New computer should come tomorrow. I won’t have internet for a while and hope I can follow directions given about this previous discussion, which I am reading and re-reading many times.
I will have 2-250G hard drives and will (hopefully) partition them as 50G (OS)10G (Scratch for PS 6 & 7) and 190 free. The second drive would be 10G (paging file) and 240 free. (Santa was very, very good this year.)Hope those partitions sound good.
I don’t know how much stuff Dell put on one drive or both. Bob L’s directions were to boot from the CD, hit f8. However, that’s to INSTALL Win XP, not delete it. One sentence in a WinXP book says "you can also press D to delete the current partition and creat new partitions for an existing drive if you prefer". OK. Again, that’s to install.
No directions for deleting the OS are in the dang book either. (I need Tums already.)I’m not familiar with WinXP at all and don’t know if the familiar former Add/Remove is the way to go?
Could I please receive some "in-between" steps here in getting started and also getting off all the stuff Dell put on (Cyberlink Software Decoding for DVD Drives, MS Worksuite, Symantec, RealOne Player Plus, Dell Jukebox, Photo Album, Broadband Icon, Dell/My way Home Page, AOL etc…). I’m only interested in the 1st 4 anyway.
The next step as I recall was to load the drivers from the CD.
I’ve looked at the Disk Management page and don’t know what to do about Fat32 or NTFS file systems. Which one?
I think commands to rename the partitions comes from View menu—will have to investigate that when I get there…….
Needless to say this is "heebe-jeebies" time…..I won’t sleep until humpty dumpty gets put together again….
I’d appreciate some more info in getting started…I’m really nervous!!!!!
Deleting the current partition will get rid of EVERYTHING that is presently on the drive – no need to remove the existing installation as a separate step.
I don’t blame you if you want to wipe it clean right from the get-go; much of what comes on a factory-built computer is just baggage that you are better off without. If you really want to start from scratch, then Format and Fdisk are your friends. If you’ve never used Fdisk, look for instructions on the Web since it can be a little vague in it’s syntax. Alternatively, every disk manufacturer provides a utility to format and partition HDs quickly and painlessly; you may want to search for the one appropriate for your drives (I’m guessing that any HD maker’s utility will work with drives from other manufacturers, but don’t know for sure).
Make sure you have ALL the XP compatible drivers you need for your devices, especially your video card. A google search for "XP clean install" will probably yield much more info.
So–I insert the CD, go to F8, highlight the "Partition" section in the bottom on the Win XP Edition Setup page, and press D to delete it? That’s it? Amen?
When you are installing XP from the CD you get the option to reformat and partition your drive(s) which will delete everything and give you a complete fresh start. Just read carefully and follow the instructions. You should be able to reinstall the utilities you mention separately. You will need the hardware drivers (graphics card, sound card, modem or whatever) which should be on the original CD but you might want to check for updated XP drivers on the manufacturers websites before you start.
Format and FDisk are DOS programs and are not required as XP does it all. Best to use NTFS unless you are intending to run a dual boot system with Win9X as well which is pointless unless you have old programs which will only run on Win9X.
Why NTFS? Aren’t all my saved files from Win 98SE Fat 32?
Terminology issue. If you have PROGRAMS that only run in win98, which is rare, but happens, then Fat32. Your data files won’t care, it’s just a structure for indexing, finding, and retrieving files (for lack of a better, technical explanation).
As far as I know, all my programs and files have been Fat 32 in Win 98. Is Win XP "NTFS" and should that C partition be so indicated?
Format: From Win Explorer>File>Format—-I see a "Capacity" area at the top illustration. Is that where I type in 10G for that partition?I’ll choose Fat 32 for "File System", Default allocation size for "Allocation unit size" but what goes inot "Volume Label"?
The given illustration is a floppy!!! I’m assuming that is a DOS Startup Disk?
When the format is complete, and all the others are done, THEN I can start putting programs in place where I want them, yes?
Can’t tell you ‘nough how much your help is providing….MM
Not needed with XP. It’s all conveniently built in to the installer.
Thank goodness. It’s going to be a pleasure to banish Fdisk from my vocabulary. I’ve had XP sitting on the shelf for months… might take the plunge someday soon myself.
Contemplate downloading the latest drivers from the respective manufacturers’ sites first – they’ll be more up to date than those on the CD. Burn them to CD and load them when and if XP asks on first boot.
If you are contemplating Photoshop CS in the future, make your scratch partition bigger now (with all that hard drive space, you have the room). The other day a basic 126MB, 3 layer file I was working on in CS generated 10.5GB of scratch file.
I can remember my first computer was 1G and that was considered a whale of a portion! I’ll make the scratch disk larger. I was allowing a lot of room for the OS considering how bloated Microsoft Longhorn is likely to be 2 years from now.
