Harddisk compression Windows98

[Peter]

1. What effect has harddisk compression of Windows 98 on the PC speed?
2. What is the optimal size for the Host station that will be created when
you compress the entire drive?
3. What's best: compress entirely or only compress the empty part of the
harddisk.
Thanks, Peter.

 

[philo]

1. What effect has harddisk compression of Windows 98 on the PC speed?
2. What is the optimal size for the Host station that will be created when
you compress the entire drive?
3. What's best: compress entirely or only compress the empty part of the
harddisk.
Thanks, Peter.

Ideally, you'd have installed win98 on a fat32 partition...
and with fat32 you do not have the option to compress your drive

the problem with compression is that with a bad shut down...
something which might only cause a minor error..could render a compressed
drive unusable

 

[Peter]

Ideally, you'd have installed win98 on a fat32 partition...
and with fat32 you do not have the option to compress your drive

the problem with compression is that with a bad shut down...
something which might only cause a minor error..could render a compressed
drive unusable

Right, so you suggest to convert the disk from FAT16 to FAT32... does that
require a re-install of Win98 and/or other stuff? Risks?
Thanks, Peter.

 

[Ralph Mowery]

1. What effect has harddisk compression of Windows 98 on the PC speed?

2. What is the optimal size for the Host station that will be created when
you compress the entire drive?
3. What's best: compress entirely or only compress the empty part of the
harddisk.
Thanks, Peter.

When you compress the drive you should leave enough room for the files that
are already compressed and can not be compressed any more. This is the JPG
and the MPG and many vidio and music formats. It does no good to try and
compress those files again.

 

[Wayne Morgan]

You can convert from Fat16 to Fat32 without a reinstall. The OS has the
converter built in (it won't go the other way though). I believe the name of
the converter is Convert.exe, but it's been awhile since I've done this on
'98. There may be an icon for this in Start|Programs|Accessories|System
Tools. Going to Fat32 will give you 4k clusters on the drive so you will
have a lot less wasted "slack" space. A 2GB partition (the largest Win98
will go with Fat16, this gives 32k clusters) can waste up to half the drive
space as slack.

 

[philo]

You can convert from Fat16 to Fat32 without a reinstall. The OS has the
converter built in (it won't go the other way though). I believe the name of
the converter is Convert.exe, but it's been awhile since I've done this on
'98. There may be an icon for this in Start|Programs|Accessories|System
Tools. Going to Fat32 will give you 4k clusters on the drive so you will
have a lot less wasted "slack" space. A 2GB partition (the largest Win98
will go with Fat16, this gives 32k clusters) can waste up to half the drive
space as slack.

That's right...
I just want to mention that if you do not have enough free space on your
drive, the conversion will not be able to take place...
Before you begin the conversion it would be a good idea to delete
all your temp & temp. interernet files etc.

Also...although the conversion process is a relatively safe one...
I'd definately recommend backing up anything really essential!

 

[~misfit~]

You can convert from Fat16 to Fat32 without a reinstall. The OS has
the converter built in (it won't go the other way though). I believe
the name of the converter is Convert.exe, but it's been awhile since
I've done this on '98. There may be an icon for this in
Start|Programs|Accessories|System Tools. Going to Fat32 will give you
4k clusters on the drive so you will have a lot less wasted "slack"
space. A 2GB partition (the largest Win98 will go with Fat16, this
gives 32k clusters) can waste up to half the drive space as slack.

The converter isn't installed by default, you have to add it using the
add/remove programs in control panel and go to windows components, it's in a
sub-menu there, system tools maybe? Or so I discovered on a 98SE install I
just did on a P120 with a 1.2GHz HDD last week, it went form 323MB free
space with FAT16 to 393MB free with FAT32 and only took about a minute.

 

[DaveW]

Compressed drives are very slowww.

 

[kony]

1. What effect has harddisk compression of Windows 98 on the PC speed?

If the system has mismatched parts, ie- fast CPU but slow HDD, it can
help, but not much.

2. What is the optimal size for the Host station that will be created when
you compress the entire drive?

0 - It is optimal to not compress it.

3. What's best: compress entirely or only compress the empty part of the
harddisk.
Thanks, Peter.

Best is to never use it. If the drive is THAT small, it's also THAT
old, that it's reliability is suspect. With a compressed drive you
may have big problems if HDD clusters go bad. Just pretend drive
compression doesn't exist and you'll be better off. If you really
need a minimal footprint Win98 install, use "98lite" (google search
it).

 

[Peter]

The converter isn't installed by default, you have to add it using the
add/remove programs in control panel and go to windows components, it's in a
sub-menu there, system tools maybe? Or so I discovered on a 98SE install I
just did on a P120 with a 1.2GHz HDD last week, it went form 323MB free
space with FAT16 to 393MB free with FAT32 and only took about a minute.

Thanks for the tip; convert had been installed at setup though.
Have now started conversion (after scanning, defragmentation and backup)...
when the system restarts in DOS mode, what should the screen show?
Cheers, Peter.