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    New Asus "Maintenance"

    Discussion in 'Asus' started by Tomcool, Jan 14, 2007.

  1. Tomcool

    Tomcool Notebook Geek

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    Hey guys,

    Well I will be getting my first asus laptop this week (A8JP). I was wondering what you guys list of things you do when you first get a laptop to get it optimally configured. Like what programs do you get rid of and what other maintenance things do you do :cool: .

    Thanks :p
     
    Tomcool, Jan 14, 2007
    #1
  2. jtom

    jtom Notebook Evangelist

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    jtom, Jan 14, 2007
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  3. Wackyfighter

    Wackyfighter Notebook Enthusiast

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    I got my a8js just a month ago.
    I first formatted my hard drive to NTFS (4k clusters) and removed or disabled unecessary utitilies and bloat running.
    There isn't too much bloat except skype (depends on usefulness), and norton.
    There are many utitilies that I didn't need, such as multiple wireless config programs (so annoying to manage all) and other things in the taskbar. (You'll see later)

    The formatting is annoying because the hard drive contains about a 2 gb recovery, 60gb, and 40gb partition (total 111.7gb).
    There are quick ways to format such as Partition Magic (not free) or linux tools (need linux experience).

    However, I did it the free and practical way by:
    1. Deleting recovery partition w/ XP partition manager.
    - Create primary partition w/ it, label it E. (relabel dvd volume first)
    - You can't combine this using xp unless you buy partition manager software, so we start the long process.
    2. Using fdisk (created bootable win98 cd from older computers)
    - Delete all primary partitions c,d,e.
    - Create new primary partition with all space.
    - Format (to Fat32)
    3. Reinstall xp using recovery cds (2 recovery, 1 drivers)
    - Note that recovery cds WILL preset hard disk to Fat32 anyways, even if it was NTFS before.
    4. Align Fat32 partitions using program - bootitng
    - Download from website, and create bootable cd. (Free trial completely works)
    - Boot using cd.
    - Use button called "slide", and the ntfs option. Wait for hard drive to align.
    - You must align Fat32 partitions, or the NTFS converter will convert to 512 byte clusters (not efficient as 4kb)
    5. Convert to NTFS
    - Find shortcut for it in windows folder. Converts very quick.
    6. Remove/disable junk
     
    Wackyfighter, Jan 14, 2007
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  4. Tomcool

    Tomcool Notebook Geek

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    Nice link, will read it over.
     
    Tomcool, Jan 14, 2007
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