Hard disk configuration

I'd like to understand some hows and whys of XP disk configuration.

XP (Home) installed with two drives in my hard disk (40 GB):
C:\ with FAT32 and 9.8 GB and D:\ with NTFS and 28.6 GB.

I start asking:

1) Drive C:\ contains the OS, the Program Files, My documents, that's to say, most of my files. Why is it, then, only one third as big as drive D:\?

2) Why can both drives not use the same File System?

3) What is the mean function of drive D:\? Why these two partitions exist?

In previous version Windows let the user make his/her own partitions according to his/her preferences.

3) And now the most important question: Once drive C:\ is full, how do I start using drive D:\? Will it be cumbersome to have twice the folders "my programs ", "my music ", "my pictures ", and so on? Or,

4) Can I create a single folder for each of the above in drive D:\, copy to them all the files in the image folders in drive C:\?

But then, how can I direct my START programs to point to the new folders in drive D:\. since by default they point to the pre-installed folders in drive C:\

I'll be obliged for any answer.

 

Haim,

I can't answer all your inquiries but permit me to respond to those things I am familiar with for now.

Some human had to partion the hard drive as you describe. Then the Windows XP installation process asked where to put %Windows% and a human must have responded on the first partition. Currently you probably have at least half of C:\ empty. So you won't experience any "low on disk space" messages for a while. As you gain more experience and confidence, you will find ways to utilize the D:\ drive. All program installers I have used allow you to change the drive where the program is installed. So you could put some on D:\ in a newly created "Program Files" directory. The name used for this directory could actually be anything but for consistency probably should be as above. The system then creates "markers" so that it knows when click on Program X in the Programs tab of the start menu that program is located at a specific point on the D:\ drive and executes it.

Having said all that, assuming you don't have any "must keep files" of your own you could do a "fresh" install now. This requires you to rerun the installation procedure from the XP CD and as part of the first section repartition your hard drive to something more to your liking. But if it were me, I would continue with what I have for now.

 

The question I have to ask is

If the OS is on C:\ which is FAT32, what is the point of the D:\ partition when the OS will not be able to see the NTFS side.

My suggestion would be to use the "Convert" facility in XP to convert the FAT32 to NTFS when it will be possible to use both partitions.

Then using Partition Magic 8 (download a trial version) you can re-size the partitions to your preferred sizes or even merge it all into one if you so wish.

As the system stands, there is nothing you can do with the second partition except install the OS on it and have a dual boot arrangement of Win XP, one under FAT32 and the other under NTFS but I would see no useful purpose in it.

 

Haim

No problem with your configuration! Of course XP can read the NTFS (win98 could not)!

Someone made the decision to make C: fat32 and the other ntfs when the HD was installed or the OS was installed! Usually they would both be the same but not nessesary!

Xp will convert c: to NTFS if you want but it will not convert NTFS back to fat32! But it is easily done!

If the D: drive is empty "no data" and you are sure of this then have XP reformat and select fat32!

You should have not had any problem with it as it is! I would leave it alone!

Yes by all means move all documents and data to this drive and use it! In fact it is better to keep data on another drive away from the OS!

I hope that you will leave it as is just start using the other drive!

Now if you have some problem that caused you to ask this question then present it to us! But normally this will not be a problem!

Mike

 

Haim

In rereading you questions let me expand more! I also forgot to answer one of your questions!

Why is c: smaller
XP itself will grow very little! So they meant for you to store data on d: and not fill up c:

I do exactly the same but in my case I even put MS Office and all other programs on d:

The NTFS file system is much more robust and stable and allows more effecient use of disk space!

But NTFS has one other very important feature if you ever need it!
It allows for very good security! NTFS will allow you to set access to a folder that only you could enter etc! Plus other things!

Rest assured that whoever set up your HD was an expert and knew exactly what he was doing!

I don't know why they allowed Home instead of Pro though! Smile!

Bye

mike

 

I've seen folks who prefer to set the OS up on a FAT partition for ease of access via boot floppy (9X) if needed. I don't do that myself but can see that it would make sense as the NTFT main advantage is security and the additional options you have with it.

Since any shared folders would probably be on the large data drive, that is where you want maximum security.

