Should I convert my W3J to NTFS???

I've had my W3J for about 3 weeks now and am absolutely loving it, no problems whatsoever.

However I'm unsure as to whether I should use the NTFS converter

I've read a lot about the pro's and cons of each, and my general understanding now is that if i convert to NTFS the cluster size will be set at the default 512 bytes, which will slow the system down, but it will be more secure than Fat32.

Basically what I want to know is, if I only use the NTFS converter (the one on the desktop) and keep the original partions with no re-formatting, will I notice any change in speed? And will the cluster size be 512 bytes.

Any help is greatly appreciated

 

In reality unless u use benchmarking programs you probably wont notice the difference no the smaller laptop hdds. Here is a good list of the pro cons of each system, I personally prefer NTFS, its safer, performs better over larger volumes and has better disk space enconomy.... so convert away I say.

a

 

If you convert to NTFS and don't back-up and reformat the drive, you will end up with 512 byte clusters and bad performance unless you re-align the drive as detailed here: http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php

General thoughts - I like NTFS and tend to use it, but . . .

Pros - More secure and much less prone to fragmentation than FAT32. (OTOH, I had FAT32 on my WinXP box for several months before I converted and didn't notice a significant speed change either way).

Cons - Not supported by Win98 or Linux - On my Win98 box, I used to use Knoppix for file access when Win98 was having problems. It was a useful troubleshooting tool when I say wanted to wipe the Windows directory and re-install without wiping out all the other data. Can't do that with an NTFS drive unless I have XP installed on another drive and install the problem drive as a secondary . . .

 

Initially, I used the converter, but I started having weird issues like the lockups and no wakeup after standby that people here have been mentioning. I then tried using the recovery disk to reformat to NTFS completely.. but the bootup became slow. So I installed my own copy of Win XP Pro and formatted to NTFS.. The bootup is significantly faster now, and I haven't encountered any issues.

 

Cheers guys, sounds like too much hassle to me. FAT32 seems to be performing fine so I think i'll give it a miss.

Ledzepp, when you say that bootup is now significantly faster, do you mean faster than FAT32 or faster than NTFS (using ASUS' converter).

 

Didn't realize it was an ASUS converter, WinXP has one as well.

 

Faster than converted NTFS.. I don't know the technical reason why.. but when I converted it.. another load screen (black background with loading bar on bottom) would show up for about 7-10 seconds right before the Windows logo. After reformatting with my own copy of Windows, the loading screen was gone, and bootup is about 20 seconds now.. down from about 35

 

Usually that is the screen that lets you decide whether you want to boot into Safe Mode or command prompt of a different OS if you have it set to dual boot. You can set the delay: START>Control Panel>System>Advanced Tab>Startup and Recovery>Settings>Time to Display List of Operating Systems.

I'm guessing your version of Windows was optimized to set this to 0 or 1 second.

 

My new W3j, and W3v before that, came with a desktop link to a batch file that just ran the Windows CONVERT utility... I didn't see any Asus-specific converter.

 

I personally reccommend you convert to NTFS. It makes a whole lot of difference of the time saved during defragmentation.

 

Yeah, the ASUS' specific converter is just a link to the XP convert utility.

I'm still unsure as to how much difference in speed I'm gonna notice with 512byte clusters. What will it actually slow down, boot-up, file access? And by how much?

I got this laptop with a 7200rpm HDD to make it as speedy as possible, the last thing I want to do is undo the efforts that's putting in to increase speed

 

I just converted my Asus W7J to NTFS. Seems fine.

Is it possible to use an aftermarket utility to convert the 512 byte clusters to 4K?

What special drivers are required to reformat and reinstall XP on a Core Duo notebook?

Thanks
Tom

 

Apparently no-one read my link to http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php You were supposed to convert to 4K clusters before converting the drive.

I don't know if you can do it afterwards, but Partition Magic would be the most likely program.

 

It looks as if Partition Magic 8.0 can handle this (see last bullet). I have not tested it though.

 

You don't need any special drivers, Windows xp CD can support reformat during the installation. Not only this, but also the recovery cd can help you to format a HD. If you use a full version Windows xp cd to reformat the HD, you have a options to choose FAT32 or NTFS, whereas only option for FAT32 after using recovery cd to reformat and reinstall xp.

Cheers,

 

Thanks,
Yes, big mistake not to convert to 4K while still fat32. There is a lot of questionable feedback regarding NTFS cluster size conversion using Partition Magic 8 or Partition Commander. Has anyone actually done this? Partition Manager from Paragon looks promising.
So, the included recovery disks do not include an NTFS format option and can only reinstall to the original FAT32 configuration?
Does anyone know why Asus uses two FAT32 partitions in the first place? One reason I chose them over Sony was to avoid the bloatware reformat.
Thanks
Tom

 

I have never used ASUS recovery software so cannot comment reliably on that.

