Personally, I'd leave Windows on one harddrive (physical separate disk) and put all of my files on a second hard drive. Then if the operating system disk fails you have a separate disk.
Because I am slightly paranoid after a partition suffered file system corruption (the master file table got corrupted so no RAID solution would have helped) I now have one hard drive for Windows, another for my documents/files (it came with two 250Gb HDDs) and another one for doing video editing etc. My logic for the third hard drive is it's going to be accessed more and for longer than the others and will probably die first. Finally, I have an external USB/Firewire drive to backup all of my data to on a regular basis.
With the price of large hard disk drives now I'd want at least two. I'd also have put the fastest type drive for the system drive, like a relatively small high speed 10000 rpm one like a 150 GB Western Digital Raptor SATA 10K rpm 16MB cache Hard Drive.
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Thanks, rtj70; I actually have two internal Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA drives, and in future can add two more along with two external (not USB but via SATA connections), but I still want to partition. The PC has been purchased for digital video editing and creating logical drives will give a number of benefits. In essence, the first HDD will be partitioned in to a small FAT32 partition to allow legacy DOS tools and the like to be run, a 30GB partition for the O/S to stop it getting fragmented with Windows updates all over the disk, and the remainder for documents and audio files. The latter is important as placing audio files on the same drive as video is a no-no; in my experience the head can't keep up and clipped sound results.
The second HDD will have a 30GB partition to which files are copied for editing and DVD authoring. This partition will be the first (on the edge of the disk) to keep access times fast and will be emptied and defragged after use. The remainer of this HDD will be imge and video storage.
I also have a whopping externa.l USB HDD that I use for backup (and which is then kept in another physical location along with my DVD "deep" backups)
So, as adding more HDDs is something for the future, any idea why Acronis fails to partition, please?
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"Any idea why Acronis fails to partition, please?"
Unfornutately for you I have never used this product. I have used Partition Magic for repartitioning and that has worked for me.
Questions that might jog my memory for an answer:
1. What sort of partitions have been setup already? Are they of type basic disk or dynamic?
2. Can you not shrink or split them to make space for new partitions. Try shrinking first then create new ones? One step at a time makes troubleshooting easier.
3. What filesystem is on the "original" partitions ? Windows 2000/XP can do partitioning very differently and avoid the old partition limits found on DOS/Windows 9x/ME. If you've already got NTFS you probably need to start from scratch.
Some other thoughts:
1. I assume for all other partitions you are using NTFS. Better than FAT32 for many reasons but sure you know that - and I am not referring to security/encryption/etc.
2. I'd also make the 30Gb partition for video editing a little bigger.... surprising how big temp files can be. I see you have a HDD camcorder (so working with compressed MPEG files) whereas I use uncompressed (and therefore higher quality) AVI files from my Mini-DV camcorder and it is surprising how large these files are. If you ever need to work with a non-compressed files you might want a little more headroom.
3. When authoring the content of a DVD it's a good idea to output the DVD files to a different physical drive than the one where source MPEG/AVI reside. Otherwise a lot of head movement. You probably know that already.
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Questions that might jog my memory for an answer: 1. What sort of partitions have been setup already? Are they of type basic disk or dynamic?
Both HDDs came preconfigured as NTFS with XP MCE SP2 plus a small FAT32 partition of 4GB, so they were certainly created from a standard ghost image used by MESH Computers.
2. Can you not shrink or split them to make space for new partitions. Try shrinking first then create new ones? One step at a time makes troubleshooting easier.
No, nothing works. Splitting, shrinking, copying, imaging, you name it. Acronis "appears" to work (ie normal messages are given), until the computer reboots, then you find nothing happened and "Terminated by User" exists in the log file (after entries for all the steps that apparently succeeded fine). Yes, I understand "one thing at a time" and always work thus; with sixteen years working in software support, I'd hope so! :-) Just a shame my business is ERP application software and the Oracle RDBMS, not the inner workings of Win XP or home PC applications. (Yes, I have a strong grasp, but as this thread shows don't know close to all!)
3. What filesystem is on the "original" partitions ? Windows 2000/XP can do partitioning very differently and avoid the old partition limits found on DOS/Windows 9x/ME. If you've already got NTFS you probably need to start from scratch.
See first answer above.
Some other thoughts: 1. I assume for all other partitions you are using NTFS. Better than FAT32 for many reasons but sure you know that - and I am not referring to security/encryption/etc.
Yes, my intention is to create NTFS partitions.
2. I'd also make the 30Gb partition for video editing a little bigger.... surprising how big temp files can be. I see you have a HDD camcorder (so working with compressed MPEG files) whereas I use uncompressed (and therefore higher quality) AVI files from my Mini-DV camcorder and it is surprising how large these files are. If you ever need to work with a non-compressed files you might want a little more headroom.
