2 Hd's, Reformatting One
<div class="IPBDescription">computer HD question</div> This might seem like a stupid question but here goes...i just got another HardDrive installed and now I have two. I moved all the files i want to the new HD(C:) and want to reformat the old one(D:). After I reformat D: can I move all the files that i dont want on C:, like music and movies to D:, which will have no OS besides dos, and access them normally through C:?
Second which way do would you suggest reformatting D: just through dos and typing in the reformat command(which i think is D:\ formatD:) or do it through the windows xp cd
Thanks to anyone that can answer either one.
Second which way do would you suggest reformatting D: just through dos and typing in the reformat command(which i think is D:\ formatD:) or do it through the windows xp cd
Thanks to anyone that can answer either one.
Comments
I did it on my old win98 comp.
[monse, dont hurt me]
You, my friend, have just sealed your fate.
You would only do that if you wanted a Fat32 filesystem, and there really isn't any good reason to use that anymore.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> or do it through the windows xp cd
Thanks to anyone that can answer either one.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And thats a waste of time. Assuming you're using XP, just rightclick on "My Computer" and select manage and then Disk Management. Right click on the drive you want to format and select "format". The filesystem you probably want in this case is NTFS.
FAT32 is also <b><i>MUCH</b></i> faster at defragging, even if NTFS is slightly more fragmentation-resistant. (I'd rather spend an hour every month defragging, than five days a year)
And then there's Linux interoperability... NTFS can be read, but not written safely.
Oh, and there's the fact that under NTFS, at least on my machine paging files to disk CHUGS like no tomorrow.. 20-second access times are pretty standard, when under FAT32, it took about two seconds at most. I suspect a HAL problem, again.
Then again, what do you expect from a company that tried to copyright symlinks.
I have never, in my entire life, had a problem with this.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
FAT32 is also <b><i>MUCH</b></i> faster at defragging<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I call BS on that. Jesus, it takes like 10 minutes to defrag a nearly full 40gig HD every week on an NTFS drive. Back when I used win98 (fat32) defragging was sometinhg I did over the weekend, start it when I leave and it might be almost done when I get back 2 days later.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And then there's Linux interoperability... NTFS can be read, but not written safely.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a genuine concern if you ever intend to dual-boot linux.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Oh, and there's the fact that under NTFS, at least on my machine paging files to disk CHUGS like no tomorrow..<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You'd have to be doing a lot of work or have virtually no ram. I run about the most outdated system on this entire board and I've never had an issue with paging when I didn't have a ton of **** running.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->20-second access times are pretty standard<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
At this point I have to ask, just what kind of horrible thing are you doing to your system?
Oh, and without NTFS you don't get any filesystem based security, if thats important to you.
<a href='http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm' target='_blank'>here</a> is a simple comparison
<a href='http://www.thundercloud.net/information-avenue/ntfs-vs-fat32/' target='_blank'>put annother way</a>
The only time I would ever use FAT again is for putting the pagefile on its own fat16 partition to increase performance (as specified in Monse's tuning guide)
FAT32 is also <b><i>MUCH</b></i> faster at defragging, even if NTFS is slightly more fragmentation-resistant. (I'd rather spend an hour every month defragging, than five days a year)
And then there's Linux interoperability... NTFS can be read, but not written safely.
Oh, and there's the fact that under NTFS, at least on my machine paging files to disk CHUGS like no tomorrow.. 20-second access times are pretty standard, when under FAT32, it took about two seconds at most. I suspect a HAL problem, again.
Then again, what do you expect from a company that tried to copyright symlinks. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
*Notice the comparision that skulkbait gave for NTFS and FAT32 edits post* I went to the disk management and it says that my bootdisk is NFTS and the one i want to reformat is FAT32. Just kind of wondering is i should leave them different or change them to be the same, if you can.
Last question, will the reformat from here will completely wipe the HD cause theres a virus in windows on that that drive that I want to make sure is gone.
As for the NTFS defrag, it's just a fact of life that it operates slower. The filesystem isn't set up to defrag.. it's meant to prevent it from being needed. But it fails, and the defrag takes quite a bit longer.
You're running a 40GB drive... FAT32 would be faster. NTFS only really starts to show short-term advantages on 60GB+ partitions. And given that my total storage currently exceeds 500GB at the moment, I'd *STILL* take FAT32 over NTFS.
Even if workload was heavy, and a full disk swap was required.. the system should not stop while paging is in process. Oop.. another downside to NTFS. The HAL is an extra drain on the CPU, and can actually end up eating more RAM. Making the swap slower.
As for the games that have problems with NTFS, Neverwinter Nights was one title that immediately came to mind. It attempted direct disk write, which didn't fly. So the program crashed out. Perhaps you remember the early problems with Black & White, where 90% of people playing on Win2K were unable to auth? NTFS' fault.
As for what I'm doing with my machine at the moment, let me see. 16 Firefox windows open, tabbed browsing enabled, 15 tabs each would be a decent estimate. XChat, Trillian, a few instances of Notepad, WinAMP, and Maya 6. So long as I don't switch to a Firefox window, everything's happy. The problem is, even if I only have two FF windows open, it causes the same slowdown as the cache is paged into memory.
Anyway:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I went to the disk management and it says that my bootdisk is NFTS and the one i want to reformat is FAT32. Just kind of wondering is i should leave them different or change them to be the same, if you can.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thats entirely up to you. I would say you want to reformat the one as NTFS, and the links I provided agree with me (in fact, I couldn't find a link that recomended fat32 over NTFS except on dual-boot systems). However, you might want to get your self a copy of Monse's tuning guide, which will describe how to set up a small FAT16 partition on that second drive where you can place your pagefile for performance reasons.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Last question, will the reformat from here will completely wipe the HD cause theres a virus in windows on that that drive that I want to make sure is gone.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes.
Oh, so you don't have to track it down, here is monse's tuning guide: