setting password in BIOS

[Alonso]

How to set a password in the BIOS? Win XP home.
Also, when instal Win XP on reformatted harddrive 80Gb, should be partitions
selected for OS and data, or use just one partition?
If two partitions, which size for OS would be OK?

 

[David H. Lipman]

How to set a password in the BIOS? Win XP home.
Also, when instal Win XP on reformatted harddrive 80Gb, should be partitions selected
for OS and data, or use just one partition?
If two partitions, which size for OS would be OK?

Setting a BIOS password is OS independent. It is machine dependent and you'll enter the
BIOS by hitting the Hot Key sequence required by that un-named system such as hitting "F2"
during the Power On Self Test (POST).

With XP there is no real reason to partition, just use the entire hard disk space as "C:".

If you want to separate OS and data, use two hard disks.

 

[Tim Meddick]

There's not much benefit that I can see, IMHO, in setting up two
partitions.

However, if you can afford it, there's some bonuses in adding an extra
physical hard-drive to your system, in that, it allows you to separate the
operating system (set-up on one drive) and all your data on another. This
allows the barrage of requests sent to the system for background services
and such, don't interfere with the playing of, maybe large, data files
like, say, a movie, when stored separately on the other drive.

Also, you can gain extra performance by re-locating the system page-file on
the "data drive" so it's not competing with all of the system's other
activity.

All this is moot if the "drives" are, in reality, just different
partitions, as the single disk will be the one competing against itself.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[David H. Lipman]

There's not much benefit that I can see, IMHO, in setting up two partitions.

However, if you can afford it, there's some bonuses in adding an extra physical
hard-drive to your system, in that, it allows you to separate the operating system
(set-up on one drive) and all your data on another. This allows the barrage of requests
sent to the system for background services and such, don't interfere with the playing
of, maybe large, data files like, say, a movie, when stored separately on the other
drive.

Also, you can gain extra performance by re-locating the system page-file on the "data
drive" so it's not competing with all of the system's other activity.

All this is moot if the "drives" are, in reality, just different partitions, as the
single disk will be the one competing against itself.

Yes.

If IDE/EIDE both drives should be masters so they aren't in a Master/Slave relationship.
No problems with SCSI or SATA.

Not only the Page File but TEMP folders, caches, etc. since two disk processes can be
concurrent, one sees an overall system performance improvement.

If it is a partitioned drive or two drives in a Master/Slave relationship all disk access
(read or write) are sequential and there is no system performance improvement.

 

[Ken Springer]

If IDE/EIDE both drives should be masters so they aren't in a Master/Slave relationship.

On the same ribbon cable????????

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.3

 

[Chris S.]

On the same ribbon cable????????

Of course not!

C

 

[John John MVP]

On the same ribbon cable????????

Of course not. What he is saying is that you don't want the pagefile in
a Master/Slave relationship on the same IDE controller as the System
disk or another busy IDE disk because an IDE controller can only read or
write to one disk at a time, rather than improve performance this would
cause a bottleneck at the worse possible place and slow things down.
Disks are the slowest part of the performance equation and competing IDE
disks can cause a severe performance hit. As David said, SCSI & SATA
disks do not suffer this problem.

John

 

[Ken Springer]

On the same ribbon cable????????

John and Chris,

I didn't really think he meant that, but I didn't find his statement to
be clear on the point. I can easily envision someone less
knowledgeable setting both IDE drives on a single ribbon cable to Master
and having no end of problems.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.3

 

[Tim Meddick]

"David H. Lipman" [email protected] wrote in message

...and there is no system performance improvement...

Performance Boost: Move Page File to Another Physical Drive ...
http://mintywhite.com/vista/vmaintenance/performance-boost-move-page-file-to-another-physical-drive/

Increase computer performance by Moving the page file
http://techryder.com/2011/01/26/increase-computer-performance-by-moving-the-page-file/

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[David H. Lipman]

Of course not. What he is saying is that you don't want the pagefile in a Master/Slave
relationship on the same IDE controller as the System disk or another busy IDE disk
because an IDE controller can only read or write to one disk at a time, rather than
improve performance this would cause a bottleneck at the worse possible place and slow
things down. Disks are the slowest part of the performance equation and competing IDE
disks can cause a severe performance hit. As David said, SCSI & SATA disks do not
suffer this problem.

John

Yes, and to add to this...

PATA/IDE/EIDE can have up to four channels (based upon the OP stating a 80GB hard disk
there is a good possibility it is IDE)
Primary
Secondary
Tertiary
Quadantary

Each channel can have two PATA/IDE/EIDE devices that work in a Master/Slave relationship.
That is why you have to set a jumber (or use drive select) so the controller on only one
drive is enabled and the second drive "Slaves" off the other drive's controller.

So to take full advantage concurrent reads & writes by two different disks, the disks must
be on their own channel.

 

[Ken Springer]

Also, when instal Win XP on reformatted harddrive 80Gb, should be partitions
selected for OS and data, or use just one partition?

Hi, Alonzo,

In this case, I disagree with Messrs. Lipman and Meddick. Probably
because I work with older and slower computers, and I come from the time
before there were hard drives, and when they came into existence, they
were miniscule in size from today's drives.

Back then you were taught how to maximize the use of the hard drive's
space, today they just tell you to spend more money on a bigger hard
drive. Think about it, would you rather spend that money on your
wife/girlfriend/significant other, or a hard drive? ;-) Which choice
would get you the most brownie points???? ::big grin::

When I'm redoing an old computer, I *always* partition the hard drive if
the drive is @30GB or more. One of the first things I did was partition
the drive on this Mac when I bought it. (In fact, I'm thinking of
adding a 3rd partition, and using it to install Linux in some flavor.

