Fuk me susie!

[edub357]

its looking that way thanks for all your advice, my next venture is setting up my drives in partitions for windows and audio, is there a post here specifically for that? i was searching and theres some that touch the subject, theres a post on how to optimize xp for recording is there a post for vista? am i wasting my time with vista or should i just throw my eggs at windows 7?

[garww]

I wouldn't jump on any MS release for a year. My laptop came with Vista 32 and it made sense to just clean it up.

I have never used Hibernate, for example, but the machine was set-up for it. It leaves files in "safe places" and most defrags wont move them. The ADMIN tools for creating/formating partition will let you know by the size. I could only get a 20gb extended partition on the 250gb drive : )

Generally, the tips for xp are for "fixing" from the same programmer mistakes/features in Vista. The only one I really wanted, was to get rid of pop-ups : )

[edub357]

my new pc is set up as having a c:/ drive 300 gb then theres also i believe a partition set up for 11gb do i put my programs there and use the 300 gb partition for my audio files? im confused about partitions and dual core processors, i also am running the 32 bit vista and there is alot of stuff thats running all the time especially in the start up tray, which im using the new reg cure program and disabling unnessesary things from the start up, do you have anyother suggestions as to what is not needed.

[garww]

I really have been kind of out of it for many years, but it seems there may be a hidden Partition for system/restore functions. My XP pro print server has that. The machine I sit at has a clean install of XP home with volumes thru K:. For the Vista 32 , I shrunk the main volume and added a 5-10gb just for swap, and added four 49Gb additional partitions. I record to f: and use the other parts for dubbing records, storage etc..

[edub357]

Originally Posted by garww

I really have been kind of out of it for many years, but it seems there may be a hidden Partition for system/restore functions. My XP pro print server has that. The machine I sit at has a clean install of XP home with volumes thru K:. For the Vista 32 , I shrunk the main volume and added a 5-10gb just for swap, and added four 49Gb additional partitions. I record to f: and use the other parts for dubbing records, storage etc..

damn i gotta get my pc over to my i.t. guru then so he can hook it up for me i dont want to risk messing another computer up. thanks for the insight.

[garww]

Partitioning isn't so hard, but it does have that element of complete disaster.

If you have a extra drive, practice on that. But really, It should not be difficult. Don't mess with the hidden partitions.

The drive tools in xp/vista are pretty good for shrinking the drive c: and adding new volumes.

I used the download EASEUS defrag to move my files so I could partition the drive to the MAX.

[edub357]

thats all done with a 230 gb drive damn i have a 320 in this new pc so i have a c drive with 180gb free also a factory image drive d which is 11 gb(1gb free) is this where windows is? do they partition the drive out of the box for windows? going off of your image i could partition this drive for A, recording B,software/plugins and so on? where do i keep my programs vrs music files so that they open fast and draw less strain on the cpu. I also have now a dual core processor how can i use this to my advantage being im going to be recording on this pc? Thanks again buddy youve been a big help in understanding this.

[garww]

The CPU thing should take care of itself. A single drive isn't optimal for streaming - like recording.

Getting a defrag that is useful is a problem. Many utilities don't care so much about having your precious .wav in a recoverable series of sectors. They often just defrag the empty spaces.

I just understand that having good tools is a lost cause, so I segregate things with partitions - even the old 5Mb drives got 5 partitions.

I recommend you make a smallish partition for your swap/thrash drive. You can find a large swap file somewhere. I keep mine on drive d: and for my XP it's a 1.6gb Pagefile.sys. So you can segregate the swap file and it won't mess with your drive c:. Managing the swap file in buried in device manager. On the laptop, I'm using only a few apps, so all the programs are on c:.

My plan on the new laptop is to use a partition to record and then store on another drive. I'm not doing any heavy work, so I have not been too concerned about it. I do make mental notes when I do something to frag a drive, though. If all my work is adding to the drive, I shouldn't have any big defrag problems.

You have to wrap your head around some things. There is defrag and there is optimize. The difference has become blurred, but optimize parts-out your file so it is read faster. Also, there is read and write cache. A cache is a memory buffer for I/O. I personally, keep all cache off and never optimize, but you have to understand that they are processes to give the appearance of increased performance. I'm more concerned with the data, than the performance.

[edub357]

thanks so much for this youve broken it down rather easily.