OK. I’ll name all partitions NFTS. I have no plans to dual boot. I’ll also check out latest drivers too.
This is exciting, but still disconcerting to me……wish I had some of your pro’s experience where the question is answered before it needs to be asked! You’ve done this so many times it’s 2nd nature!
I’m just being nosey here and enjoying this thread but I’m questioning why you would need a 10G paging file in Windows XP? It’s obviously the right setup to put it on a separate drive but a 10G paging file would mean that you have about 6.6G’s of RAM on your system. Is this so? I wouldn’t assume to know but 512MB, 768MB or 1G of RAM seems more likely. What you need to do is multiply your amount of RAM by 1.5 and then nearly double that figure (you can round down or up to an even gig, give or take a few hundred MB’s) so that you’ll have enough room on the drive to defragment it in the future. And that’s all.
Set a 10MB paging file on your primary drive for booting and then set the custom size on your paging partition; don’t let the size of it fluctuate. If it’s performance you want, don’t increase the paging file size–buy more RAM. You should also go out and buy another disk–it can be small, 6 – 10 GB’s will do–and dedicate the third disk to scratch only. The ideal set up is to have separate drives for the OS (and programmes), paging and scratch. If you have your OS and scratch on the same drive, the needle of that hard drive is jumping back and forth, back and forth, etc. That’s a big performance hit.
For others reading this thread, here’s another really inexpensive performance tip, if you have the RAM (768 or more)–set your primary scratch disk to a RAM disk. I’m running a PIII 600mHz Dell Dimension with 768 MB’s of RAM. I dedicated 128 MB’s of RAM to a ram disk (a software solution that works like a driver–in fact, there’s an undocumented ram disk driver included with Windows XP if you wish to utilise that one–search the internet for installation instructions). The upshot is: Photoshop CS runs like a speed demon. I’ve read some posts here about how slow it is for some people with much higher specifications than mine but it is not my experience. If I could get more RAM into my computer, I would double the size of that ram drive. You can throw all the RAM you want at Photoshop but once you focus how it utilises it–look out.
Of course, now I never have coffee breaks, but…I hope that helps. Definitely get the third drive, you should be able to fit it into a Dell. Think about a RAM drive. Good luck!
Well, 1st, there will be 1G ram. I was being generous with the paging file allowing the next OS to have what it needed. However, it can be cut down to 6G (4-5G was recommended earlier).
I’ll add the extra 5 to the scratch disc making that 15G, and I can easily place the OS, paging file, Scratch disc and PS on separate partitions because there will be 5 of them.
Good to hear from you–my last Dell was delivered about 11:30 PM on a Christmas Eve. I understand your anxiety.
With 1G RAM, the partition for your paging file need only be 3G; the file itself should be 1.5G. Then you only need 10MB’s on your primary partition (the OS) because that’s what XP needs to boot. But your OS, paging file and scratch all need to be on separate DRIVES, not just separate partitions. If two of the partitions are on the same drive then your hard disk still has to work double-time to access those partitions. Three separate drives work simultaneously to provide the performance boost. This is well documented in Blatner & Fraser’s Real World Photoshop books and, from my experience, it works.
With that much RAM, you might give some consideration to the ram disk idea–you could dedicate 256 MB’s of that RAM as your primary scratch and then sit back and watch Photoshop really fly. I was checking it out and Super Speed has their ram disk on sale for USD 34.95 (for XP Home). See link below:
I am in the midst of upgrading my system (new MOBO, etc.). I currently have 98SE on my disk, and the XP upgrade waiting to go on. So, I can do a clean install from the CD? Then, would it be OK to ditch the floppy drive? I never have used it except to run FDISK, and I have other candidates for the 3½" bay.
I am so glad Marie started these threads. I have learned so much stuff I didn’t realize I wanted to know.
After you backup your files and reformat you can start the XP install from the CD. It will ask you to insert a previous version of windows to verify that you meet the terms of the upgrade (Just put in your 98 CD).
Then, would it be OK to ditch the floppy drive.
The XP CD is bootable. I know that Dell doesn’t even include 3.5" drives in their default configurations anymore and I am sure they aren’t the only ones. Many PC manufacturers are pushing the CD and DVD recorders in an effort to eliminate the 3.5" relics.
I still keep mine and am amazed at how many people still use them. Just bare in mind that as soon as you pull it you will need it for some strange reason. Keep it around in case you ever need it in a pinch.
I label my C:\ drive "System", my Scratch Drive "PS_Scratch, data drives "Data_1", "Data_2" etc., and my application drive "Applications" – just call them whatever makes sense to you. It’s what will be displayed in Windows Explorer
That’s fine. I’m quite happy with my configuration, it works for me. I was just weighing in with an alternative, which isn’t the consensus. The drive setup is right out of Blatner & Fraser though so…it’s not that far afield.
One really good reason for having a floppy drive is if you ever need to update the BIOS. I recently had to do this with a new ASUS board and there doesn’t seem to be any way of doing it without a floppy. When I got the machine I wasn’t going to bother with a floppy drive but the dealer threw one in anyway and I’m sure glad he did.
I don’t know who David Blatner is or what system he uses daily, but Bruce is a Mac user and often pops into the mac ps forum. While I respect his judgement on anything color or Mac related, I’m not sure what his level of experience with windows is… I’d not be suprised, but I’m not sure, if Blatner also primarily uses a mac (it seems to be some kind of purist PS/Mac color guru elitist thing! <G>)
The ASUS EZ Flash program appears to require a floppy. I presume there are workarounds but this is one area where I like to do things as simply as possible. I’ve once had a BIOS update fail and it’s heart in the mouth time.
I’m really grateful for all opinions–users know what works for them. Since I will only have 2 "real" drives, Scratch disc will have to be on one, and paging file on the other, and OS will have to also be on one of those. I thought partitioning was the way to provide the separation needed.
I’m also concerned about "proximity" —should Antivirus, firewall be closest to the primary drive? Should most used programs be placed next or doesn’t it matter?
I’m so glad this thread is helpful to others—I’ve learned not to ask is not to learn………
Well, they’re the authors of the Peachpit Press series Real World Photoshop which is fairly exhaustive on these issues. The book even carries the line "Recommended by Adobe’s Technical Support Staff" above the title and includes a first chapter entitled Building a Photoshop System and features a section on the Windows Swapfile (not to be confused with the section for Macs called Virtual Memory), from which I quote:
"However, don’t use one partition for the scratch disk and the other partition for the system, the program, or the image. If you do, the hard drive head has to move all over the hard drive between reading the image and writing the scratch space, which can really slow you down.
On Windows systems, you’ll get much better performance if your Windows swapfile is pointed to a different drive than Photoshop’s scratch disk, for the same reason."
There’s a ton of great highly technical information about Photoshop in the book. I’ve reasoned through reading about Windows that performance is boosted by having your primary swapfile on a different drive from the OS, for the same reason that Blatner & Fraser have made above. It works.
<However, don’t use one partition for the scratch disk and the other partition for the system, the program, or the image. If you do, the hard drive head has to move all over the hard drive between reading the image and writing the scratch space, which can really slow you down.>
Sorry, Fred, this is confusing me! There are 2 drives–paging file on one, scratchdisc on the other. Os will probably be on the scratchdisc drive. My understanding of 3 partitions on the main drive, and 2 on the other is to provide integrity and protection for programs placed there should the OS blow out.(With 3 re-installs of Win98 I’m rather uptight about that!) Are you saying just don’t partition at all? Please clarify how you might plan the drives/partitions with those particular aspects: scratch, OS, paging file and PS…………….Thanks much
Not guilty – that was Sean O’Neil quoting from a book "Real World Photoshop".
Personally, I think we get way too involved with theoretical scenarios in place of real world results. Go ahead and do exactly what you were originally going to do (just a bigger scratch for PS if you think you might go to CS eventually), the performance differentials being mooted here are most likely going to be inconsequential in your use of the computer. Your setup sounded fine to me in practical usage. You can always fine-tune later.
My (almost) new 3.0Mhz, 2Gig DDR RAM, 2x 120Gig SATA RAID drives plus 2x 60Gig IDE drives creams my old 1.0 Ghz 1.5 SDRAM 2x60Gig IDE machine in spec and performance, but when I get down to practicalities, I can only push that stylus around the Wacom just so fast………..
Marie : First hd one 10g partition for OS and programs,second partition for data, second HD first partition 10g for scratch, second partition for data, third hd first partition for page file. Jorge
Well, they’re the authors of the Peachpit Press series Real World Photoshop which is fairly exhaustive on these issues.
Bruce would be the first to admit that his knowledge of things Windows is limited. That’s not to say that he doesn’t fire up the PC on the odd occasion, but it’s usually only under threat of death or he’s exhausted all other avenues (read: his PC using friends "play" dumb 😉 ).
1) I’m using a 10GB partition for OS and Apps and, after installing everything I could ever want, there’s still 6GB free!
2) While the notion of dedicating a separate partition for the OS Paging file was valid in the days of the Fat32 format, this has been made irrelevant with the HTFS format which is smart enough to gather all requested data via 1 pass across the HD regardless of what order it’s in. This was not the case with the old Fat32 format which had the drive head jumping around like a Mexican jumping bean, insisting on picking everything up ‘in order’. THAT is the single most important feature of the HTFS format.