OK, ta. The advice I was given was 20Gb, so I added headroom and chose 30Gb! As an aside, the compressed results are perfectly fine for what's needed (surprisingly close to uncompressed from most Mini-DV camcorders I've used) and the convenience of a HDD machine is terrific. Certainly HDD is the future of camcorders, and no doubt uncompressed formats will be handled before long.
3. When authoring the content of a DVD it's a good idea to output the DVD files to a different physical drive than the one where source MPEG/AVI reside. Otherwise a lot of head movement. You probably know that already.
Yes, thanks; this is primarily why the additional HDDs will be added in future. The reason I am intending to use the same drive today though is that I was informed the reason for sound "clipping" of DVDs I've authored (on another machine) to date was that audio and MPEG was on the same HDD; I therefore intended to separate them on the new PC. The advice I was given was to have MPEG source and DVD authoring on one drive and audio source on another. If you are suggesting that in fact I would be better off with audio source and DVD authoring on one drive and MPEG source on another, then I'll try this until such time as I add a third HDD.
Cheers!
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You didn't answer one question, which is, are the disk partitions basic or dynamic? You can have a basic NTFS and a dynamic NTFS drive and the underlying partition type is totally different. You can extend a dynamic partition across drives, e.g. your partition used as drive D is full so you grab some free space on another drive and add it to that partition. Much closer to how disk partitioning on Unix systems work. With dynamic disks you getting away from the concept of primary and extended partitions etc.
To check, right click on my computer and select manage. Then in Computer Management click on Disk Management. You will see your drives in there and the type appears directly under the disk number. It will either be basic or dynamic. Just want to rule out the partitions not being of type dynamic for a start. Might be affecting the partition software doing anything.
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As for the last comment, I generally only handle uncompressed AVI files as the source and edit those (well my source is Mini-DV) and so audio/video is interleaved... ie.. AVI. If you have experience or knowledge saying keep video and audio on different drive spindles then what my suggestion of writing the DVD VOB files to another spindle means you'd be better off with three....
But I think I disagree with having to keep audio and video on separate drives to stop lip-sync problems. I can see why it makes sense to strip out the audio from the MPEGs and keep separate but when re-combining but the only advantage of separate spindles is speed and reduced head movement. The DVD Authoring software will just wait for the relevant data to be read from both drives (or a single drive) before writing any output. And there will be far more video than audio too.
What my suggestion relates to is speed really - and not thrashing the drives. Reading gigabytes of MPEG from one part of the partition and then writing somewhere several gigabytes of MPEG Video and Audio (in the VOBs) further on that same platter means lots of head movement. Maybe not far but it will be moving a lot.
Another bit of advice depending on DVD authoring software is where it writes it's temp files. Might default to the drive where software installed and you might want it on the other.
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>>You didn't answer one question
Sorry; I had checked but didn't write. Both HDDs are "Basic" NTFS.
>>you'd be better off with three
Agreed, which is what I was trying to say in my reply, but I won't be doing that just yet. For info the audio problems weren't lip synch. They were a clipped "m issi n g pa ts of w rds pr blem". Once I've got the partitioning software working though, I am happy to play around with different options even if I end up reformatting and starting again.
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So what partitions are on the drives now. I am assuming:
- system disk has primary NTFS partition and then a FAT one holding system recovery files. Is this assumption correct. If yes the boot partition (the NTFS one?) has to be a primary partition but the FAT one could be primary or a logical disk inside an extended partition. Which have MESH setup?
- The second disk probably has one NTFS partition and hold no data. So I'd start experimenting on that one first. Can you resize the partition on this one.
Note if you avoid the system disk for now, you should not need reboots - you wouldn't with partition magic at least.
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rtj70
sorry I can't help but I'm watching the exchange with interest. I too have a new Mesh with MCE bought (obviously) before Vista becomes available, so that I know everything will work. I intend to use the Vista coupon and put it in a partition, for which I will need partitioning software, so you can see where I'm heading. I also want to put my music on a "D" drive because that's where it was on the old pc and I really don't want to edit all of those playlists.
That's a cracking price you got on DD. Amazon seem to be very competitive of late. I've been watching the Acronis web page to see if a Vista capable version comes out.
Good luck
John
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JH
Some of the long awaited updates to filesystems on Vista (a proper searchable database to find files) was dropped quite a while ago. Apart from possibly a few tweaks the (NTFS) filesystem is unchanged so I'd hope current software will work. But don't quote me on that. I'm not upgrading to Vista anytime soon.
