Gerry said:
Terry
Leaving a computer on 24/7 is not ideal. If your programmes have any
memory leaks you only remove their cumulative affect when the computer
is restarted. I leave mine on during the day, switching off when I go to
bed.
I'll think on that. Apart from getting the impression that, on
balance, the consensus was that 'permanent' running minimises HD
wear/tear, my main motivation has been to get extensive backups done
overnight. IOW, minimum impact during the day.
The read write speeds to CD/ DVD/floppy are slower than to hard disk and
infinitely slower than to RAM memory.
Yes, of course - but not sure of the context of this point?
What is your CPU processor speed?
Athlon 1800 runs at 1533 MHz. Pretty slow by today's standards. And my
XP Home is still SP1 (following major problems 2 years ago when I
tried SP2, promptly reverted). Only reason I haven't upgraded PC is
because of the scale of the re-installation effort to get everything
running sweetly again.
I have looked in Google to see what has been said recently about Norton
Unerase. You must one of only a few still using this programme. It
clearly has been a major cause of memory problems.
Agreed, I'm a rarity! No hard evidence here of any memory problems
down to NU, just vague suspicions.
I have no personal knowledge of the programme but do you need it?
Many users today clone drives / data partitions
How would that help recover a file deleted (accidentally or by a
program crashing) a few minutes ago, and not found in Recycle Bin?
and monitor the Recycle Bin, which I assume you
are not using as you will have Norton Protected Storage.
I do use Recycle Bin. NU is additional, last resort recovery.
In Task Manager
what is the amount of virtual memory allocated to Norton Unerase?
It's not an entry in TM. It's apparently a Service.
C:\Program Files\Norton SystemWorks\Norton Utilities\NPROTECT.EXE
Currently not started, Startup type = manual.
Don't know how to find the amount of virtual memory allocated.
How large is the Norton Protected Storage file?
I assume they are in these folders, whose current sizes I've shown:
C:\RECYCLER\NPROTECT 75 MB
D:\RECYCLER\NPROTECT 168 MB
E:\RECYCLER\NPROTECT 10 MB
Why do you have 1.18 gb unallocated space on Drive 0?
A very good question - I hadn't realised that I did! Or perhaps I've
forgotten - it was maybe 4 years ago that I set that up. I don't
believe XP's Computer Mgmt > Disk Mgmt facility cannot resize an
active (OS) partition, so suppose I really *will* have to study PQ PM
again then, if I want to get that extra space into C: ;-(
I asked about Disk Utilities because it is helpful to know when drives
are partitioned how easy it might be for the other person to make
changes.
Your partitioning structure is not how I might have set up your system.
You have two hard drives and a removable drive.
You've lost me here Gerry. I have *three* hard drives, as I showed in
the screenshot. What is the 'removable drive' you mention?
OK, reading ahead, I take it that you regard partitions D:, J: and N:
as 'removable drives'? I thought they were called 'Logical drives? In
what sense are they removable?
Your pagefile for
optimal performance should be in it's own partition as the first
partition on Disk 1.
Presumably you mean Disk 0? IOW, the OS partition? But why? I have it
on Disk 2, in D:, the largest partition. It's been there for years.
Seems to make sense to keep it where there is most room, and is the
recommendation I've had from others. The most recent was from pcbutts
in this thread 2 days ago.
I am not sure what the experts would say about
placing it on a removable drive.
See above.
I am also not sure about putting programme files on a removable drive and with data files.
Why? I don't see the issue there?
Normally if
your system goes down and you need to replace the operating system you
will have to reinstall all programmes. In your set up you have the
ability to copy a backup of the operating system over the failed copy of
the operating system so this necessity may be avoided.
Yes, but have to admit it's not a very satisfactory backup. Years old
now!
What do you do if
you lose the contents of your removable drive?
Apart from panic?! Well, as per previous posts, I backup nightly, so
all my data files are available.
What do you do?
What does Partition J
contain?
As per previous post, J: is a backup partition. Most of data (not
program) files on D: get b/u nightly to it. But because I took up the
storage-hungry activity of DVD making a year or so ago, I've had to
make changes along the way. So music and movies get b/u separately.
How often are you updating Partition E?
Hardly ever! I used PQ Drive Image 2002 to make the copy, and it's a
time consuming job I rarely repeat.
System Restore should only monitor the System Partition i.e. C.
Monitoring a removable drive is not a good idea because you can find
that restore points created do not work when you need them. System
Restore becomes confusing if a drive is sometimes there and sometimes
not.
OK, thanks, I'll get rid of SR on D: then.
A 200 mb space allocation on C is too small. I generally suggest
700 mb.
Really? That sounds a heck of a lot, given how tight space is on that
drive. Anyway, another significant factor in my case is that I use
ERDNT/ERUNT nightly (and before major changes), so in effect I'm
duplicating SR. (Which has let me down on several occasions. Perhaps
because of your point above about D:, who knows? But I sure was
grateful I had ERDNT fro which to recover.) I see my ERDNT folder
(kept on J
is currently 528 MB - so the combination is close to your
recommendation ;-)
In cCleaner the Scan for Issues can create more problems than the value
of solutions it provides. The problem is that if you decide to make
changes on the basis of what you are told you need to understand the
implications of the changes. These can be thrown at you in large numbers
and many users just do not understand what they are being invited
to do. The consequences can be a total system failure when the
potential gain was a marginal improvement in system performance. All
MVP's (I am not one) discourage the use of Registry Cleaners. Removing
history etc is not using the Scan for Issues button, which specifically
goes through the Registry looking for redundant entries.
You need to deal with Event Viewer Error / Warning reports as they
arise. When they accumulate it can be difficult to work which report
relates to which problem and what triggers off a problem. I have made a
point of encouraging users to post copies of Error Reports because they
are factual and not opinions. Many users do not appreciate all the clues
they offer, especially when researching in Google etc.
There are other reasons why Explorer can be slow but my feeling is if
you remove Norton Unerase, even if only temporarily, you will see a
performance boost.
OK, understood. Maybe just disabling that NU Service for a few days
will prove whether or not it's implicated in the slow-down. Although,
as I said, that doesn't square with its intermittent nature.
Thanks again for all your patient and thorough help, which is warmly
appreciated.
