yet another q regarding HD formatting/partitioning (SORRY! PLEASE DON'T SHOOT!)

i've done a search (i swear) but i haven't found the instructions yet... i'm going to do more search later regarding which one to pick (FAT32/NTFS) since there're already tonnes of these out there, but as far as i can tell none of these actually teach u how (not regarding converting). so here're my q's:

1) when i used the NTFS converter on my desktop, as far as i can tell i can only convert D drive (the data drive) into NTFS (because it pretty asks 'are you sure you want to convert D into NTFS?' instead of asking 'which drive would u like to convert'... know wot i mean?) so my question is, how do i convert C into NTFS also then, if possible?

2) instead of C taking up around 60 and D taking up 90 (roughly), i'd like to have C taking up 40, D taking up 60 and create an E taking up the rest of the 60 (ok maybe not creating an E, but at least make C 40 and make D the rest). this is because i'm a believer of defragging and IF i have any huge video files in C it'll take too long to defrag and so i will never have any large files in C anyways (hence 40gb in C would suffice). can i do this without using partitionmagic (so can i use the windows thingy)? i ask this cuz AFAIK PM isn't free, and let's face it, i'm not gonna change partitions everyday, so i won't have use for PM after the first day of using it... no need to worry about overwriting data (i think?) cuz i'm getting a brand new G1 (am getting the 3-days-old one replaced cuz of some minor imperfection )

3) lastly, IF i were to partition C into 40gb and have ONLY programs installed (so no huge data like movies etc), how fast do you guys recon it'll take to defrag it? i'm asking this cuz i made a 'mistake' by putting in some video files into C into the current G1 and it took nearly 4 hours to defrag it... since i'm getting a brand new one i'm really dreading it if i had to defrag it for 4 hours again (hence wanting to repartition it if it's gonna be faster. see? all my q's are linked )

thanks A MILLION in advance for reading and not shooting me in my face

and thanks A BILLION for answering

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81828

With only program files, it never takes more than an hour on my system. Thos e program files include some games as well.

 

firstly, thanks for the awesome guide. it'll definitely come in handy when i decide to reinstall everything! so thanks (and bookedmarked )!

BUT, please correct me if i'm wrong, the partitioning instructions are for when i have a clean HDD, right? I don't want to reinstall everything yet, I just wonna take the new laptop, first remove all bloatwares and then repartition, without ever needing to reinstall windows... that's possible, right?

 

Yep, it's possible. I'm not sure if FDISK or qtParted support resizing of partitions, or how reliable that option is. I only used Partition Magic for that - and never had any issues... But you can try your luck before converting to NTFS with qtParted for instance. Be sure to back up your data though! (regardless of what software you use; things can always go wrong)

Just defrag the partitions, and then resize. The safest way is:

- cleanup D: - write data to DVD-RWs or something. This should be done anyway, see the backup advice above.
- defrag C: such that the files are more or less contiguous and placed in the first region of the drive. Make sure there are no files in the end region (which will be "cut off" from the partition). The partition utility should be able to handle moving those files during resize - but you never know.
- resize C: to desired size.
- move and resize D: to desired size.
- create E: in the remaining space.

Convert to NTFS using the instructions in my guide.

 

sorry for sounding like such a n00b, but i'd always wonna make 110% sure of things before i proceed (espcially when i've never done sth like this before!)

1) i guess partition magic's the way to go. but would the free trial allow me to do everything? as in the only limit is the number of days i can use it for, right?
2) from your reply i'm assuming that you'd recommend NTFS conversion for both C (where windows is installed) and other drives (where data is kept) right?
3) should i use windows to defrag or continue using auslogics to defrag before i proceed to repartitioning?

thank you so much. you have no idea how grateful i am

 

I don't know, the trial limitations should be stated on the download page. If you can't do all that you need, just try using qtParted or FDISK instead - if I read correctly then this is a new laptop and you don't have essential data, the worst that can happen is you have to restore to factory defaults -- using either the recovery partition (10minutes) or the recovery CDs.

