New Guy Needs Advice (G73 Questions)

First of all, I'd like to say thanks to all the vets around here who share their knowledge with those in need. I'm sure this won't be the last help request thread I post, so stick around, please!

I've ordered a G73JH-A1 and am waiting for its arrival. In the meantime, I had a few questions about some stuff I intend to do once it gets here. If you can help with any of the topics, I'd really appreciate it.

• My current computer, a Dell XPS 1530, has a 128GB Samsung SSD in it as its main and only hard disk. I'm considering replacing one of the 500GB drives in my new computer with this one. I kinda hate to lose all that storage space, but I'm kinda spoiled by my current boot speed and everything that comes with running off a SSD. Is the difference (for those of you that have upgraded your G73s with an SSD) worth the loss in space?
• I've managed to live 26 years and owned 5 PCs, but never had to do a reformat/Windows install. I plan on doing that with the new one using Kalim's awesome guide. How will this work in regards to having a specific disc I want to install to? If and when I put the SSD into the G73, will I have to mess with master/slave pins, or is the technology different than I recall?
• Lastly, for now, I had to disassemble my XPS before to try and address a trackpad issue, and may or may not have stripped the screw holding my hard disk in. Anyone know any good ways to get out stripped computer screws (used to be a phillips head, lol) that doesn't destroy the case?

 

I can answer one of your questions with my own opinion. That is, will 128 GB SSD be ok as far as giving up space. I have an 80 GB ssd in mine, and I am very sensitive to space issues. I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit installed along with Adobe Acrobat 9.3 and Office 2007 Pro. I have everything installed on the D: drive (the 500 GB one) that I have control over. I have Hibernation turned off, Restore turned off, and the page file is on the D: drive. With all of that, I am currently using 13.8 GB of my SSD. So I still have plenty of room to handle updates, and any other programs that take room on the C: drive (no matter where it is installed.)

I have the D: drive partitioned into 3 logical drives. 2 are NTFS and 1 FAT32. I use the Windows 7 backup program to save everything from my C: drive and my 320 GB logical D: drive to the 130 GB logical G: drive. Windows creates file backups along with image backups. I have already restored the system several times with the Windows 7 image files, and everything is restored perfectly. The C: drive came partitioned with a 200 MB SystemReserved Partition and the remainder is the logical C: drive. When booting up, I can hit <esc>ESC during the ASUS post and select the system restore partition. From there I am in Windows7 restore mode and can use it to restore those saved images. It works very well. I would recommend partitioning and formatting the SSD disk this way. Of course I also have both entire physical disks backed up with images using Clonezilla to an external hdd as well. (I've also restored those images without problems. It recreates the system restore partition and all of the D: drive partitions)

I am hoping I can get by with this setup for a couple of years. By that time SSD's should have come down more in price, and I can upgrade the size. But if I had a 128 GB ssd in place right now, I would still do everything I have already done, but worry a lot less about space. </esc>

 

Nah, no slave/master pins anymore. That's IDE/PATA tech, and the g73 has SATA. Much nicer to work with, and much faster.

 

Oh good, DCx. One less thing to worry about, anyway. I'm embarrassingly behind on my terminology. The terms SATA and IDE seem familiar to me, but I don't really have a clue what they mean.

Thanks for the info, billy. That actually reminds me of another question, though. Formatting and partitioning. Why format in both NTFS and Fat32? I was sorta under the impression NTFS would be the natural way to go. Also, why partition to separate logical drives?

That's another interesting point. I've never had a computer with more than one storage drive in it. How sheltered am I?!

 

I have a small 10 GB partition in FAT32 for Linux stuff. Linux is still not safe to have write to NTFS partitions.

The logical drives I have partitioned in my 500GB D: drive are
d: 320 GB most program installations and data
f: 10 GB Fat
G: 130 GB Backup drive

Windows 7 backup program will not try to back up either FAT partitions or the partition where the backups are. But it will backup any other ones.

Windows basically removes user control from assigning system, program, and user data locations (although there are token concessions) so my theory is to work the system to maximum efficiency. The idea of keeping all data separate (while it sounds clever, is in reality impossible) Furthermore, the main reason for doing so is in the event of having to re-install Windows. That is a scenario I've managed to avoid ever since Windows 3.11 for workgroups. My current installation of Windows XP pro on my desktop is 8 yrs. old.

Good backups are my advice! I believe in system images of the drives using clonezilla. But I also use Windows 7 backups because they are very convenient, so I do them more often.

 

I know what you mean. My Windows XP install is 6 years old and going strong. The Windows 98se machine has a 10 year install and works as expected for 98se. Previously, the Windows 3.11 for Workgroups lasted about 7 years before the motherboard finally died and killed the Pentium 60. Then, there are the Amiga computers....

In all of the time I've been making backups, I've never had to use one to restore an installation. That is not to say that I haven't used backup software to transfer an existing OS to a larger drive or that I will stop making them. My backup software of choice is Acronis True Image Home.

 

Whoa! that is impressive! I use mine quite a bit because I sometimes make a mess of things. But sometimes it's just to try something outrageous. For example I followed one online tutorial on moving all of the User files on Windows 7 Pro over to the D: drive. It actually worked! But I thought there wasn't enough payoff in buying space on the C: drive (only about 200MB,) so I restored the old images. No sense upsetting Windows unnecessarily. The problem I see with space on the C: drive is these damn updates and service packs. Office 2007 had a 800MB service pack update. That's larger than the entire original installation! Then there was the 9.0 to 9.3 updates to Adobe Acrobat. That used another 800MB! And there is NO option to install those anywhere but on the C: drive! grrr. But I digress...

I know Acronis is a bullet proof way to image the disks, but I haven't had any problems with the freebies Clonezilla, or DriveImageXML so I've never sprung for pay versions.

 

LOL...those updates should NOT add 800MB to your used space. The updated files should be replaced. If you see behavior other than that, then complain to the vendor (I don't see that behavior on the two examples you mentioned).

Also, I'm pretty sure both those can be installed on the D drive, but if they're installed on C then of course you can't do an update on D.

Also, if you don't know this, after doing updates (or any software installs), go into Windows Explorer, type %temp% in the address bar and hit enter. This will bring you to your temp directory - delete all the files in there (there may be a few that are in-use and can't be deleted - those are ok)! Lots of installation stuff accumulates there if you don't I recommend cleaning the temp directory before/after EVERY install - there's still naughty installer extractors that won't extract a file to the temp directory if a newer file of the same name exists in the temp directory....imagine what that does to an installation