately I was able to find 3rd party software that works in the same way.
OS’s are moving towards a giant visual click through wizard that works great for people that don’t understand computers and don’t want to. For those of us that work faster and more efficiently through skilled use of the keyboard find the constant need for a mouse to be a huge inconvenience.
I am a purist. As someone that works on multiple computers I even see the programmable shortcuts in Photoshop as a possible problem. When we learned shortcuts they were set in stone, you learned them and they stuck. You could share them with others without wondering if they would work. Now it will add another degree of confusion for new users.
Imagine a car where you could program the gas and brake petals to be reversed… Just because you couldn’t learn to use something the way it was intended to be used doesn’t always mean you should be able to change it.
You can just be a lot more flexible and navigate a system better if you know how to do it the right way. Some people will use tweakUI, I choose to make the changes directly to the registry. I import one .reg file I created and my system is configured the way I want it.
OSX looks pretty and is very appealing to the novis user. I just don’t like it.
If you like it you should use it, It just isn’t for me.
Am I the only one who actually enjoys the effort it takes to climb the steep part of the learning parabola?
Yes 🙂
Just kidding. Don’t worry you are not alone, we all enjoy the challenges of asking ourselves if there is a better way. If we didn’t most of us wouldn’t see the same familiar names in the forum every day. Anyone can tell someone how to add transparency to a flat file. But we all go out of our way to find answers for the unanswered questions.
Learning a new OS is easy. It is the eventual quest for the best way of doing everything on the new OS that leads to our downfall. We can’t just use a computer we must understand every aspect of how it works. That takes time, time we all know we should be using to actually accomplish something that will bring in the next paycheck 🙂
While people who have XP slag WIN2K, the truth is that girl’s got a marvelous skirt and I can look at the legs whenever I want. It is a good, stable working OS. I’m not having one problem with it. Think I’ll stay with her a while longer, the love affair is not over….
PH has the perspective. Learning the os is easy. Understanding the beast does take time, and most of that time is spent in discovering what you don’t know you don’t know.
I do it out of habit. When I say I don’t like it, what I don’t like is exactly what PH says, taking time away from why we have the damn thing in the first place. Discovering what to do with an image is a great adventure. Discovering what I need to know just to keep the box stable is a drag. But I do it anyway, and look for escape routes as I search out the bugs.
I try to walk the line between knowing everything and knowing nothing about the OS. Most of the time, I fall off on the knowing more side.
I wanna be like Picard. "Make it so". Notice he never messes with his computer.
See ya all in the 25th Century, I hope! (I ain’t leaving yet, so don’t get your hopes up. ;-))
There is nothing wrong with 2K. I still have 2K on one of my systems because that is what it came with. Why waste money upgrading a perfectly good OS, especially when I keep my XP systems set to classic mode anyway. As I have said before XP is better than 2K, but are there enough improvements for me to spend the extra cash to upgrade my older system? No, not at this time.
As I said before… My only recommendation is that if you are buying a new computer and have the choice between XP and 2K you should get XP.
PH: Don’t think that option is available, only XP on new machines. I got a machine with XP, it is a lot crankier than my WIN2K machine and I have done all the necessary ‘touch-ups’, still don’t like it.
How so? Configured properly XP is virtually identical to 2K. Maybe I am forgetting something but I use both XP and 2K everyday and nothing comes to mind right away.
I have done all the necessary ‘touch-ups’
Clean install Set the Appearance, Start menu, Explorer and control panel to classic mode Disable windows update messages Turn off fade and menu shadows
still don’t like it.
I couldn’t stand it when it first came out but once I used it and realized you could set everything to classic mode it performed as well as 2K while adding additional features at the same time.
OS’s are moving towards a giant visual click through wizard that works great for people that don’t understand computers and don’t want to.
OSX looks pretty and is very appealing to the novis user. I just don’t like it.
IMO this is where OS X really shines, though… you get the very pretty and very easy-to-use Aqua interface, with all the raw power of UNIX under the hood for those who want/need it to access it directly.
It’s somewhat erotic. Distracting, to say the least!
It’s called the Dock! It can be set to work like your windows task bar (e.g. disappear when not covered by the mouse). What you see means that some AH has magnify enabled. The bigger the icons grow to the higher they’ve set magnify. The Dock is BETTER than the Windows version.
You know what I hate about the OSX screen? The way that the icons at the bottom of the screen arches up as you move through the collection.
This is a user preference, not the only behavior. You can set the dock to be as small as you like, turn off the magnification, or hide the dock entirely.
