deleting rescue partition?

[Rÿcher]

My new computer has a 1 TB hard drive and it's got a C: drive that has a capacity of 921 GB and the rest is taken up by the D: drive which is 10.4 GB. The D: drive is supposed to be the rescue disk for the computer. If something crashes, I can just click on it, select something and everything will return to the original factory specs.

Could I burn the D: drive on to a DVD disk and delete the D: giving C: more space?

Or should I jut leave well enough alone?

I would like a single 1 TB hard drive.

 

[Marc]

My new computer has a 1 TB hard drive and it's got a C: drive that has a capacity of 921 GB and the rest is taken up by the D: drive which is 10.4 GB. The D: drive is supposed to be the rescue disk for the computer. If something crashes, I can just click on it, select something and everything will return to the original factory specs.

Could I burn the D: drive on to a DVD disk and delete the D: giving C: more space?

Or should I jut leave well enough alone?

I would like a single 1 TB hard drive.

The computer should have a program that will allow you to generate the recovery DVDs so once you've done that you could delete the recovery partition.

However I'm not sure it's a good idea. If you loose your recovery discs you can be in an almight pickle (been there done that).

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Your drive will never be a full terabyte, though, so why sweat it? The recovery partition is there for a reason. There would either be a recovery CD or a BIOS menu that lets you restore the partition to factory settings should you ever hopelessly corrupt your Windows installation.

Also, if you buy another hard drive, one that pushes your total past 1TB, you can make a single logical partition the size of a terabyte (or more). That would be smarter than deleting your recovery partition.

 

[USS KG5]

Get rid of the ability to recover to factory settings easily for the sake of ten measly gigs? Not a good idea, sorry.

 

[ATimson]

Also, if you buy another hard drive, one that pushes your total past 1TB, you can make a single logical partition the size of a terabyte (or more). That would be smarter than deleting your recovery partition.

I don't know about how Linux handles such logical partitions, but in Windows, if one drive fails in such an partition you lose everything that was in the partition.

(There's always the "mount as an NTFS subdirectory" option, but that wouldn't get you a true "single logical partition". It does reduce your potential data loss, though.)

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Well, the OP appeared to be less interested in redundancy and more interested in that magical 1 TB disk size.

Personally, if I had a terabyte of storage, I'd RAID the hell out of it. I can't imagine filling up that much space unless I'm going to back up every PC game I own...

 

[Technobuilder]

Explain to me how RAIDing a Single Drive's Partitions is helpful exactly... I'm not up on most of the RAID configurations or Partitioning Options. (I really don't know.)

If the drive physically stops working, you're still screwed right? I get that it would solve bad sectors and the like, but I've been out of the loop on this stuff for a while now.

I'm a Hard Drive Space hog, but "for the most part" I have no backups and have accepted that anything I have could go at any time, it would suck, but I've accepted it for the most part.

However, I'd be interested in hearing some better options over that of my current "Scorched Earth" mentality as it were.

I'm looking into getting a new computer soonish for two reasons... 1.) I can turn this one I currently use into a Media PC and have all my media available easily and 2.) I'd like to be able to play Computer Games like STAR TREK ONLINE & STARGATE WORLDS, which my current system can't handle.

Any advice in selecting the best motherboard, chipset, & parts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I meant if I had a terabyte it would be on multiple physical drives, hence the RAID... I don't think I would buy a single terabyte-sized drive.

You're right, RAID isn't of tremendous use on a single drive!

I'm afraid I'm not as up on current hardware as I used to be, so I am lacking in recommendations right now.

 

[TEH BABA]

Baba will give you code to fix problem based on principles of chicken entrails.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Did you know you can use chicken guts to lubricate dodgy CD/DVD drives? True story.

 

[Technobuilder]

Ah well, I was hoping for more, but I thank you for your response.

I guess I'll ask this again in a few months when my bank account is a bit higher and I can afford to implement any pertinent computing suggestions.

Thanks again.

 

[CorporalClegg]

^
Well, you'd need to give more info on what you want and how much you want to spend.


Rycher, I would leave that extra partition as it is. I'm assuming the stuff on is from the computer manufacture? If so, I wouldn't delete it unless you have your own copy of an OS. If you do, you'll want to make sure you have ALL the drivers for the computer on a backup CD. (Unless you already have them, but usually store bought manufacture pre-builts don't have them.)

When you do have an OS and all the drivers there isn't any reason to keep it. In fact, if you do you're probably better off doing a full install yourself. There is a lot of crap that they put on those computers; I guarantee it will run better.

If not, Norton Partition Magic is your best bet. (Or any, freeware/open source like program.)