Rob
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R
the "data soup" concept, yup, heard that. If you run the scanner there's plenty of software that doesn't run with Vista. Most Virus scanners for a start! Now what I REALLY want is 64 bit Photoshop, that should shift. But then it's Adobe so it'll still manage to spend 10 minutes loading before it starts :-(
JH
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sorry I can't help but I'm watching the exchange with interest. I too have a new Mesh with MCE bought (obviously) before Vista becomes available, so that I know everything will work.
Sounds familiar!
I intend to use the Vista coupon and put it in a partition, for which I will need partitioning software, so you can see where I'm heading.
Also sounds familiar! :-)
That's a cracking price you got on DD. Amazon seem to be very competitive of late.
I too was surprised, especially as I'd been sooooooooooooooo close to paying twice as much for a download version from the Acronis website.
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So what partitions are on the drives now. I am assuming:
Refer previous post: Both HDDs came preconfigured as (Basic) NTFS with XP MCE SP2 plus a small FAT32 partition of 4GB, so they were certainly created from a standard ghost image used by MESH Computers.
The FAT32 partition on each HDD is logical and has no drive letter. It is only via Acronis that I "see" them. Again via Acronis I spotted that both contain a boot.ini file.
Acronis fails to work (at all) on both HDDs, since both HDDs are infact installed "identically" (bar which one gets chosen to run the o/s at startup). Of course I can wipe anything I like from the D drive since it's the copy of the operating system on C that I am actually using. If Acronis don't reply by Monday (today is approaching 48 hours and counting) this is what I'll do.
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S
if you think the second drive is causing a problem you could disconnect it temporarily, see if Acronis then works, though it would seem unlikely. If the second drive is a ghost, identical to the first then reformatting it is the sensible thing to do.
Have you shot Bullguard or whatever it's called yet?
JH
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Yup, disconnecting makes no difference and as written above, if Acronis support comes to nowt I will reformat it.
Have you shot Bullguard or whatever it's called yet?
Yup, in the head, on first time power up. :-)
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I am assuming the FAT partitions more than likely contain files to assist with a rebuilt - you reboot off the recovery CD and the first partition rebuilt. What I do not understand is why the second drive the same as drive 1 - they only needed to format it unless they want two copies of recovery files.
Can you mount the FAT32 partition in XP by assigning a drive letter? At least you'd see the contents.
I'm wondering if the FAT32 partitions is part of the problem. Bear with me.
The old way of partitioning drives allowed up to 3 primary (which are bootable) and one extended partition. Inside an extended partition you can create many (not sure if there was a max) logical drive partitions. The extended partition was always the last partition so if you have one primary one one extended you might not now be able to create another primary partition in between the NTFS primary and FAT32 based extended one.
So if the FAT32 partition is in an extended partition here is what I would do on drive 2 to experiment for drive 1.
1. Delete the FAT32 logical partition
2. Delete the extended partition
3. Resize the primary partition on disk 2
If success then you've proved it is the FAT32 partition. Then I'd backup the extended partition on drive 1, sort out the disk then restore it.
If no success I'd actually speak to MESH for advice too. You could always skype me ... might get to the bottom of this quicker. I know it's Friday though but I have 30 minutes I could spare.
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Just had a thought before you rush and zap your Windows MCE XP2 installation.... you do have all the install media and keys...
If this was me I'd probably zap it and install it like I want it anyway. But work out why I cannot partition first because it annoyed me.
And after you rebuild it with your applications installed as you want it... ghost your PC. That way you never go back to the state it was delivered. And periodically re-ghost.
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Just reread this "In essence, the first HDD will be partitioned in to a small FAT32 partition to allow legacy DOS tools and the like to be run"
So you probably want/have to reformat anyway. Your boot partition is currently NTFS but you need a small primary FAT32 partition for DOS applications. So the active primary partition is going to be a FAT32 one. This will boot MCE XP2.
Options:
- Reformat (might be my preference on a PC I did not install but only if you have install media)
- Convert current main NTFS partition to FAT32 but it has Windows XP on it... would not recommend and then both O/S on same disk partition
- Make a new primary partition (disk repartitioning allowing) and mark this as active, install DOS on that and then the tricky bit... you need to install an Windows XP boot loader in the boot sector on the new active FAT32 partition (easy for me to say but not too difficult), and create a new boot.ini file to point at the original NTFS partition. When you now boot off the new primary partition you get option of DOS and Windows MCE XP2.
- Use VMWARE for the DOS bit... easier and more flexible.
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Thanks for all your help, Rob. I just got back home and will be shot if I start tinkering with the PC now, so I'll revisit your advice tomorrow. Stay tuned!
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Just sneaked back down to the office.
Shhhh.
Gotta be quick.