No need to shout, Ian. My hearing is still pretty good! 😉 The behavior answers the question "What’s updock?" 🙂
I’m glad it can be altered. I have just a basic exposure to Mac as many apps and hardware such as printers and scanners get demo’ed on the Mac at the shop. For all I knew, that is not a default setting, but permanent. Since I have opened the possibilities, I am taking a closer look.
BTW, since I have your attention, does Mac support other mice besides what is shipped? I use an optical Logitech, programmable to my hand, and I can do things like outlining broad selections better with it than with a tablet. Quirky, but true> The Mac mouse is anemic, to say the least. It acts as if the mouse is an afterthought, yet, Mac pioneered the mouse; I would have expected this from the PC. The PC, as shipped, has a better mouse "feel" than Mac, imo.
BTW, since I have your attention, does Mac support other mice besides what is shipped? I use an optical Logitech, programmable to my hand, and I can do things like outlining broad selections better with it than with a tablet.
The Mac mouse is a piece of CRAP! Yes the Mac will support other mice. I use the Microsoft wireless optical with 2 buttons and wheel. I also have an optical explorer thingy some. I don’t even use the Microsoft drivers since OSX supports all the feature by default.
The PC, as shipped, has a better mouse "feel" than Mac, imo.
I think the way the Mac deals with the mouse is vastly superior to the PC.
I don’t like that OSX Dial an Application dock either. Give me my windows task bar over that piece of garbage any day. The Alt-Tab window is even preferable to OSX. Again, all opinion, and that is mine.
Brian,
IMO this is where OS X really shines, though… you get the very pretty and very easy-to-use Aqua interface, with all the raw power of UNIX under the hood for those who want/need it to access it directly.
I have already said that I think the Aqua interface is worthless to me. So what you are saying is that I should just install Unix.
This is a user preference, not the only behavior.
Can you set it to be a static bar? With OSX everything has to be animated and big and distracting. From what I have read the computer can’t always keep up. Scroll rates aren’t real time and can’t follow the speed of the mouse for scroll bars or window resizing.
When I first saw this demonstrated it looked like you could work on the apps in the shrunken state, but these are only screen shots used to toggle between applications. It is also available for XP 3rd party for those of you that like worthless resource hogs like this.
I think the way the Mac deals with the mouse is vastly superior to the PC.
How so? Right click menu functions work much better in windows. They are available for OSX applications but don’t most programmers leave them out since a large number of users stick with the single button mouse.
With OSX everything has to be animated and big and distracting.
You must be using a different version from the rest of us!
Right click menu functions work much better in windows.
Hmm, I don’t any problems making right click menus function with any of the apps I use.
but don’t most programmers leave them out since a large number of users stick with the single button mouse.
You are kidding – single mouse button has been the single biggest bitch of Mac users for years. Virtually all main stream (and many Mac only) apps for Mac OSX support right click menus, etc. Even the Apple i apps support multi button and wheel mouse!
Are you sure you’ve actually used a Mac in this past 3 years?
I have a Logitech Wireless optical mouse. 2 buttons, plus a clickable scroll wheel. For each control I can assign custom commands globally, as well as on a per-application basis.
The question really wasn’t if you can right click we all know that Macs have right click menus. You still haven’t said how it is "vastly superior". I disagree but you seem to have specifics in mind so I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.
A large number of mac users (Probably not those in the graphics industry) use what they are given. The same goes for PC users as well, it is just that optical scrolling mice are more common in default configurations.
Phosphor,
I could write a book about what you’re missing
Funny 🙂 I will let that one go.
Lawrence,
The Mac’s I have sat at did not have right click. One needs a keystroke, I was told.
I believe most mac users programatically add the keystroke to the mouse drivers (This may even be automatic, I am not sure).
What? This is all about NTFS and Fat32… isn’t it?! 8/
We do have a tendency to get off course every once in a while don’t we. I seem to recall an entire thread a while back written almost entirely in HEX 🙂
Now if I make the W2k on separate HDD and NTFS at that, will Win98se still recognise the second drive as D (the drive is currently used for storage and is "D" now being FAT32) even though Win98se will not be able to "see" the NTFS file contents does the drive letter sequence still show.
Or is it simply down to the BIOS recognising the presence of physical drives with primary partitions. My third HDD without a primary partition is the last letter in my multi partitioned, three optical drive system.
I believe that 98 will not recognize the drive that W2k is on ,and will assign drive letters as if the W2k doesn’t exist. However, w2k "sees" the drive that 98 is on, and assigns a drive letter to it.
