Re: Help me please - partitions and start up issues!

Gerry,

I've added my replies underneath your questions.



"Gerry Cornell" wrote:

Brent

What came in the box with regard to disks and a manual?
A basic manual came with the notebook explaining the basics, such as where
the "Power On" button is. It's an Acer Aspire 5102. It didn't come with any
restore disks, but it has a built-in restore feature and a program that
creates system restore disks (7CDs or 3DVDs) which I already made.



What backup media capability do you have and what would you need?
I think I answered this above.


What is on your D partition? How large is it? You refer to 9 mb, which
makes no sense. Do you mean 9 gb?
Sorry if it doesn't make sense, but it's true. There hard drive is divided
into three partitions. A C: data drive, a D: data drive, and a third
partition for system restore files totalling about 8 GB. All that I can see
(and yes, I went to "Show hidden files and folders" already) on the D: drive
is a few temporary install files totalling 9 MB in size.


To investigate how you are using hard disk space you need to make sure
that you can see all files. Go to Start, Control Panel, Folder Options,
View, Advanced Settings and verify that the box before "Show hidden
files and folders" is checked and "Hide protected operating system files
" is unchecked. You may need to scroll down to see the second item. You
should also make certain that the box before "Hide extensions for known
file types" is not checked. Next in Windows Explorer make sure View,
Details is selected and then select View, Choose Details and check
before Name, Type, Total Size, and Free Space.
There are no hidden files or folders on the D: drive, however the system
restore partition is hidden.



You need a third party utility to remove a partition without destroying
files.
I read about useful software to do this on another site. Thanks, though.



You can utilise your D partition by moving folders / files from your C
drive. However, we need to know if the computer supplier (was it Tiger
Direct?) has placed a back copy of Windows XP on your D drive?
Acer made my notebook and I bought it from Future Shop (Canadian version of
Best Buy).




I would have expected the hard drive to be formatted as NTFS not FAT 32.
It is relatively easy to convert from FAT32 to NTFS but you cannot
reverse the process.
http://kadaitcha.cx/ntfs.html
Gerry, I found a web site that explains how to convert the hard drive to
NTFS, but what are the benefits to me doing so? And what are the risks
related to doing so?




--

Hope this helps.
Yes, thank you very much for your assistance. It is much appreciated.



Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Brent Jones" <BrentJones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:FD7104F3-604A-4A11-9958-0ABA0945372D@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1. Occasionally when I power on my notebook (usually when it is
plugged into
a power supply or when attempting to bring it out of Standby Mode) it
gives
me an error message indicating that due to an improper shutdown, I
need to
set my system date and time accordingly before starting up my system.
These
messages occur with no pattern, and I have never shut down my system
improperly since I purchased it. This is very annoying because I have
owned
this system for less than a month, and that type of error message
should not
be happening, yet it occurs every couple of days. I bought an Acer
Aspire
5100 Notebook on November 15th, 2006.

2. I do not like how my alleged 120 GB hard drive has been partitioned
into
a C: and D: drive, splitting the available hard drive space in two.
From what
I can tell, the D: drive is seemingly useless, with only a few files
on it
consuming 9 MB. I would like someone to walk me through how to safely
remove
the D: drive and have one consistent drive (C:) to contain all system
and
user files... I do not want to lose any data in the process though!

3. I have heard that my notebook came with a FAT32 system structure. I
am
not sure what that means, but there is another type that begins with
an "N"
that is apparently better and when I upgrade to Vista, will run Vista
much
smoother. Does anyone know what I am talking about? Is it worth
changing the
structure? What will the benefits be? Will I lose any data in the
process?

Thank you very much for your assistance!



.