Ext drive FAT32/NTFS formatting question.

[mixture]

That was far better than re-installing Windows, Office and the myriad updates, not to mention drivers.

For the vast majority of non-technical people who use computers in a personal context, starting fresh from a clean slate after a major event would do them a lot of good !

People accumulate a lot of crap on their computers over the years, and then on top of that, systems like Windows start suffering from registry and profile bloat. You really don't want to be backing that up, and then restoring the same crap onto your computer. And that's before we start to consider the possibility of you backing up viruses that you didn't notice until it was too late.

There is very little point backing up software and operating systems.

[Mac the Knife]

mix

I'm not your "chum".

What you actually need is just an echo chamber for your opinions.

It would be interesting (no, boring actually) to know where your pathological aggression comes from.

Why don't you take your sheep-**** sized brownie and shove it up your ass?

Mac

"For the vast majority of non-technical people who use computers in a personal context, starting fresh from a clean slate after a major event would do them a lot of good !"

But I do have to agree with that. Did it on one machine recently and it felt like a good bowel movement - interesting that it made me think of you though....

[mixture]

Mac,

Simple.

My post to you was a retort to the last line of your post :

[now I'll wait for mix to tell me that I have the brains of a mouse, the intelligence of an earthworm and shouldn't even be permitted to ride a tricycle ]

You asked for it, you got it.

Please take it with a pinch of salt, don't read anything into it, because there's nothing there to read into. My posts are generally written hastily, and trying to get the (technically correct) message across with minimal waffle.

And no, I don't have any "pathological aggression", thank you very much. Let's also keep personal insults out of it shall we ?

[Pelikal]

May I divert your attention to post #15 by Alice which we seemed to have missed.⚠

[mixture]

Hello Peliwotsit,

You mean this one ?

I just want resize my C: drive and convert FAT to NTFS, where to download the tool? Easeus or Paragon all ok, is it need to pay?

Well, I thought you were the newfound expert in this area Pelikal ? Sounds a lot like what you just undertook ? Maybe we should leave you to hold Alice's hand ?

But if it were me, I would ask Alice (a) if she has a decent backup (b) if she wouldn't rather buy a new drive, set that up as fresh and copy her files across rather than embark on a potentially risky endeavour.

[Capn Bloggs]

Originally Posted by Mixture

For the vast majority of non-technical people who use computers in a personal context, starting fresh from a clean slate after a major event would do them a lot of good !

Rubbish. My XP and Win 7 had/have more stuff on board than some would have on 3 computers; they ran/run happily after years of ops. A wipe and re-install is good, at the appropriate time. But to suggest however, especially to someone non-technical, "oh, just reinstall Windows" in the event of an issue is just plain masochistic.

[Bushfiva]

AP, Easeus & Paragon are free. Similar tools exist. See post #3.

[mixture]

But to suggest however, especially to someone non-technical, "oh, just reinstall Windows" in the event of an issue is just plain masochistic.

Rubbish.

The desktop should always be treated as disposable.

If you look at how things are run in corporate IT, you save your important data to the network servers .... if something happens you don't waste more than a limited amount of time trying to diagnose the issue. If you can't solve it, its wipe clean and start fresh. Wasting time on desktop issues is the most pointless thing known to man kind.

System images are also more hassle then they're worth, they can cause more problems than they solve. The operating system and software being living beasts, the ability to get an inconsistent and troublesome system image is all to easy.

When manufacturers create system images, they do so in controlled environments and with a very strict routine to ensure the image restores correctly.

You simply cannot create an adequate system image of a system full of crud that's been used for the last few years. You're kidding yourself. You think it looks ok, but realistically you're just masking the problems.

[Pelikal]

Alice, (if you are for real) do what mixture suggests. I have no idea why your C:drive is Fat32 in the first instance.

[Capn Bloggs]

If you look at how things are run in corporate IT, you save your important data to the network servers .... if something happens you don't waste more than a limited amount of time trying to diagnose the issue. If you can't solve it, its wipe clean and start fresh. Wasting time on desktop issues is the most pointless thing known to man kind.

Precisely what I have been saying?? Windows update stuffed my system. I did a complete rollback to the previous night's image. I was operational in 30 minutes. You're suggesting that I re-install Windows. You're nuts.