So, what about these 2 possibilities based on that I am going to multi partition the second HDD. The 1st drive with Win98se already has 6 partitions – OS, swap, main apps, video prog apps & 2 spares for data.
1) As I do not wish to mess up the 1st drive letter sequence – the apps will get totally screwed! Make the W2K install on a FAT32 partition and make all the W2k apps, pagefile and data partitions NTFS.
2) If 1) above is asking for trouble just go with making all the 2nd HDD FAT32
The way Win98se letters’ the drives will not affect the 2nd HDD extended partitions letters – the "D" drive will take the letters after all the assigned letters taken by the 1st drives extended partitions.
* The 1st primary partition on the 1st drive is always drive C:
* The 1st drive will get the next letter(s) if it has additional primary partition(s).
* The additional drive(s) will get the next letters before any logical drives in extended partitions on the 1st drive if they have primary partitions; other wise, any logical drives in extended partitions on the 1st drive get the next letters before any logical drives in extended partitions on the additional drive(s) get assigned a letter.
I will look into the "drive switch" – I think I recall reading about that some while ago as an alternative to HDD caddies. And switch or caddies if your data is on one or more data only drives then there should be no issue in respect of shares.
But can you comment on the points 1) & 2) I have noted above about the use of the W2K OS partition being FAT32 and the rest of that HDD (partitioned or not!) being NTFS.
Thanks.
PS I take your point about over partitioning. However, the way manufacturers "under" partition is potentially equally bad. IMHO there should always be a partition for data separate from the OS partition because the potential need to re load the OS is greater than the physical HDD failing in the average lifetime of the PC.
The Mac mouse is a piece of CRAP! I think the way the Mac deals with the mouse is vastly superior to the PC.
I agree, but I have to admit that, despite my initial reservations about losing the second button, I’ve come to love the Apple Pro optical mouse (the one that ships with all PowerMacs). All the contextual menus are available via control-click, and since my hand is naturally resting on that edge of the keyboard (gotta keep comand-Z close at hand!!!!) using the key/mouse combo for a "right-click" is very easy to get used to.
I do miss the scroll wheel from my PC a little bit, but not much.
I haven’t needed a dual boot system since college and that was 95\NT4. When I did it I kept everything FAT32 but at the time disk space was a lot more expensive and I couldn’t afford to have a large chucnk of space that Windows 95 couldn’t get to.
For a dual boot system, if you don’t need NTFS for security, You should probably just keep it all Fat32. If you have the disk space to spare there is noting wrong with making the 2K partitions NTFS. Just make sure that you put the files you need full access to on a Fat32 partition.
I know what you are saying about computer manufacturers making one large partition. There is nothing worse than needing to remember a spare hard drive so you can make a ghost image prior to reformatting a system because it only has one drive and one partition.
Don’t even get me started on HP’s that don’t come with restore CD’s. They decided to save money and waste drive space with a restore partition.
So, using a FAT32 for the W2K OS and other partitions as NTFS should not give me sleepless nights!
If I have separate partition (like now with mt Win98se setup) for the page/swap file can that be NTFS or will a FAT32 W2K look for a FAT32 swap?
NTFS is not just because of security – I also do Digital Video and though I use a frame server it would be nice to be able to break the 4GB file size limit if needed.
So, using a FAT32 for the W2K OS and other partitions as NTFS should not give me sleepless nights!
Is that what you meant to say?
If you are going to mix NTFS and Fat32 just remember that whatever drives you format as NTFS will not be accessible to Win98. The only drives that should be NTFS are the ones exclusively for W2K.
PH: "Win98 will only assign drive letters to FAT partitions. The NTFS partitions would not be assigned drive letters."
This is true to a point, as I pointed out, I can have WIN98 startup disk see NTFS (some, but not all).
I know this will get into an arguement that NTFS is NTFS, but that is not totally true.
So the question is: Where is the split point [and NO I’m giving out the answer]. First to get the correct answer gets a confirmation (cheap, but I’m collecting year-end billing).
It really just depends on how you want to set up your computer. It also depends on what you are using for the primary OS, It should be W2K but I don’t know the reasoning for keeping 98 in Laurence’s case.
There are also NTFS readers <http://www.mount-everything.com/home/ntfsw/> for Windows 9x operating systems. I have never used them but there are several available, this was just the first one in the list that looked promising.
I have a lot of time and programs "invested" in this OS. Setting up a dual boot is initially required to install PS CS when I get the upgrade in the new year.