Why?

1. Computer infections almost invariably attack system files. But can
you really trust that somehow none of your data files are now safe?

2. If you have your data on a different partition from the boot
partition, should you choose to reinstall the OS, you *don't* have to
sort out your data for safekeeping, you've already done that! If your
data is on the same drive/partition as XP, you need to make sure it's
not infected, and then copy that data to another drive or partition.
Don't move, just copy, you have no idea exactly what a particular
infection may be doing. Even then, you are still hoping things are fine.

I also redirect My Documents to store everything on the data
partition.

3. The only sure way to remove an infection is by formatting the drive.
This is what I'd believed for years, although was chided from all
sides for doing so. Then I found this Microsoft Technet article,
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc700813.aspx and no longer
feel bad about partitioning.

4. Let's say you did partition your drive, 20GB and 60GB. When you go
to reinstall XP, for whatever reason, you only format a 20GB partition,
not an 80GB drive. Which is going to be faster?

5. If you partition the drive, you can analyze the average size of your
files, and choose an alternative allocation unit (aka sector) size that
makes more efficient use of the available storage space.

Let's say that all of your files are 3072 bytes in size. And you
format your hard drive so each sector is 4096 bytes in size. You cannot
use just part of a sector, it's an all or nothing situation. After
storing 4 files, you've used up 16,384 bytes. But in actual data,
you've only stored 12,288 bytes. That means you have 4096 unused bytes
that is unavailable to use. Enough space to store a 5th file, had you
formatted the sectors to 3072 bytes.

Extrapolate that idea out over 60GB, how much more data could you
store before being forced to throw something away, get a second drive,
burn a bunch of CD/DVD's, etc.?

I picked those numbers just to illustrate the point, *not* to
indicate they are the ultimate values. Any value chosen by you depends
on your hardware and the types/sizes of files you generally use. And,
there's nothing wrong with having a partition for large files, and a
partition for small files, i.e. C:\, D:\, and E:\. (That also used to
be a recommendation.) It's called a *personal* computer for a reason.

If two partitions, which size for OS would be OK?

I always start with 20GB for the boot partition. Whether or not I leave
it at 20GB depends on the size of the HD, and how much space is taken up
on the partition after installing the software, leaving room for more
software and other items to be installed, plus leaving 20% free space
for Windows to operate correctly. 15% is the required amount of free
space for Windows operation. When everything is all but done, and I
want to change the size of the boot partition, I use partitioning software.

If the drive is less than 30GB, I don't partition at all. :-( There's
data storage space used by the system to keep track of what's where,
etc., and eventually you can be too stingy and actually slow things down
and decrease the amount of space available to you.

It's a juggling act.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 7.0.1
Thunderbird 7.0.1
LibreOffice 3.3.3

 

[John John MVP]

"David H. Lipman" [email protected] wrote in message

Here we go, again! Why did you truncate David's quote and post a
completely out of context segment?

David didn't say that moving the pagefile had no system performance
improvement, this is what he said:

"If it is (moved to) a partitioned drive or two drives in a Master/Slave
relationship all disk access (read or write) are sequential and there is
no system performance improvement."

and he is absolutely right.

John

 

[David H. Lipman]

Here we go, again! Why did you truncate David's quote and post a completely out of
context segment?

David didn't say that moving the pagefile had no system performance improvement, this is
what he said:

"If it is (moved to) a partitioned drive or two drives in a Master/Slave relationship
all disk access (read or write) are sequential and there is no system performance
improvement."

and he is absolutely right.

Danke

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

How to set a password in the BIOS? Win XP home.

How to create a password depends on what BIOS you have. And it has
nothing to do with what version of Windows you are running. The BIOS
is outside of Windows, and has to be entered before Windows even
boots. One common way is to press the Del key when you first power
on, but that's not necessarily right for your computer. Watch the
screen carefully when you first boot; there's often a message there
telling you what to do. If not, check your system documentation or
check with your vendor.

Once you're in the BIOS, look around, and you should find the place to
create a password.

Also, when instal Win XP on reformatted harddrive 80Gb, should be partitions
selected for OS and data, or use just one partition?
If two partitions, which size for OS would be OK?

There are many different opinions on this, but in my view a single
partition is best for most people. You might want to read my article
on the subject: "Understanding Disk Partitioning" at
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=326

 

[Tim Meddick]

I did do that didn't I?!!

I apologise to "David H. Lipman" for implying that he had contradicted me,
when in fact, he was merely expanding my suggestion in order to emphasise
that, for it to be of any benefit, the two physical disks *must not* be on
the same IDE channel.

I, stupidly, saw only the last line and did, indeed, take it out of
context.

I do try to be attentive to detail, and make all efforts to understand,
fully, what the author of a post has said - I obviously fell down on those
efforts on this occasion.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[David H. Lipman]

I did do that didn't I?!!

I apologise to "David H. Lipman" for implying that he had contradicted me, when in fact,
he was merely expanding my suggestion in order to emphasise that, for it to be of any
benefit, the two physical disks *must not* be on the same IDE channel.

I, stupidly, saw only the last line and did, indeed, take it out of context.

I do try to be attentive to detail, and make all efforts to understand, fully, what the
author of a post has said - I obviously fell down on those efforts on this occasion.

Danke