And since FAT is OK but not as space efficient for storing small files, again it would make sort of sense as your system drive is normally not cluttered with lots of small files.

I think at this point I'd leave it as is. You could run CONVERT on your system drive and make it NTFS but the conversion leaves the drive much more prone to fragmentation since it will set up 512 byte blocks rather than the 4K blocks that NTFS normally uses. And Mike certainly had it right that the XP OS can read NTFS as easily as FAT.

 

NEWT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have you ever heard of Plagiarism!!!!!! hee hee hee!

Talk about on the same track!

Mike

 

Redundacy???

Haim,

Two others have told you today, in others words and more or less accurately, what I told you four days ago. Are you there?
Now that your election is over (and I feel the best person for peace has won) are you back into computers?

evr

 

Hmmmmm!

EVR

GUIVON only asked once!

But I found it in new posts today and did not even notice his post date!

Newt probably did the same thing as I did just pull it off new posts!

I don't know how it got to the top of new posts!

In fact I don't think he has been back or he should have acknowledged your post!

Mike

 

Thanks to all. I don't mind receiving similar answers several times, because I am dumb enough to profit from everyone of them. It was not my intention to start a world conflagration.

Now, owing to your help, it is easier for me to understand microsoft's guide:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/howto/gettingstarted/guide/default.asp

Now I really don't understand what the technician made; maybe that because I told to him that I wanted to keep all my old files and OS (windows98) he made a second partition. I still don't understand why he put the new (XP) OS in the smallest C: drive, and why he used the FAT partition on it. I guess I must have a stern conversation with him.

By default, windows installs all programs in the C:\Program Files folder. Had I know what I learned from you, I'll had them steered to D:\Program Files with the NTFS, because, as you say, it is more robust, and also because the drive is much bigger.


NEW QUESTION:

NEW QUESTION: Now another question: being a lone user, can I safely delete shared files (windows installed three: user, owner, and all users). Normally, I put all my programs in "all users ". When I install a new program, it choses randomly one of the above. And I have to move them manuallly, so I can keep them all in the same folder. It is also a problem to have mirror My Pictures, and My Music folders. Problem: every one of those folder contains a "startup" subfolder, which cannot be deleted.

One more thing: I had a self-stupidity-inflicted crash. I reinstalled Windows XP. It reformatted ONLY the C: partition, and left the file system (FAT) as it was, withoug asking me. The reinstall did not touch the second (D drive, and that's why I believe that mflynns advice of putting the program files and documents there is a sound one, because in this way they would be kept in case of a crash. It seems to me very sensible to put them in a different drive than the OS.

Thanks to all, good people. Happy Thanksgiving Day and Eid Mubarak, Ya Mahmud. To make it complete: Happy Hanukkah.

=======================================

 

haim,

Don't be too stern when you talk with the man who set your drives up. If I had any choice, I would have had mine that way exactly. It allows full access to all files on the boot drive by using a common boot disk as opposed to having limited access when the OS in on a NTFS partition, and even then having to use the "Recovery Console" which is sort of a kluge. All things considered, you have an excellent setup.

As for deleting the system created default identities, don't even try that. You won't succeed and you might corrupt the system and cause error in processing and booting. It's best to leave what XP created alone in this case.

Cheers.

 

Haim

Hi Zephyr!

Zephyr is correct the person who set up your computer is an expert and made execllent choices for you. You owe him compliments!

Haim you still don't fully understand!

1 XP has a very stable size and will not grow in size itself very much. So why dedicate half the size if you are going to put everything else on another drive! Here I mean only XP not word processing or music or graphics! Xp is the engine! Put the load in the truckbed (the D: Drive)! I would bet he (the tech) told you this but you did not understand.

2 Data such as documents graphics music can grow as you download and create more. Your tech planned for you to do this (use drive d: )!

So forget about it, it will never give you a single problem! I presume you are a home user ( I mean here you use your computer from home) so probably will never fill up this HD!

Now as to the users that you see! Only the User "Owner" was created by the person who set up your computer! XP created the others "all users" etc and uses them! So do not mess with these! This may have been one of the reasons you had to reinstall XP. Don't tinker here!