All the reviews I have read mentioned Partition Magic for creating partitions or re-sizing them without losing data. (That doesn't mean the other products won't work).

Again, the safest (and really only recommended) way to do this is to back up your data first and then try re-aligning the clusters. If the partitioning software works, you have a current backup of your data that you didn't need, but you might need later if the HD crashes. If the partitioning software fails, you can reformat and recover and then copy your data over.

Don't know. Most recovery software does do a reformat. Not sure if it has a option to select NTFS for the format, or if there is a pause between the reformat and the applications installation, where you could convert to NTFS and then proceed, or not.

Worst case is you run the recovery software and end up with a FAT32 partition, then this time you align to 4K clusters first, then you convert to NTFS, then you replace your data, then you GHOST this image and restore from that in the future rather than using the recovery disks.

Info on Ghost here: http://ghost.radified.com/ (Note that you can get it online with Norton Systemworks 2003 for about $15 if you don't want to pay more from Symantec).

Can't say for sure, but if I had to guess - Win98 and Linux can both use FAT32, neither can write to NTFS (Win98 can't even see NTFS). WinXP works okay with FAT32, and in fact NTFS main advantage is with large partitions. So FAT32 gives them a lot of flexibility without tech support being barraged with people trying to install Linux and not realizing they needed to reformat as FAT32, at the expense of slightly degraded performance in WinXP.

 

How can you tell, if you didn't do anything but the convert program, if you have 512 byte clusters?

Krista

 

I think that is pretty much guaranteed, but you can probably verify it with most defrag programs or sysinfo programs like Aida32 or Everest or SiSoft Sandra.

 

Or just run a chkdsk on that partition, it will report the cluster size after completing the check.

Edit: Windows/Run
cmd
and then: chkdsk c:

 

In my experience, I never trusted Partition Magic or any similar tools. If I want to make huge changes to the format of my hard drive, I just reformat since that's the only guaranteed way to do it correctly. I'm very perfectionist and I'd rather just back everything up and do it the right way. In order to be safe about the conversion, you need to back up anyway, so why not do a nice, fresh reformat of the computer and get a fresh start again. Ideally you would want a clean (non-ASUS) install of the operating system, but this is not always possible.

I'm curious whether the ASUS Product Key will work with other Windows XP Professional CDs, but even if it does work, that is almost certainly against the EULA.

 

It didn't work for me.

 

Well, that's too bad, I have an extra copy of Windows XP Pro (School Licensing is great), but I'm not the kind to waste a perfectly good license of XP. What kind of disk did you have when you tried to use that key? I'm wondering if another OEM disk (Possibly from Dell or HP) would work for this system.

I once did work on an eMachine where the motherboard died. The replacement motherboard had a very similar chipset, but the Windows install on the Restore CD would just bluescreen right off the bat and restart. I needed to keep it legal, but didn't want to have to buy another license for XP Home. I ended up putting in my HP OEM Windows XP Home disk and decided to install it. At no time in the install did it ask for a Product Key and when it finally booted up, it asked me to activate. I decided to give the activation a try anyway and it came up with "Product Key is invalid, please enter a new key." I put in the key from the label on the back of the machine and away it went and activated successfully. Like I said before, this may not be 100% legal, but a license did exist for this installation, it was just the restore cd that could not be used.

 

Depends which version of XP they shipped - There are retail and two different types of OEM versions - See http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm

 

For the cluster resize from 32K to 4K, the link suggested to use Bootitng software which require a floopy drive...
Is there any other software to do the same job? Say, Norton Partitionmagic?

 

Very informative article, it looks like we will not be able to use the key on the bottom of the computer for activation. This is very disappointing indeed. The eMachine computer that had the problem was probably from 2003, so if they are restricting the new keys, saying that they cannot be activated, then I guess we are stuck.

The only other possibility I can think of is backing up and restoring the activation files from the ASUS installation to see if that works. Possibly since those files should make it activated, there would be no issue. At this point I don't have an ASUS or Windows XP Pro OEM, so I really can't say. If someone does, that would be a cool thing to try.

EDIT: Just read more and it looks like backing up and restoring activation files may not even work across clean reinstalls of the exact same Windows version! So this is probably not viable after all. I guess there is no option unless ASUS decides to start distributing an OEM Windows XP Pro CD.