FDISK the hard disk?

[Gordon]

I've seen plenty of articles about the alleged
superiority of NTFS, but in everyday life you rarely
if ever see it. What you're much more likely to run
into is a corrupt or malfunctioning Windows aggravated
by a file system that can be a colossal pain in the
ass to recover data from.

Ever heard of Knoppix?

 

[BC]

It doesn't.

Duh. It does. Especially in the context of "being able to
easily backup and recover from a serious Windows problem or
infection." In those circumstances, NTFS is a pain. And in
more normal cricumstances wher you might want to backup an
image of your hard drive, FAT32 is much easier.

-BC

 

[BC]

Ever heard of Knoppix?

Yep. Not much connection of to this thread,
though, unless you're talking about a Linux-
based recovery CD for getting things off a
Windows NTFS system.

Actually, have you used the Knoppix CD
for NTFS recovery over a network or USB
connection? Do you know how it compares
to the Trinity Rescue Disk?
http://trinityhome.org/trk

God forbid that Microsoft would even think
of coming up with a recovery CD of their
own.

Not having floppy drives handy anymore
on new PC's and notebooks is a bit of a
nuisance at times.

-BC

 

[Gordon]

Yep. Not much connection of to this thread,
though, unless you're talking about a Linux-
based recovery CD for getting things off a
Windows NTFS system.

Actually, have you used the Knoppix CD
for NTFS recovery over a network or USB
connection? Do you know how it compares
to the Trinity Rescue Disk?
http://trinityhome.org/trk

'Fraid I haven't - I think in any case the watchword is "Back Up"!

 

[Plato]

FAT32 with a vastly higher risk of corruption or failure that is
somewhat easier to recover from.

After working with FAT32 for perhaps, 8 years now, and NTFS for perhaps,
5 years, I honestly cant say that either file system has a higher chance
of corruption than the other.

 

[BC]

Hmm...now that I think about, it would
be really cool to have a reliable way
to boot off a CD that would activate
any USB hard drive attached to it.
Network cards/chipsets change too much
and PXE is braindead, but being able to
plug in a USB hard drive from Staples
and have a boot CD that will let copy
all of your doc and folders over would
be very useful. Hmm....

Which reminds me of how NTFS security
has always been mostly an illusion
given what you can do with Linux and
certain DOS NTFS drivers.

-BC

 

[Gordon]

Hmm...now that I think about, it would
be really cool to have a reliable way
to boot off a CD that would activate
any USB hard drive attached to it.
Network cards/chipsets change too much
and PXE is braindead, but being able to
plug in a USB hard drive from Staples
and have a boot CD that will let copy
all of your doc and folders over would
be very useful. Hmm....

Knoppix.......again!

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Duh. It does.

No, it doesn't. As long as you use a backup application that designed
for the file system, there's absolutely no problem backing up data from
and NTFS partition. You must have very little real experience with
backup regimens.

Especially in the context of "being able to
easily backup and recover from a serious Windows problem or
infection." In those circumstances, NTFS is a pain.

Actually, in those specific circumstances, the file system is
completely irrelevant. NTFS certainly causes no additional hardship,
and will even lesson the spread and impact of any infections, assuming
its security features are properly configured.

And in
more normal cricumstances wher you might want to backup an
image of your hard drive, FAT32 is much easier.

Not if you have the sense to use imaging software that designed to
handle NTFS.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Paul Knudsen]

The recovery CD which Acronis produces will do this. I booted it and
was able to access my USB drive cage.

 

[BC]

Knoppix.......again!

Thanks. I gotta check that out on a few PC's. My
tests with DOS USB drivers did not work out very
well at all -- on some PC's they worked but only
very slowly, and with others, mostly newer PC's,
not at all.
(PS -- I meant to say "doc and email folders.)

-BC

 

[BC]

The recovery CD which Acronis produces will do this. I booted it and
was able to access my USB drive cage.

Thanks, I'll check that out. Ghost supposedly had that
feature via DOS drivers, but they turned out to be too
slow to be practical, if they worked at all.

-BC

 

[Lil' Dave]

In


Even if you had one, that's not how you do it. FDISK is an old
tool and can't even handle NTFS partitions.

Just boot from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if
necessary to accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a clean
installation (delete the existing partition by pressing "D" when
prompted, then create a new one).
You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

However why do you want to reformat and reinstall? In my view,
it's usually a mistake. With a modicum of care, it should never
be necessary to reinstall Windows (XP or any other version). I've
run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows
2000, and Windows XP, each for the period of time before the next
version came out, and each on two machines here. I never
reinstalled any of them, and I have never had anything more than
an occasional minor problem.

It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to
almost any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is
"reformat and reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them.
It gets you off the phone quickly, it almost always works, and it
doesn't require them to do any real troubleshooting (a skill that
most of them obviously don't possess in any great degree).

But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You
have to restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all
your programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and
application updates,you have to locate and install all the needed
drivers for your system, you have to recustomize Windows and all
your apps to work the way you're comfortable with.

Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome,
you may have trouble with some of them: can you find all your
application CDs? Can you find all the needed installation codes?
Do you have data backups to restore? Do you even remember all the
customizations and tweaks you may have installed to make
everything work the way you like?

Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and
far between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only
after all other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person
have failed.

If you have problems, post them here; it's likely that someone
can help you and a reinstallation won't be required.


--

The dude has a notebook. Most likely only has a factory restore CD, or
similar residing in a hidden partition.

 

[Lil' Dave]

After a big problem where Window won't start in any mode,
it's much easier to gain access to a FAT32 formatted drive
than it is to an NTFS in order to get stuff off. Also it
comes in very handy when dealing with worms that manage to
load themselves low level even in Safe Mode -- nothing
beats a "C:\" for serious troubleshooting.

I did some disk imaging backups recently using boot floppies
and Drive Image Pro 4.0 -- it turned out I had to use another
program to back up the XP NTFS partitions but not the Win2k
ones. Of course the Fat32 partitions were a breeze. I never
put anything critical on NTFS.

-BC

Haven't used DI 4.0 for many moons. Too many limitations. You noted one.
Not going to enumerate all the improvements since then in subsequent
versions of DI. There were more 3 more versions before Symantec bought
Powerquest, then incorporated DI 7 into Ghost.

 

[Lil' Dave]

No, it doesn't. As long as you use a backup application that designed
for the file system, there's absolutely no problem backing up data from
and NTFS partition. You must have very little real experience with
backup regimens.




Actually, in those specific circumstances, the file system is
completely irrelevant. NTFS certainly causes no additional hardship,
and will even lesson the spread and impact of any infections, assuming
its security features are properly configured.



Not if you have the sense to use imaging software that designed to
handle NTFS.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

He's referring to a very old version of DI (4.0) that doesn't recognize XP's
version of NTFS. Read his replies elsewhere in this thread. There is no
SID option in this version of DI either. Nuff said.

 

[BC]

Haven't used DI 4.0 for many moons. Too many limitations. You noted one.
Not going to enumerate all the improvements since then in subsequent
versions of DI. There were more 3 more versions before Symantec bought
Powerquest, then incorporated DI 7 into Ghost.

Yeah, I know, but 4.0's been such a reliable version that I
hate being forced to use something else. Make a network boot
floppy and you're good to go immediately -- unless you have
XP with #$&^%! NTFS....

-BC

 

[BC]

No, it doesn't. As long as you use a backup application that designed

for the file system, there's absolutely no problem backing up data from
and NTFS partition. You must have very little real experience with
backup regimens.

Spoken like a true MS toadying dumbass who doesn't
read very well.

Especially in the context of "being able to
easily backup and recover from a serious Windows problem or
infection." In those circumstances, NTFS is a pain.

Actually, in those specific circumstances, the file system is
completely irrelevant.

Spoken like someone who's done little or no recovery.
Or are you one of those techs who just go, "Aw, gee,
that's too bad. It's gone. Sorry" a lot.

NTFS certainly causes no additional hardship,
and will even lesson the spread and impact of
any infections, assuming its security features are
properly configured.

That is utter friggin nonsense. The newer worms
make Microsoft's endless patches a joke. And
there wouldn't have been any discussion of Knoppix
or other Linux-based rescue CD's here if NTFS
was anything other than an "additional hardship."
And there wouldn't be articles and like this:
http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WindowsRescueDisk

Not if you have the sense to use imaging software that
designed to handle NTFS.

It *WAS* designed to handle NTFS but Microsoft
f*cked with it for XP for no good reason whatsoever.
And again you're reading very well -- I was talking
about what was "much easier" and not just being able
to do it. As I mentioned, I ended up using another
imaging program for the XP NTFS drives, but it was
a pain compared to using Drive Image Pro 4.0 and
Fat32.

-BC

 

[Lil' Dave]

As does the last version of DI (7.0). And the subsequent Ghost 9.0 which
incorporated DI. Both can do Firewire too.

 

[Guest]

you are lucky that you never had any major issues with the 3x and 9x versions
of windows. Those versions were never very stable and I would reinstall them
at six months intervals to keep my pc running smoothly.

 

[Guest]

you can use NTFS DOS to access the NTFS partition.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

you are lucky that you never had any major issues with the 3x
and 9x
versions of windows. Those versions were never very stable and
I
would reinstall them at six months intervals to keep my pc
running
smoothly.

I don't agree that I was lucky. True, they weren't as stable as
Windows XP, but they were stable enough that reinstallation was
not required. Besides my personal experience on my own machines,
I maintained these versions of Windows for several other people,
and never needed to reinstall them there either.