[Keef]

Mixture is spot on for the corporate environment, where most PCs will be running a standard setup and all the important stuff is on a central server. If it glitches and the fix isn't easy, wipe and reinstall. When I worked, the Systems folks had all the popular configurations on the main server ready for this (frequent) eventuality.

I disagree for a home PC, where there may be a wide range of software that's been installed over a period of time, and where the originals have been lost (or were downloaded and the URL isn't carefully recorded). Installation codes may not be to hand; personal settings may not be easy to recall...

The last time my PC had an attack of the vapours, it took me a long day to reinstall all the stuff I wanted - I didn't bother with some because life's too short to download dozens of rarely-used large programmes on a slow ADSL connection. (I now keep all downloads on an external drive, which has saved my bacon a few times when software has disappeared from the Internet). Being a tidy bunny, I have all the unlock codes etc stored in an Excel sheet (copies of which are in several places including my iPad).

If it hiccups, wipe-and-reinstall would be the last resort: it took me weeks last time before all the software was reconfigured to the settings I like. Excel, Word and the like are easy because they use settings files in known locations and which can be backed up. Some stuff probably does, but they don't tell you where those are, and reinstall doesn't pick them up.

Re-install also allows some infuriating software to put stuff where THEY want it, like buried umpteen levels down in the "Users" directory on drive C, when I want it in the top-level directory on drive I (or wherever). Even when they are told to put it on drive I, some of them also create their own "C:\Users\..." folder and put some key stuff in there. Apple and Ancestry are particularly bad at that - my SSD went from 51% full to 80% full before I found that iTunes was ignoring instructions and stuffing a full backup of iPhone and iPad in there every time I plugged them in. I had to be very forceful to persuade it that I'd really meant it when I said "H:\itunesbackups\

If your PC has a basic Windows (or whatever) installation, with a couple of added software items and not much unusual stuff, then reinstalling every year or so might clear things out a bit and gain a tiny performance improvement. If you've got a load of stuff stretching back a few years, think carefully!

[mixture]

Keef,

Funnily enough, a friend of mine has old-ish Apple laptop with a spinning platter drive.

She being a frequent traveller, and spinning platters being what they are, the inevitable occurred and the drive started becoming more and more unhappy.

Her backup regimen having been configured by me, she was running TimeMachine to multiple locations, but explicitly configured NOT to backup user-installed software or system-software.

New drive, OS X install, TimeMachine restore of files, re-download of a handful of apps from the App Store, Adobe stuff from Adobe, Office from Microsoft and a couple of minor utility apps from third-party developer sites ... she was back up and running within a day and a half (would have been quicker, the system and software was ready to go within the space of a few hours, but she had many many gigabytes of of user data... photos and whatnot !).

Quite frankly, even if I had it, I wouldn't have wanted to use a system image. The disk diagnostics were throwing up all sorts of scary messages, and by the time I got my hands on it, the system was running like a right dog. Restoring onto a new drive would have solved the hardware problem, but would highly likely have still left me with unhappy software to contend with.

[Keef]

Indeed. The System Image is very much the last resort - I've never used one yet, although I make one (on a different drive) every so often.

The weekly backup takes between two hours (when it's using the internal SATA backup drives) and twelve hours (on the external USB drives). That would get my "stuff" back, unattended, in around 12 hours. Reinstalling the software...

[Mac the Knife]

I have to say that I agree with Keef here. In a corporate environment mix is quite right - in fact in one big Co. that I've worked with, if a user's PC goes titsup , a PFY turns up with a new preimaged one, plugs it into the network and after a minute or two off they go. The old one just goes in the shredder (after a quick once-over for usable spares). Sorta like the old dumb terminals.

A home PC is another matter. Theoretically mix is right - a wipe/reinstall and data restore from backup is the way to go. I've done it, it works and it takes days of farting around to get things back where you liked it. I use a lot of applications for because one will inevitably do THAT PARTICULAR THING particularly well. Reinstalling even just the ones you really need is incredibly tedious and time-wasting (where DID I put that product key? Is is still valid for the new version?).