I will likely progressively transfer my programs from Win98 to W2K, starting with my DV program. I will probably leave it at that for some time because especially working with DV editing the less going on in the background the better.
Hard drives relatively speaking are cheap so giving house room to Win98se is no burden and unlike Win98 updates that rely on internet connection it is my understanding that the W2K Service Packs can be downloaded for installation. Which I can obviously do whilst in Win98 and store them on a FAT32.
I suppose if I find it too tiresome to use the MS boot loader I will eventually migrate entirely to W2K. If I do that, is there an elegant and smooth way to "repair" the W2K install so that it is the primary OS?
SUMMARY This article describes how to remove an operating system, such as Microsoft Windows 98, that has been configured to dual boot with Windows 2000 Professional.
MORE INFORMATION To remove Windows 98, start Windows 2000 and then delete the folder that contains Windows 98 (by default, this is the C:\Windows folder on the local hard disk).
NOTE: If there are any programs installed in Windows 98, you may want to uninstall these programs before deleting the folder.
You also need to manually edit the Boot.ini file to remove Windows 98 from the list of boot options.
To edit the Boot.ini file: In Windows Explorer, click Folder Options on the View menu. On the View tab, click Show All Files, and then click OK. Click the root folder of the local hard disk, right-click the Boot.ini file, and then click Properties. Click to clear the Read-Only, Hidden, and System check boxes, and then click OK. Open the Boot.ini file in Notepad. Remove any entries that no longer point to valid installations of Windows. Save the changes to the Boot.ini file, and then restore its attributes. To restore the file’s attributes, repeat steps 3 and 4, but click to select the check boxes. The information in this article applies to: Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Last Reviewed: 11/5/2003 (3.0) Keywords: kbhowto KB285480
Of course, if you want all your boot files to reside on the same disk or disk partition, then this doesn’t get you there as far as I can tell.
Please, analyze why you think you need Win98 anymore. You probably don’t. Just about everything will run under XP.
Avoid dual boot systems. They can tend to destabilize faster than a Win9x system on it’s own, and that’s pretty darned fast to begin with. My experience syas that a dual boot system would need to be re-imaged about 3 times a year. Not fun.
Please, analyze why you think you need Win98 anymore. You probably don’t. Just about everything will run under XP.
This is not my experience.
I have a dual boot system using WME (FAT32), W2K (NTFS), and a common data partition (FAT32).
WME cannot see an NTFS drive/partition, so the two systems have different drive letters. No biggie.
I use WME for old DOS games and a few pgms that won’t run on W2K, even in Compatibility Mode. It is my understanding that WME was for home use and W2K was for enterprises. Hence, W2K lacks some of the fun WME things.
I keep the WME partition devoid of an Internet connection for simplicity and security.
I made the W2K partition NTFS so WME couldn’t mess with it.
Avoid dual boot systems. They can tend to destabilize faster than a Win9x system on its own, and that’s pretty darned fast to begin with. My experience says that a dual boot system would need to be re-imaged about 3 times a year. Not fun.
I have no problems with either system. Both are fully updated.
I partitioned my 40 and 60 GB drives into small enough partitions that WME could cope. In all I have four partitions total.
I set up a "virtual CDs" partition, where I use the freeware pgm VSubst to tell both versions of Windows that there are a number of extra CD-ROM drives on my system. I then copied a number of CDs to that partition. For example, I have Encarta on my hard drive and I can run it without the CD. The virtual CDs partition is FAT32. — Walter Donavan
Avoid dual boot systems. They can tend to destabilize faster than a Win9x system on it’s own, and that’s pretty darned fast to begin with. My experience syas that a dual boot system would need to be re-imaged about 3 times a year. Not fun.
If it’s set up properly the two installations should be completely independent and "unaware of each other," so they shouldn’t need reinstalling any more often than normal.
The key is to not attempt to install multiple versions of Windows on the same partition – use Partition Magic / Boot Magic to set up three independent partitions (Boot Magic will take care of swapping the primary active partition between the installs at boot time).
I’ve run a machine with three independent installs of Windows (one for general use, one for audio only and one for gaming only) without a reinstall for almost four years now, with no problems (even on the gaming install, which surprised the hell out of me!)
and always install the newest os last. (per ms). i did it the other way (installed a dual boot win me to a seperate drive after xp was on the system) and believe me, it’s no joke and not fun to get working… unless you enjoy that kind of thing. So, ok, it was a little fun. BUT NOT MUCH!!! 🙂
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