Rebooting, whether as part of Acronis activity or just a normal reboot gives one error in the Event log:
"The machine wide Default Launch and Activation security descriptor is
invalid. It contains Access Control Entries with permissions that are
invalid. The requested action was therefore not performed. This security
permission can be corrected using the Component Services administrative tool.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at
go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.*"
I haven't dug further yet; I've been rumbled!
Gotta go back for baby winding duties.
More in the morrow.
Goodnight!
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By chance, I found a link on the web to a downloade .exe from Acronis that scans the disk(s) and produces a report that makes sense when e-mailed to their technical department. When viewed in Notepad some of it made sense to me too, but most of it was written in an encoded manner so I don't know the full extent of what it found. With the report now added to the support case I had created, following is the reply just received from Acronis:
"Due to some interference, Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 is unable to implement necessary operations in Windows native mode. (SjB - The PC shuts down, restarts in native mode to try and make the changes, shuts down, then reboots in normal mode) We recommend you to use the following workaround:
1. Create Acronis Bootable Media with Standalone version of Acronis Disk Director Suite (both safe and full) using Acronis Bootable Media Builder
2. Boot the computer with this media and implement all necessary operations. (Standalone version has practically the same interface as Windows' one)
Additional information on creating bootable media can be found in the Chapter 10 of Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 complete User Guide"
So, this is what I will now do.
Stay tuned...
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"Due to some interference, Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 is unable to implement necessary operations in Windows native mode. (SjB - The PC shuts down, restarts in native mode to try and make the changes, shuts down, then reboots in normal mode) We recommend you to use the following workaround: 1. Create Acronis Bootable Media with Standalone version of Acronis Disk Director Suite (both safe and full) using Acronis Bootable Media Builder 2. Boot the computer with this media and implement all necessary operations. (Standalone version has practically the same interface as Windows' one) Additional information on creating bootable media can be found in the Chapter 10 of Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 complete User Guide" So, this is what I will now do. Stay tuned...
In short, IT WORKED!
I am somewhat puzzled because the CD-ROM that Acronis was delivered on is cleared marked "Bootable Disc", but the PC didn't boot from it when tried (this was one of the things I tried to do along the way). None the less, having created my own bootable disc as instructed by Acronis Helpdesk, the PC did successfully boot from it. Having done so, 99% the same interface was presented as the "installed" version, and the whole operation, including partitioning, was done in a couple of minutes (literally). Done this way I was not given the option to assign a drive letter (I was in the "installed" version) and the default file system was FAT32 (I simply had to switch a combo choice to NTFS). On full reboot however I saw that the driver letter "G" had been assigned, and I can now change this (with Acronis) if I wish.
One other comment; to save desk space I use a Sitecom KVM switch to share flatpanel VDU, keyboard, and mouse between the new MESH tower unit and my IBM T42 laptop. The screen worked during Acronis boot, but the USB mouse and keyboard did not. I had to power down, cross my fingers, plug in wired keyboard and mouse, reboot normally, detect new devices, shut down, and reboot with the Acronis bootable CD I'd made. Thankfully, it worked.
The final thing to write is to say thanks for all your time and ideas Rob.
Much appreciated, even though resolution was via another means.
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To add a footnote; having learned the reason for my problem, run as a bootable CD Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 is a stonking toolkit. It has just blitzed all the things I wanted to do, from repartitioning, to splitting a partition in to old plus new with new carrying chosen files from the old [in my case moving all program files from an XP sub directory to a new (adjacent) logical drive of their own, leaving XP in the original logical drive all on its own], to disk reformatting (my second HDD), and more.
I can see why Stuartli likes it, and having gone through my learning curve, I do to.
Recommended.
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S
thanks for the update, I shall follow in your footsteps.
Just a thought, I wonder if the second disk was delivered identical to the first to make it easier for Mesh when a customer ticks the RAID 0 box? It's the only reason I can think of to not deliver a disk fill of zeroes.
JH
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S thanks for the update, I shall follow in your footsteps.
Good luck, though I think you'll be fine; the option to create a boot disk version of Acronis is a doddle. Having installed Acronis Disk Director (easy, with a normal instal shield type of approach), follow the clear instructions on the built in help file, also available at www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/docs/.
Everything worked fine for me. One bit of advice; you will be given the choice to create a "full" boot disk of to just choose the custom options you want. Do the former, given that a CD has far, far, more storage capactity than you will need, and in so doing you will reduce the chance of Acronis not being able to handle your particular hardware setup.
Just a thought, I wonder if the second disk was delivered identical to the first to make it easier for Mesh when a customer ticks the RAID 0 box? It's the only reason I can think of to not deliver a disk fill of zeroes.
I had a similar thought! EIther that, or every HDD automatically gets ghost written.
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