Additionally you are confused about the so called duplicates! The actual programs are installed in c:\Program Files! The other references are Startmenu entries and though they look like duplicates they are in fact only tiny shortcuts "links" that only point to the location of the actual program. So leave these alone also!

Use the windows "move" function and move all your douuments music and other data data to drive D:! If you use copy it will leave a copy on c:! If you do use copy after you get them to d: then delete the ones on c:!

But do not do this with a program itself!

Example:

Lets say you wish to move Microsoft Office over to drive d:
do these steps

1 Go to add/remove and uninstall the program (this removes it from c: )

2 After it is complete run the install for this program and at some point it will prompt for an install location.

All versions of windows always presume "default" to c:\Program Files\??????. Here all you need to do is change the c: to a d: but leave all the rest of the line so that it reads d:\Program Files\????

Repeat this for all other programs! Other programs mean your programs not XP OS specfic items!

People (the experts) who use this proceedure usually put on drive c: only XP and things XP uses directly like Virus scanners firewalls special disk utilities etc all on c:

They put what is called Application programs on the other drive, Ms office,, Games, Graphics and camera programs etc!

Although I have explained the above I don't recommend that you do it!

The fact you had to ask these questions in the first place and that unknowingly have been trying to remove windows functions because you thought they were duplicates, tells me you might get into trouble with it!

Now as far as conflaguration you mentioned, none happened!

Newt and myself didn't notice your message was 4 days old! EVR thought you had asked the same question twice! And had you acknowledge his message earlier we would have known so no problem!

Newt and I were typing a message back to you at the same time and neither of us knew it untill later and my message back to him about Plagiarism was me joking with him!

Proof of what you have been told is the fact that it came from 2 independent souces, an Expert (Newt) and a dummy (Me)! Smile! So we have some confirmation for you!

Use your computer do what you do, leave the rest alone unless it give problems!

Good luck,
Mike

 

Thanks again. You're wonderful guys, and your help invaluable.

I agree that I should have thought about installing my programs in D:\program files from the start. I think it would be somehow messy to pass them now from C: to D:. It is not critical, because I have still 3 GB free in drive C:.

What do you think about having two folders named My Program Files, one in C:, which I leave as is, and the other one in drive D: for any new programs I install from now on? The only problem may be that I don't like any program installing in a different folder, and I put them as sub-folders of a bigger one. For instance, all my media programs are in sub-folders in Accessories/Multimedia, which includes WMP, Real, DirectX, MovieMaker, and QuickTime. I hate to have a very long list of Program Files.

About what I wrote, that several program, when I run Setup, chose by themselves to install in "Documents and Settings\Owner\Start Menu\Programs ", while other programs chose to install themselves in "All Users ", (the rest of the path is the same), it is, indeed, so. Really, I shouldn't have paid attention, because in the Start/All Programs button, it does not make any difference.

But sometimes, there are some minor conflicts, for instance when I have the same folder (I just checked "accessories "), in both Start Programs (I mean, "all users" and "owners "), each one with different programs. As I said, it does not matter, because they are all brought together in the Programs button. To be more specific, this just happenned because Real One chose to install itself in the Owner programs folder, while all my programs are in the All Users/start menu/programs folder.

About My Music and My Pictures, I checked and you are right. The ones that I thought to be duplicates, were "shared" folders, and they don't interfere with "my documents ".

But no, my crash problem was not trying to move files or to erase duplicates. It was different and I am ashamed to tell what I did. I must have been drunk. Even after the crash, I had ten ways to undo the deed, in lieu of reinstalling XP and erasing all my files. Very, very stupid and unforgivable. I admit that I deserve the death penalty.

Two more comments: I agree that the technician that setup my computer had the best intentions, after I understood your support notes, but, unfortunately, he was not the same one that sold me the machine. The latter did not explain the system to me, and I realized too late (much of it with your help), the hows and whys of both partitions and the file system allocations tables he used.

About the world conflagration, mind you, I put a

Please, forgive me for too long a message, but I am really indebted to you, people.

 

It is Ok to have a \Program Files on another drive!

What you say about the folders on your startmenu (remember these are shortcuts)! Sounds like you need to reorganize and catagorize and clean the start menu!

Mike