Also take into consideration this option: wipe HDD *EXCEPT* first partition (hidden, recovery), do the layout as you require it with any partitioning software listed in my guide, recover from the recovery partition (10mins) *to the first partition only* (this won't affect the partition layout), and then remove bloatware and convert to NTFS as described in my guide. This should get you to the same result in a slightly lengthier, but safer, process.

Yes, I would. Although you probably won't feel much difference between NTFS and FAT32. Anyway, make sure you use 4KB clusters on the C partition -- see the guide or google for "converting fat32 to ntfs" for how to do that.

It's up to you. The windows defrag software actually stops early of a "complete" defragmentation using heuristic - approximate - criteria, so it might leave some files at the end of the partition (though this happens very rarely). If you're sure the software you use really compacts all the files nicely, I would use that instead.

You're welcome. Hope it all goes well.

 

For partition magic you would only need it for 1 day anyways, you will be able to make your partitions of your hard drive and then once your done, many wouldn't change it for a long time if needed.

I would recommend NTFS for all XP users, no point sticking with the older FAT32 unless you specifically need/want to.

With regards to defaging, you can basically use any program, Windows or anything else, I used to use O&O Degrag, it was one of the best programs out there, but then it started to go bonkers on my computer so I am now using Windows.

 

ok i will do that. have read your guide, and you've provided the links already. so instead of asking how i just wonna confirm:
1) partition C drive (the drive with windows) to make sure all files are at 'the front'
3) use partition magic to repartition the drives to desired sizes
2) use the bootit program to create bootable ISO image, follow instructions from the link u provided to align the drive to 4kb clusters (how can i check what clusters it's at? maybe i can actually skip this part... yes i know i'm lazy )
3) go to cmd to convert C (sorry need to clarify here, do i type "convert c: /fs:ntfs" or do i type just "/fs:ntfs"?)
4) make back up to everything in the now D (and perhaps E) and use disk management to convert D (and perhaps E) into ntfs
5) transfer files back into those data drive(s) after conversion
6) done

btw, not trying to suck up, but i've been to delft (gf did a year of exchange in utrecht and visited other cities when i visited her) and i gotta say i loved the city it's cute how there're these random bridges in the centre of the city and i LOVED the cathedral. i liked it better than amsterdam (but that's only cuz i can't take the weed... am very light weight )

thanks for the confirmation and recommendations. much appreciated!

EDIT: i've defragged the C drive (took around 1.5 hours), and just for the sake of it, decided to defrag it again after it was defragged the first time thinking that it should be quick and 'make sure' that everything's in place... but then it took another 1.5 hours to defrag the second time, and now i'm not sure if i wonna try the third time... is this normal?

 

Bold are corrections.

ok i will do that. have read your guide, and you've provided the links already. so instead of asking how i just wonna confirm:
1) defrag C drive (the drive with windows) to make sure all files are at 'the front'
the backup should be done HERE! before partitioning
3) use partition magic to repartition the drives to desired sizes
2) use the bootit program to create bootable ISO image, follow instructions from the link u provided to align the drive to 4kb clusters boundaries (how can i check what clusters it's at? you can't directly, it will only align the files, but when it says aligned them you can be sure they are aligned. Also do NOT skip this step, you will have a performance drop if you do)
3) go to cmd to convert C (sorry need to clarify here, do i type "convert c: /fs:ntfs" this first variant is correct or do i type just "/fs:ntfs"?)
4) make back up to everything in the now D (and perhaps E) and use disk management to convert D (and perhaps E) into ntfs see above, data should already have been backed up
5) transfer files back into those data drive(s) after conversion
6) done

I also like it better than Amsterdam, actually I'm only a resident here not a native, so you're not sucking up

Nope, this is not normal. It should take less the second/third time if it's done properly the first time. In this case I suggest using the default Windows XP defrag utility.

