Me to XP Pro query

Hi Caren!

I´m sorry to hear that Your installation went sour and I´m even more sorry to say that I can´t help!

However, since You probably will have to start from the beginning again, I´ll throw in my opinion on the pagefile.
I didn´t quite understand what PeteC meant by his sizes but when You install XP Pro, it creates a pagefile on the system partition which has a minimum size of 1.5 x RAM and a maximum size of 3.0 x RAM. The pagefile is positioned at the front of the partition which is at the front of the harddisk. With a single harddisk, this is actually the best position since all other positions are in slower areas of the harddisk.

I left mine where the installer put it and I´m happy with it.

As I understand it, You´re installing XP Pro on the old Win98 harddisk. If that´s the case, I would start by removing all partitions to clear the harddisk (during the initial steps of the installation).

Before the next step of creating Your desired partitions, I would recommend to separate Your data from the system. This gives two partitions but a third might come handy if You consider using some third party recovering software, such as Norton Ghost.

There are other software alternatives than Ghost but I can only vouch for that one since I´m using it. Disaster recovery is a matter of ten to fifteen minutes and a cup of coffee!

If I was going to use Your system, I would make three partitions;

C: - system and programs - 6 GB;
D: - data such as My documents, Favorites, E-mail and Address book; - 18 GB;
E: - partition dedicated to Ghost Images of C: - 6GB or the rest which should be approximately 6 GB.

To give C: and E: the same size:
The harddisk size is reported in MB (30 GB = 30720 MB)
Tell it to make C: 6.000 MB and D: 18.720 MB which will leave 6.000 MB for E:.
The size of D: depends on the exact size of the harddisk but should be "Your harddisk size" minus 12.000 MB.

If You decide to skip Ghost (or any other imaging software), after creating C: let D: have the rest.

Christer

Edited:

I would format C: and D: to NTFS (full format) and E: to FAT32 (full format) since Ghost have issues with writing to NTFS (personal experience).
You only format C: during the installation. D: and E: are fromated from within XP.

 

The best shot at Your trouble I can get is to suggest downloading a file which creates six setup boot disks.

Be careful to choose the correct one, Home or Professional, with or without SP1:

Obtaining Windows XP Setup Boot Disks

You´ll have to change the boot order in the BIOS to floppy, CD-ROM, harddisk.
Put the CD in the tray and floppy #1 in the floppy drive.
Restart the computer and feed it the other five floppies as prompted.

Christer

 

Swap Fie Size/Location

Christer - and others

There have been many disscussions on the BBS re. Swap (Page) Files in terms of both size and location - and many differing views on this. Suggest we don't need to go down that road again, especially not in this thread, but a word of explanation re. my views as stated in this thread might be appropriate.

I run Photoshop extensively. PS creates it's own swap files, termed scratch disks, when in use and clears them when closed and does not like a variable size Windows swap file. On a single, unpartitioned drive a fixed size Windows swap file prevents fragmentation (of the swap file) and the swap and scratch don't get mixed up together. PS scratch disk can reach 2 Gb quite readily with large image files. With a couple of hard drives and multiple partitions I prefer to keep the two physically separated and put the swap file (fixed size) on a separate partition and the temporary scratch disks on other partitions.

I run 1 Gb RAM with a 1.5 GB swap file of which less than 300 MB is used, but so what - plenty of HD space . This requires about a 2 GB partition - you cannot have a 1.5 GB file in a 1.5 GB partition due to 'losses' in creating the file system (all NTFS BTW). Hence my statement re. partition size vs installed RAM.

I very much doubt that us mere mortals would be able to detect any performance difference wherever the pagefile is located. On a server this is a different matter.

If anyone wants to pursue this argument please do so on a new thread! Let's keep this one on the subject of Caren's problems

 

Caren,

I think those 8 MB are left unpartitioned and it says that this space is needed by XP but I don´t remember the reason for the need. Let it have it!

Have You checked how much is occupied by System Restore? If You haven´t reduced the default settings it can get very large!