 

[Technobuilder]

^
Well, you'd need to give more info on what you want and how much you want to spend.

See, there's the rub.

I won't know what I want or how much to spend until I have several suggestions on what I should be looking into. Once I have an idea of what I need, then I can start looking for deals on Parts, etc.

I'm not trying to build a bargain basement PC but simultaneously, I don't want to drop a ton of cash on a top-of-the-line (til next month) PC either.

I'd like any pertinent information on what is considered standard equipment at the present moment (as then I'll at least have a basis to start from) as well as any info on both Dual & Quad Core systems and how they stack up against each other.

I'd like to setup a Video/Capture option as I've always wanted to play around with capping/encoding of different kinds of media, and am wondering how best to go about that too.

Just so you have an idea, last time I knew anything about video cards, I was looking at the 128mb All-In-Wonder as an upgrade... Yeah, I know. What's should I be looking at in terms of high-end grapics (I want to be able to play the newer PC games with all options on if I so choose.)

I don't even know what's optimal for RAM in a system at present, I'm guessing 4gb? Are there 8gb or higher boards available.?

Maybe if you don't know what to say exactly, then at least give your system specs, what you use it for, and if not optimal, what would be for you.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Well if you want to go with "average" which won't be top of the line, but will still have a few years before it goes obsolete, you could try an Intel Core 2 Duo. They range from about $90 to $180 depending on speed. (From 2.4 to 3.0. But you can overclock them, of course.) The matching MOBO would probably be another $150 or so for a quality one. There, are ones that are bare bones or of lesser quality that are cheaper obviously.

For video cards, the NVIDIA GF 8800s are like $180. You can get 9800s for more, but I hear you they give less bang for the buck.

Peripherals, drives, and ram are harder to say because they vary so much.

As far as the amount of ram, most mother boards support 8 or even 16 Gigs, however, you need to have a 64-bit OS to use it. 32-bit ones can't handle more than 4.

 

[Meredith]

I hate extra partitions on my systems that don't hold anythign useful, as they cybermen say: DELETE DELETE

 

[Marc]

I hate extra partitions on my systems that don't hold anythign useful, as they cybermen say: DELETE DELETE

SO you don't consider system recovery files useful?

 

[Technobuilder]

Well if you want to go with "average" which won't be top of the line, but will still have a few years before it goes obsolete, you could try an Intel Core 2 Duo. They range from about $90 to $180 depending on speed. (From 2.4 to 3.0. But you can overclock them, of course.) The matching MOBO would probably be another $150 or so for a quality one. There, are ones that are bare bones or of lesser quality that are cheaper obviously.

For video cards, the NVIDIA GF 8800s are like $180. You can get 9800s for more, but I hear you they give less bang for the buck.

Peripherals, drives, and ram are harder to say because they vary so much.

As far as the amount of ram, most mother boards support 8 or even 16 Gigs, however, you need to have a 64-bit OS to use it. 32-bit ones can't handle more than 4.

Thank you very much.

It's a good a place to start.

 

[USS KG5]

Well if you want to go with "average" which won't be top of the line, but will still have a few years before it goes obsolete, you could try an Intel Core 2 Duo. They range from about $90 to $180 depending on speed. (From 2.4 to 3.0. But you can overclock them, of course.) The matching MOBO would probably be another $150 or so for a quality one. There, are ones that are bare bones or of lesser quality that are cheaper obviously.

For video cards, the NVIDIA GF 8800s are like $180. You can get 9800s for more, but I hear you they give less bang for the buck.

Peripherals, drives, and ram are harder to say because they vary so much.

As far as the amount of ram, most mother boards support 8 or even 16 Gigs, however, you need to have a 64-bit OS to use it. 32-bit ones can't handle more than 4.

Thank you very much.

It's a good a place to start.

In addition to the above - 32-bit versions of Vista and especially XP cannot really use more than 3GB of RAM< and it is impossible for them to do so if you have 1GB of graphics card memory (ie SLI'd 512MB cards).

 

[CorporalClegg]

^
That's a misnomer--an untrue rumor spread by people who don't know what they're talking about.

Any 32-bit system can mathematically handle 4 gigabytes of memory. This includes the system memory the swap/virtual memory and the logical address used by the system. Since Windows assumes, this it only "shows" 3 gigs being used. However, if the system detects 4 gigs or ram, it automatically blacklists the other stuff and uses the real ram. Therefore, it's still advantages to have 4 over 3.

 

[Meredith]

I hate extra partitions on my systems that don't hold anythign useful, as they cybermen say: DELETE DELETE

SO you don't consider system recovery files useful?

I always re-build my systems from scratch if they crash, less Dell/Compaq/Gateway bloatware that way.