 

alllllllllllrighty then. thanks so much for your help. i'm going to do this tomorrow (it's going back to asus for tonight cuz it has 1 dead pixel ) and will hopefully report good news!

thanks to you two again!

EDIT: just wanted to make sure: i scheduled it to convert upon next restart, but before that it asked if i wanted to force dismount, which sounded a bit scary to me so i chose 'no'. hope i did the right thing?

 

i'm going through the details now before i attempt the conversion tonight, and have reached this stage in the guide IN your guide: "Download the BOOTITNG.ZIP file to its own folder, extract the contents of the ZIP file, then run BOOTITNG.EXE, which will make a bootable floppy. Boot this floppy..."

well obviously i don't have a floppy drive. just wondering, how do i make a bootable CD/DVD using this? i know in your guide it says "The trial version can be used to create an bootable ISO image which can then be burnt onto a CD. Boot from that CD..." but i absolutely have no clue what that means

so what EXACTLY am i supposed to do (including how i can set it to boot from the CD/DVD and then back to booting into windows xp. sorry ya i know... i'm such a n00b)? thanks!

EDIT: oh btw it has just struck me - when the G1 first arrived there was this icon on the desktop called 'ntfs converter' and double clicking it brings up a DOS-prompt to convert D drive into NTFS. NOW, if it's already there without the requirement to first aligning it, is it safe to assume that ASUS has already aligned it to 4kb boundaries?

 

I really don't remember but either:
- the BootItNG setup creates both a floppy image and an ISO
or
- you are asked during setup which of the two you wish to create

Either way, you will end up with an ISO image in the BootItNG installation directory. Now, start Nero or whateverr, and burn that ISO to a CD (Create CD from Image, DO NOT place the ISO file on a data CD, that won't be a bootable CD)

Then reboot, hit ESC to bring up the boot prompt when the ASUS splash screen is displayed, and choose to boot from CD/DVD on the ensuing menu. Alternatively, boot into BIOS and change the first boot device to CD/DVD (if it's not already set to that). After that, follow the instructions on that webpage.

D: is nicely aligned, only some "weird" files on the system partition C: are not. So you only need to align C:. If you run the default converter you will end up with 512bytes clusters, so you do need to align C:.

If you think all this is too complicated, just leave the system partition to FAT32, or convert it without any alignment. The performance drop isn't really that significant (it might be felt however).

 

i will certainly give it a try anyways. it doesn't sound THAT complicated, i think...

thanks so much again! wish me luck!

 

ok followed the instruction... i did both 'resize' and 'slide' (wotever that means... slide offered an option to 'align for NTFS'... i did that thing, hope i didn't screw up anything by doing that)

before converting it to NTFS, i did a quick check using the windows defrag program. here's the report:

Volume (C
Volume size = 29.80 GB
Cluster size = 16 KB
Used space = 13.09 GB
Free space = 16.71 GB
Percent free space = 56 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 6 %
File fragmentation = 12 %
Free space fragmentation = 1 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 25,016
Average file size = 369 KB
Total fragmented files = 22
Total excess fragments = 91
Average fragments per file = 1.00

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 0 bytes
Total fragments = 0

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 2,371
Fragmented folders = 5
Excess folder fragments = 8