Sensibly, I have separate physical drives for my System(C:) and my Data(D:) so I don't have to restore the data, just tell the system where to find it - that saves a lot of time.*

I have't done a system restore for ages though I periodically create images). so after reading Keef's post I though I'd try it. So make fresh Macrium Reflect (not the free one) Rescue DVD, make fresh System Image on external USB3 HDD and take a deep breath.

Rip out System/boot drive and replace with blank one (both WD Velociraptors though not identical - plenty of room though). Boot from Rescue CD which pops up and asks me what image to restore and where to restore it. Give it the answer and chuncha-chunka-chunka. Go to sleep for the night. Wake up and look at system.

Well blow me down! System boots normally, looks normal and behaves normally (tho I haven't tested every last little thing). Yep, I could have got rid of a lot of crap and squeezed a couple of % of speed out of the box but then my weekend would have been down the drain, I'd be missing a pleasant cafe lunch with my friends and I'd have an awful headache.

Things have their uses, different in different situations and although I'd never DEPEND on a system image, if you're lucky it can save you an awful lot of time and hassle - quod erat demonstrandum.

And don't forget to have proper, standard and verified BACKUPS on a rotating basis on and off site.

Mac

*I do this on all the OSes and machines I have - I actually have no idea why people don't do this as standard except in one-drive laptops.

:ouch:

[Capn Bloggs]

Just like I said...

The weekly backup takes between two hours (when it's using the internal SATA backup drives)

TWO HOURS?? Across SATA drives at 5gb per minute? Incremental or Replace Changed? Crikey! What are you backing up?

[Keef]

TWO HOURS?? Across SATA drives at 5gb per minute? Incremental or Replace Changed? Crikey! What are you backing up?

I don't think it's the SATA (or USB) speed that's the issue. It's the time the hard drives take to read the stuff and write it. I don't back up in one big lump, but the whole lot, weekly, file-by-file (automated) so that I can go straight to the missing one if I need it.
There are five backup drives, and it cycles round them.

The backup routines look like this (with more lines):
robocopy D:\ A:\NineBU%date:~6,4%%date:~3,2%%date:~0,2%\D\ *.* /s /r:0 /copyall /A-:SH

Here's a SATA-to-SATA log to the slower SATA drive:

Started Full backup to A 12/04/2015 4:00:00.63
- C complete 12/04/2015 5:03:35.31
- D complete 12/04/2015 5:43:30.23
- E complete 12/04/2015 6:09:24.95
- F complete 12/04/2015 6:15:09.06
- G complete 12/04/2015 7:52:35.79
- H complete 12/04/2015 8:13:14.36
- I complete 12/04/2015 8:43:59.82
Finished Full backup to A 12/04/2015 8:43:59.89

SATA-to-USB takes a tad longer:

Started Full backup to R 24/05/2015 4:00:00.22
...
Finished Full backup to R 24/05/2015 15:40:01.27

C backup is only the "User" folder. I back that up because some software still sneaks stuff into there when I'm not looking. It also picks up "My Documents" which are in various other places - I should probably tweak the symlink settings in the backup control file to stop it doing that, but can't be bothered.
D is data - mostly Word and Excel, but a good range of other.
E is photographs - lots of those.
F is church stuff - faculties, website stuff, service books, and allsorts.
G is mostly music - lots of that.
H is odds & ends of all sorts.
I is internetty stuff, e-mails, downloads over the past few years, etc.

Each backup is a whisker over 300GB.

[Pelikal]

Thanks all for the conversations, very informative. Being a masochist from Tring, of which there are many (proof can be provided upon request), I was thinking of wiping my D: drive (document stuff) and load my newly created and treasured System Image onto that and then try and boot from it.

Is this a or a .

This year, Tring is celebrating 700 years as a Market Town, granted by Edward II.

[Bushfiva]

Keef, you might find the /MT:n switch a delightful addition to your command line.

[mixture]

Peliwhotsit,

More like

Sureley a true masochist from Tring would erase their entire hard drive first so as to give them the most realistic restore experience.

[Keef]

Originally Posted by Bushfiva

Keef, you might find the /MT:n switch a delightful addition to your command line.

THANK YOU! I'd missed that one - sounds a very worthwhile addition. I'll see how well it does next Sunday morning