3) 2x 250GB hard disks…why?? I don’t want to lose 250GB (or 500GB) of data to a HD crash!..why would anyone?? With DVD writers now so inexpensive I hope that you’ll be saving your data to more reliable media than a hard drive. Unless you’re dealing with tons on 1GB files on a daily basis (or managing an Amazon.com database) I can’t see why anyone needs drives like that. You’re much better off with 2-3 high performance smaller drives (SATA 40-80GB) and thinking more about backup security.
4) Partitioning large drives offers much less of a performance advantage with HTFS than it did with older Fat32 formatting. You’re better off with very fast separate drives and Photoshop will rarely need more than 40GB (let alone 20). If needed, you’ll be assigning other drives and/or partitions as 2d,3d and 4th disks for the scratch disk, so Photoshop need never go hungry in those occasional instances when you work on truly huge files.
5) If you want to offer PS a great scratch disk then think in terms of a ‘SATA 36GB WD 10,000RPM RAPTOR’ or a ‘15,000RPM SCSI’ drive. THAT will offer real improvement in performance (after you’ve maxed out the RAM). The best you can offer now is a full 250GB drive to PS which is probably MUCH more than it needs. Because your MB has dual IDE controllers, offering a full empty drive on a separate IDE controller to PS is the best thing you can do. You’d be better off with a SATA drive/controller since this would offer disk performance ‘almost as fast’ as SCSI.
6) With HTFS formatting partitioning and defragmenting issues have become MUCH less of an issue as they used to be. No… I am told by very reliable sources that Photoshop’s scratch disk no longer needs to be unfragmented. Thanks Len:-)
7) Set your OS Paging File to 1x5x your installed RAM and just leave it there. It won’t grow and it won’t shrink. You can put that anywhere you want. The OS/APPS HD is probably the best place for it.
OK. I think I’m comfortable with paging file and scratch disc numbers, but it seems to me that several of uyou are saying my very generous 50G for OS is WAY, WAY too much! I really don’t know what Win XP needs but if this is way out of line, I’ll gladly cut it back to —hm–how about 15-20G–allowing for Billy’s next program bloat? Does that sound more reasonable?
several of you are saying my very generous 50G for OS is WAY, WAY too much!
My ‘Windows’ folder occupies 1.38GB (Windows XP-Pro). This obviously does not include my 1.5GB Paging file that’s fixed to that size (1GB RAM installed).
OS ~10Gb, Paging ~2Gb, Scratch ~20Gb, Data unlimited?
Fine. Having separate disks makes perfect sense. But you can’t purchase small disks these days. So what to do? Do you buy 3 x 40 Gb disks? Let your 1.5 Gb Paging (and your Scratch) float around in 40Gb? Will that impair performance? Do you partition; even leaving the large partition free? Is a 2 Gb Paging plus a ‘dead’ 38Gb partition acceptable? Or does the very fact of having partitions necessitate an administration overhead?
Suppose you spend a lot of time working on individual files, so that you are not often reading / writing to the data disk, would it make sense to compromise by having the Windows Paging as a small partition on the data disk?
Ok. Average G’s for OS seems to be a high of 10G to a low of about 2G. My 50 must have seemed ridiculous! I’d hate to waste that room if it wasn’t needed when it could be "open". Also, I don’t want to be stingy and have to re-do partitions at a later time. I’ll set it at 9-10G trusting the opinions given.
Herb–the dilemma of more smaller discs vs. larger ones was mine, but I heeded opinions bigger was better and since I wanted the opportunity to partition, I opted for plenty of room. ( Oh, how I pray this computer lasts more than 3 years…………….)
contradicts some ideas that have been accepted wisdom for a long time:
‘The more RAM you have, the less likely it is that Windows XP will use the page file. Therefore, the default initial page file size is too large and the disk space reserved by Windows XP is wasted. On systems with 512 MB of RAM or more, you should set the initial page file size to half the RAM size, while leaving the maximum size at three times RAM, just in case.
You might think that setting the initial size and the maximum size to the same (relatively largesay, two or three times RAM) value would improve performance since it would mean that Windows XP would never resize the page file. In practice, however, it has been shown that this trick does not improve performance, and in some cases can actually decrease performance.’
I think you have got a handle on this now, and what you intend doing seems absolutely fine to me.
You will not regret the space you have bought, and you will not miss the milli-second speed benefit that might have applied with many smaller disks as opposed to a couple of sensibly partitioned large disks.
You will have one Photoshop kick-arse computer which will go the distance you ask.
OH BOY! Looks like baby Dell will arrive tomorrow. I’m as excited as a kid at first Christmas!
Many, many thanks to all who gave food for thought….please cross fingers and toes that I don’t do something stupid…..will let you know how the baby survives its baptism later on……..MM