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File Size Most fragmented files
2 15 MB \WINDOWS\RTHDCPL.EXE
2 791 KB \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\WMVDMOD.DLL
2 50 KB \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\NVAPPS.XML
3 64 KB \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\WBEM\Logs\WMIPROV.LO_
2 1,000 bytes \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\WBEM\Logs\WMIPROV.LOG
2 530 KB \WINDOWS\Downloaded Program Files\npCtxCao.dll
2 8 MB \WINDOWS\I386\LANG\HWXJPN.DL_
4 1 KB \Documents and Settings\T\ntuser.dat.LOG
3 885 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\XUL.MFL
6 939 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\Cache\_CACHE_001_
3 788 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\Cache\_CACHE_002_
4 676 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\Cache\_CACHE_003_
2 21 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\Cache\DE0475A3d01
2 44 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\Cache\3273BD4Dd01
2 719 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\Cache\FA6A6F96d01
2 799 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Ahead\Nero StartSmart\CACHE\NRM.DAT
2 77 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Desktop\Maintenance\degragged.JPG
2 605 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\HISTORY.DAT
2 3 MB \Documents and Settings\T\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\urlclassifier2.sqlite
59 1.64 GB \Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\counter-strike source shared.gcf
3 873 KB \Program Files\Steam\SERVERS\serverbrowser.dll
2 44 KB \Program Files\Citrix\ICAWEB32\Resource\EN\nrhttpUI.dll

now my question is: why does it say cluster size 16kb still? i already told it to do it to 4kb (i CHOSE 4kb instead of letting it do auto when i used the 'resize' option)

any comments? thanks!

 

4kb is the cluster size after conversion to NTFS.

What you are reading now is the FAT32 cluster size.

If you did "lide offered an option to 'align for NTFS'... i did that thing, hope i didn't screw up anything by doing that" then now you can convert to NTFS and the resulting cluster size should be 4kb

 

ahhhhhhhh ic ic

thanks i shall proceed to the conversion now! thanks!!!

 

conversion complete (wow it was quick!)

Volume (C
Volume size = 29.81 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 12.95 GB
Free space = 16.87 GB
Percent free space = 56 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 14 %
File fragmentation = 28 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 25,106
Average file size = 630 KB
Total fragmented files = 40
Total excess fragments = 210
Average fragments per file = 1.00

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 0 bytes
Total fragments = 0

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 2,372
Fragmented folders = 30
Excess folder fragments = 49

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 27 MB
MFT record count = 27,499
Percent MFT in use = 99 %
Total MFT fragments = 4

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File Size Most fragmented files
59 1.64 GB \Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\counter-strike source shared.gcf
58 2 MB \WINDOWS\system32\config\system.LOG
18 36 KB \WINDOWS\system32\config\software.LOG
8 40 KB \WINDOWS
7 240 KB \WINDOWS\security\logs\convert.log
7 990 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\Cache\_CACHE_001_
6 344 KB \WINDOWS\system32
5 2.00 GB \pagefile.sys
5 847 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\Cache\_CACHE_002_
5 20 KB \WINDOWS\system32\config\default.LOG
5 64 KB \WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Logs\wmiprov.lo_
5 24 KB \Documents and Settings\LocalService\ntuser.dat.LOG
5 24 KB \Documents and Settings\NetworkService\ntuser.dat.LOG
4 1 MB \WINDOWS\I386
4 708 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\78wrhtah.default\Cache\_CACHE_003_
4 140 KB \Documents and Settings\T\ntuser.dat.LOG
4 50 KB \WINDOWS\system32\nvapps.xml
4 1 KB \WINDOWS\system32\config\SAM.LOG
4 16 KB \WINDOWS\system32\config\SECURITY.LOG
3 28 KB \Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_08\lib\zi\America
3 12 KB \Program Files\Real\RealPlayer
3 24 KB \Program Files\FarStone\VirtualDrive
3 12 KB \Program Files\Logitech\SetPoint
3 16 KB \Program Files\ASUSTek\ASUSDVD
3 12 KB \Program Files
3 12 KB \Documents and Settings\T\Local Settings\Temp
3 2 MB \WINDOWS\security\Database\convert.sdb
3 17 KB \WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Logs\wmiprov.log
3 873 KB \Program Files\Steam\servers\serverbrowser.dll
2 16 KB \

4kb clusters as expected. dunno if it's psychological but bootup seems to be quicker (used to be 7.5 bars running for the winxp page now down to 4.5 i think... will restart a few more times just to make sure)

off to defragging now

thanks soooo much for your help dude! u're awesome!