Laptop slower after converting to NTFS??

I just converted my A8Js to NTFS from FAT32 was it? using Partition Magic. And after the conversion, my laptop seems to run slower than it was before.

The boot time was the same up to the windows xp logo part, when it hits the logon screen, I can see the text now where it says "starting up", etc, and after I type in the password, it takes like 15 seconds to see the desktop, and the taskbar takes another few seconds to be 'clickable'.

Before this whole process only took like 10 seconds in total.

Anyone elese experiencing this problem?

 

The real way to test it would have been to use a hard drive test program. You could try defragging, cleaning up your boot sector and defragging that. The conversion process probably isn't perfect, so it might have left a mess. Also, have you installed or changed anything else on the computer?

 

make sure you set the clusters to 4kb (8 sectors per cluster), I'm not sure what PM defaults to, but if you use xp's built in converter it will make them 512b

 

rofl when i first got my laptop i didn't convert it for about a week. I noticed that it took like 10 bar thingies to start xp. Then i converted to ntfs and it took 1. I was very very very very very amazed and didn't believe it so i restarted and restarted and consistently started up with 1! but now since err improper shutdowns and stuff force shutoffs and those things seem to have made my hd worse as now it takes 10 again or so, i know measuring by the bars isn't a good unit to go by but wow 1 vs 10 after ntfs conversion

 

For me the xp logo time was about the same, it's the logon screen part that is slower.

I'm not sure how to clean boot sector?

jjintn, I resized the cluster size to 4k, the default was 512b, then I defragged the hard drive. Now it seems a little faster, but still not as fast as before.

p.s. with this whole process, my hard drive got to 55C at the defrag part, I have a seagate 7200rpm hd.

 

Not sure if this may help but i run this every time i start up computer

c:\windows\system32\defrag.exe c: -b

 

How do you resize the cluster size?

 

you;ll have to format the drive, correct? I normally use PM as its so dead simple to use. I think someone made a really nice guide somewhere in this forums, can find it now though....


Insane

 

You can resize the cluster size using Partition Magic, AuroraS.

Well the whole bootup time is like a minute now, before it was like half.

 

I used BootITNG to resize my clusters when converting to NTFS. It entails making a bootable iso copy of the program on a CD, not actually loading the program and then using the "partition tools" in the menu. Worked like a charm for me. Here's the LINK.

 

All right, I converted to NTFS after a system restore from recovery disk. ASUS recovery recovers C: to FAT32. How can I check what cluster sizes are being used, and can I resize them if necessary now that I've converted?
How would I do that?

Thanks -

 

I'm not sure if you can change the cluster size after converting to NTFS. It's usually something that is done before the conversion. See my previous post for a detailed link. To check your current cluster size, open up a DOS prompt box and run CHKDSK on the drive you are inquiring about. The cluster size will be listed as "bytes in each allocation unit". 4096 is the magic 4K that is considered optimum for NTFS.

 

You can resize them using partition magic (I think one of the posters above did that) however there is a risk of data loss, so do a backup first.

 

do you guys think that a brand new ntfs partition is faster than a converted one?

 

I dont have benchmark results, but I'd say it does feel a bit more responsive.


insane

 

lh, did you figure out what happened? because I will have to go throught the same process and I don't want to get a slower machine.

actually you know what, I just tried to boot from the XP home it came with my asus and...it's not the usual XP installation process, it just makes me choose if I want to create 2 partitions or just one and that's it. even if I get to the prompt the cd has only 3 EXE and none of those does anything useful.

so I'm stuck, I want just to reinstall everything with NTFS, but I can't.

unless I get a win XP pro, but through my University I can get only a Pro upgrade with SP 2, but I don't think I can boot from that cd and install it.

suggestions?

 

Huh, got yesterday mu W3J back from the repairs (it went randomly into BSODs, however ASUS did not manage to find any errors...) So as per recommendations I recovered it once again to one partition only. After installing bunch of the soft I only realized that I was installing everything onto FAT32, since ASUS recovery CD does not give the option of 1) full reformatting and 2) NTFS reformatting. OK, converting everything to NTFS. Voila - cluster size 512.
Just some minutes ago finished changing the cluster size with PowerQuest Partition Magic. Everything seems to be running normally, no errors, at least now.

 

I was under the impression that ntfs harddrives dont see any change with defragging. Is this the case, or is it just a very small difference?
thanks
Dan

 

Did you try to defrag?

 

I made the switch over last night with a clean copy of Windows XP formatted to NTFS. Everything seems so much faster now that the cluster size are what they're supposed to be.

It makes a HUGE difference.

 

how did you make a clean copy of windows XP formatted to NTFS? it doesn't give me any choice when I run the set-up, I only have XP home recovery CD.