JW said:
My boot disk is FAT32 (holdover from Win98). Therefore I'm limited
to 32GB (40GB physical disk). Can my boot disk 1. Be NTFS, and 2. A
larger partition, such as 80GB or larger? It's not like I'm running
of space (I have 240GB on 2 other disks), but the boot drive is
getting up there in age, and I'd like to replace it before
something bad happens. Ideally, I'd like to use my 80GB as my boot
disk so I can the 40GB, and replace the 80GB with a 500GB or larger
drive. Although 90% of my data is on secondary drives, I don't have
enough space on the boot disk to attempt a NTFS conversion.
Also, I use Norton Ghost. Does anyone know if I can image a FAT32
drive to an NTFS drive? Thanks in advance.
Multi-post?!
Please look into cross-posting for the future.
- You were not limited to 32GB by anything other than the OSes formatting
utilities and your lack of knowledge on the facts surrounding FAT32. You
could have used the entire 40GB physical drive (or more if it was available)
as a FAT32 boot partition for Windows XP (or some prior OSes.)
- Your boot disk *can be* NTFS.
- There is no limit I know of (with current systems) of how large your boot
partition can be. Got a 1TB drive - make the entire thing C and bootable.
Looking at your situaion and desire (assuming this is a Windows XP only
sytstem now)... I would probably find myself doing the following:
1) Using my favorite imaging application, imaging my boot drive (your 32GB
partition.)
2) Using Windows XP command line to convert my boot driver to NTFS
(Start --> RUN --> type in: cmd /k convert /? --> Click OK to get more
information.) I would free space if needed by uninstalling software i have
CDs for, safely removing files I have stored on there elsewhere, etc. Even
with applications installed (many many applications) a Windows XP
installation usually takes up between 4.5 and 9GB - so if I had a 32GB
partition - I have PLENTY of space that I must be wasting elsewhere if it is
not showing as free. Yes - there may be a cluster size issue - but nothing
'show stopping'. In fact - I only mention it because if I don't - someone
else might.
3) When it was done successfully (my backup plan was step 1) I would make a
new image of the drive/partition for safe keeping and to transfer it to the
new hard drive.
4) I would install the new hard drive, boot with my imaging software's boot
CD/whatever, apply the image I just made to it - letting it expand to
whatever size the drive is, and then be done with it - having a huge NTFS
boot drive.
Having trouble with the free space thing?
If you are comfortable with the stability of your system, you can delete the
uninstall files for the patches that Windows XP has installed...
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/spack.htm
( Particularly of interest here - #4 )
( Alternative:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm )
You can run Disk Cleanup - built into Windows XP - to erase all but your
latest restore point and cleanup even more "loose files"..
How to use Disk Cleanup
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312
You can turn off hibernation if it is on and you don't use it..
When you hibernate your computer, Windows saves the contents of the system's
memory to the hiberfil.sys file. As a result, the size of the hiberfil.sys
file will always equal the amount of physical memory in your system. If you
don't use the hibernate feature and want to recapture the space that Windows
uses for the hiberfil.sys file, perform the following steps:
- Start the Control Panel Power Options applet (go to Start, Settings,
Control Panel, and click Power Options).
- Select the Hibernate tab, clear the "Enable hibernation" check box, then
click OK; although you might think otherwise, selecting Never under the
"System hibernates" option on the Power Schemes tab doesn't delete the
hiberfil.sys file.
- Windows will remove the "System hibernates" option from the Power Schemes
tab and delete the hiberfil.sys file.
You can control how much space your System Restore can use...
1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the System Restore tab.
3. Highlight one of your drives (or C: if you only have one) and click on
the "Settings" button.
4. Change the percentage of disk space you wish to allow.. I suggest moving
the slider until you have just about 1GB (1024MB or close to that...)
5. Click OK.. Then Click OK again.
You can control how much space your Temporary Internet Files can utilize...
Empty your Temporary Internet Files and shrink the size it stores to a
size between 64MB and 128MB..
- Open ONE copy of Internet Explorer.
- Select TOOLS -> Internet Options.
- Under the General tab in the "Temporary Internet Files" section, do the
following:
- Click on "Delete Cookies" (click OK)
- Click on "Settings" and change the "Amount of disk space to use:" to
something between 64MB and 128MB. (It may be MUCH larger right
now.)
- Click OK.
- Click on "Delete Files" and select to "Delete all offline contents"
(the checkbox) and click OK. (If you had a LOT, this could take 2-10
minutes or more.)
- Once it is done, click OK, close Internet Explorer, re-open Internet
Explorer.
You can use an application that scans your system for log files and
temporary files and use that to get rid of those:
Ccleaner (Free!)
http://www.ccleaner.com/
Other ways to free up space..
SequoiaView
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/
JDiskReport
http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html
Those can help you visually discover where all the space is being used.
In the end - a standard Windows XP installation with all sorts of extras
will not likely be above about 4.5GB to 9GB in size. If you have more space
than that (likely do on a modern machine) and most of it seems to be used -
likely you need to copy *your stuff* off and/or find a better way to manage
it.
