G
George
I have a Compaq 5423US running XP Home. Compaq at the
factory makes two partitions C and D. Partition C is NTFS
and contains the XP operating system and applications.
Partition D is FAT 32 and used only for recovery and
backup. There is a copy of the original out of the box
system about 2 gig which is composed of many blocks of
data that appear to be compressed files. Compaq provides a
Recovery CD that allows for a factory restore that will
reformat C: and use these files to put the computer into
the original factory condition.
The Recovery CD also allows for a complete backup of the
system when you get it like you want it. Therefore you
could restore the backup copy instead of the factory
copy. There is a glitch with this software according to
Compaq. It does not know that you already did a backup
and when it tries to do another backup it runs out of
space on D: and this causes an error and no backup is
made. I can delete the previous user backup and then
backup but this seems to be a dangerous option if I have a
problem and want it back. Here is my question. Can I
copy the user files to C: first to free up space on D:?
Will these files switch from the FAT 32 format to the NTFS
automatically. Then if I require them in the future can I
copy them back to D: and will they switch back to FAT 32?
I have about 70 gig on C but only 5 gig on D:.
Alternatively could I back up the user back up FAT 32
files to a CD burner. Obviously this would take multiple
CDs. This approach would allow me to save multiple known
good backups on either C: or CDs that I could copy back to
D: in a pick and chose manner so that the Compaq Recovery
CD would allow me to recover to the date of the
information that I put into the user files on D: I guess
that I could have a problem with a corrupt system on C:
that would not allow me to copy the files that I wanted on
C: to D:. Maybe CDs would be a better choice.
If Compaq would just increase the size of the D: partition
as required to allow for multiple backups then the problem
would not exist. There documentation indicates that they
do this but it has a bug after you make the first user
backup and it will not repartion further. Maybe this is
because they do not know that they already have a previous
user backup and get confused. I have contacted their
technically people and they agree that this is a problem.
I hope that I have communicated what I want to do. Maybe
there is another way to do it that is better. Thanks for
your ideas ....
factory makes two partitions C and D. Partition C is NTFS
and contains the XP operating system and applications.
Partition D is FAT 32 and used only for recovery and
backup. There is a copy of the original out of the box
system about 2 gig which is composed of many blocks of
data that appear to be compressed files. Compaq provides a
Recovery CD that allows for a factory restore that will
reformat C: and use these files to put the computer into
the original factory condition.
The Recovery CD also allows for a complete backup of the
system when you get it like you want it. Therefore you
could restore the backup copy instead of the factory
copy. There is a glitch with this software according to
Compaq. It does not know that you already did a backup
and when it tries to do another backup it runs out of
space on D: and this causes an error and no backup is
made. I can delete the previous user backup and then
backup but this seems to be a dangerous option if I have a
problem and want it back. Here is my question. Can I
copy the user files to C: first to free up space on D:?
Will these files switch from the FAT 32 format to the NTFS
automatically. Then if I require them in the future can I
copy them back to D: and will they switch back to FAT 32?
I have about 70 gig on C but only 5 gig on D:.
Alternatively could I back up the user back up FAT 32
files to a CD burner. Obviously this would take multiple
CDs. This approach would allow me to save multiple known
good backups on either C: or CDs that I could copy back to
D: in a pick and chose manner so that the Compaq Recovery
CD would allow me to recover to the date of the
information that I put into the user files on D: I guess
that I could have a problem with a corrupt system on C:
that would not allow me to copy the files that I wanted on
C: to D:. Maybe CDs would be a better choice.
If Compaq would just increase the size of the D: partition
as required to allow for multiple backups then the problem
would not exist. There documentation indicates that they
do this but it has a bug after you make the first user
backup and it will not repartion further. Maybe this is
because they do not know that they already have a previous
user backup and get confused. I have contacted their
technically people and they agree that this is a problem.
I hope that I have communicated what I want to do. Maybe
there is another way to do it that is better. Thanks for
your ideas ....