It´s difficult to acchieve reasonable sizes of the partitions on smaller harddisks and a lot of harddisks become small with XP. You need to have a data partition of some size too and a dedicated Image partition, of equal size as the system partition, might seem like a waste of space ...... ...... right up until You crash the system.

Consider splitting the internal drive in two halves of 15 GB each, one for the system and applications and one for data or 10 GB / 20 GB or any sizes that fits Your needs.
When You have put back what You want from the external harddisk to the internal data partition, re-partition the external harddisk.

The last partition at the slow rear of the external harddisk should be 15 GB dedicated to the Images of the system partition. These should be on a separate partition for two reasons, 1 - file system FAT32, 2 - not unneccesarily defragmented which might corrupt the Images.
Another benefit from putting the Images on the external harddisk is that if not only the system crashes but the whole internal drive, then Your Images are safe on the external.

The balancing 65 GB can be kept in one piece but I would recommend splitting it in 3 parts to speed up defragmentation.
I don´t know how You use Your computer but one partition for backups of the data partition of the internal harddisk, one for storing music and one for storing pictures?

Think it through and make a decision that will work for You!

Christer

 

Caren,
I came to think about this concerning the 8 MB that XP refuses to partition:

When I installed my own system I used the WinME start disk and FDISK to partition my harddisk, simply because I was used to it.

During XP setup I told it to keep the partitions as they were and to full format C: to NTFS.

No missing 8 MB ...... ......

Christer

 

Hi BillyBob!

I don´t think that XP tries to resize partitions. However, when creating partitions during the initial stages of the installation, it refuses to allocate the last 8 MB which it claimes is needed for OS use.
I´ve never heard of for what purpose and maybe it has the scent (smell) of other hidden partitions such as Compaq's?

If Caren has formated the intended system partition ( C:? ) then what is or isn´t on the external harddisk shouldn´t matter.
I´m not sure, though and disconnecting the external harddisk during the installation might make a difference.

Caren,
since You have an external harddisk, I would recommend to rename Your CD drive(s) to a higher letter than what is assigned by XP. If not the drive letter for the CD drives will vary depending on if the external harddisk is connected or not (I think).

X, Y, Z are good letters and You assigne them by right-clicking My Computer on the desktop and choose > Manage > Disk Management > right-click the drive and choose > Change ......

Christer

 

No, I don´t think so. I would have done the installation with the external harddisk disconnected. When finished, assigning my own drive letters to the CD-drive(s) would be the first issue on the "what-to-do" list.

Next, I would full format D: to NTFS.

Next, I would connect the external harddisk and transfer the backed-up stuff to D:.

Finally (well not quite), I would re-partition the external harddisk as outlined in my previous post.

Christer

 

Caren,

This indicates to me that Your CD is a Windows XP ? SP1a.
( I don´t remember if You have Home or Pro, hence the ? )

Java is not included in SP1a and I suppose that You should not try to install those missing (uninstalled) files manually.

Go get Sun Microsystems Java which can be considered to be the "original ".

The missing (uninstalled) files are probably from Microsoft Virtual Machine which will be supported until september 2004 but no longer which makes MVM a dead end.

Christer

 

I know very little about hardware problems but did problems with WinME escalate when You added the 512-stick?

It should work with the two original 128-sticks I would believe!

Check out the specs of the mainboard.

For example, my mainboard has three RAM slots, two double sided and one single sided. I think that if I put a double sided RAM-stick in the single sided slot it will mess things up.

It can also be an incompatibility issue regarding the new 512-stick.

Christer

 

Caren!

If Asus CUV4X is the correct motherboard, it supports up to three 512 MB SDRAM PC-100 or PC-133 RAM-sticks.

If Asus CUV4X-M is the correct motherboard, it only supports up to three 256 MB sticks.

Christer

Edited:

Forget about the second link to CUV4X-M and 256 MB. That´s probably a typo since the CUV4X-M User's Manual say 512 MB too.