Win8 upgrade experience

lehnerus2000 said:

Slartybart said:

I just evaluated Lucid Puppy, Peppermint, and Linux Mint Mate. Peppermint wouldn't boot on my machine and Lucid Puppy wouldn't load some drivers. Mint Mate worked beautifully, but it's much larger.

On my PC, Linux Mint MATE's overall size (~8 GB) is much smaller than Windows 7 (~22 GB).
Both are 64 bit and those sizes include software.

I do have more programs in Windows, but the total size is only ~6 GB.

Slartybart said:

Are you saying that you have Win Page and Linux Swap each on different parts or are you saying that both are not on the boot part, but on the same part? Curiosity only

I have 3 HDDs:

• (1.5 TB) 3 x OS + other partitions
• (2.0 TB) Linux Swap + other partitions
• (2.0 TB) W7 Pagefile + other partitions

The Swap file and Pagefiles have their partitions solely devoted to those functions.

Thanks - nice layout.

I'm on a laptop and don't have the luxury of additional internal drives. I think putting the page and swap files on the USB connected external would hurt performance, especially since I'm experiencing "stay awake" issues with the GoFlex.

I do like the way you think though.

Bill
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Bill I always wipe external of any backup crapware that can interfere using Diskpart Clean to get rid of all of it since it is often also in boot and partition code.

You can use Seatools to diagnose and wipe it

gregrocker said:

BillI always wipe external of any backup crapware that can interfere using Diskpart Clean to get rid of all of it since it is often also in boot and partition code.

You can use Seatools to diagnose and wipe it

Thanks Greg, but I'm no going to wipe a working drive just because it goes to sleep.

I know this issue and I know I fixed it once without resorting to draconian measures.

A good point though for new drives - I didn't mention that when I originally connected the drive I did wipe it and initialized it as GPT. So none of the on disk Seagate "utilities" survived.
edit: Maybe this is what you meant, not that I should wipe my sleepy drive.

How do I know? I looked using a disk editor.

I should clarify that the Dashboard install is a Windows install (which did not work on 8.1 up1) and it isn't a "put the crap back on my external drive install" :)

I'll keep combing through the labyrinth of my memories and post a solution if I don't get lost in the maze.

Bill
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I looked at device mgr and found some things that might provide clues.

All of the volumes are listed under Portable Devices - this is a change from Win7. Drilling down on the details tab points to the inf file - so I'll look at that.

I think Win8 is straightening out the classifications for ext drives and there are some noticeable differences. In this case the details for the Portable Device volumes don't match the Hardware policies. This might require some registry scripts, but I always try to use native Window solutions - if none are available or don't do what I expect, then editing the registry is the last resort.

Finding the correct key / value pair isn't all that easy. I have to focus on each of the data reported and then try to reconcile the disparities.

This is gonna be fun - or I'll live with it - or I'll get a new ext drive :P)

SIW2 said:

@Greg,

I don't think they are claiming any advantage. It is just something a bit different to have a play with for a little while.

Far too annoying for long term use.

Exactly.

Yes Bill I meant to wipe the drive to get rid of the crapware, which may leave remnants if just deleted. These could be hidden or in the code. Some externals will load drivers in Device Manager so you might look there. There are some drives that load multiple drivers for their crap functions that seem to disappear when the drive is wiped and never reappear.


I have never dealt with an external that wants to sleep but if it is wiped clean and has no drivers in Device Manager then it must be in the firmware. If it's less than a year old it has tech support which may known this issue and its solutions.


We have users wipe "working drives" all the time here to overcome these blocking other drives including OD from booting. It's in the code in those cases, and the particular boot sector and partition table wiped by Clean Command quick wipe seem to do the job.

Is there a USB sleep setting in BIOS?

Where is our Windows 9 beta so we don't have to play with Windows 8.1 in the silly season? Too hot to go out at 33C.

The custom size pagefile (3072-4098) is holding steady at 3072 and there has been no fragmentation the in the pagefile since I changed it. It seems as though the extremely high fragmentation was constrained to the pagefile - current fragmentation is 1%

I have always set a custom pagefile on every Windows version that allowed it (I don't recall if 3.1 or the 9x versions did, but I think so). I hadn't gotten around to that customization before I noticed the fragmentation "issue" - I also don't recall other versions fragmenting the pagefile when Windows managed it.

I'll take a guess here at why the native defrag screamed though the process - it didn't consider the page file fragmentation in it's calculations and just skipped it completely. Just a guess.

Slartybart said:

lehnerus2000 said:

Slartybart said:

Are you saying that you have Win Page and Linux Swap each on different parts or are you saying that both are not on the boot part, but on the same part? Curiosity only

I have 3 HDDs:

• (1.5 TB) 3 x OS + other partitions
• (2.0 TB) Linux Swap + other partitions
• (2.0 TB) W7 Pagefile + other partitions

The Swap file and Pagefiles have their partitions solely devoted to those functions.

Thanks - nice layout.

I'm on a laptop and don't have the luxury of additional internal drives. I think putting the page and swap files on the USB connected external would hurt performance, especially since I'm experiencing "stay awake" issues with the GoFlex.

I do like the way you think though.

Bill

My current setup is overkill, as I can only use 1 physically installed OS at a time. :)
I wanted to limit the number of partitions on my secondary HDDs.

Previously, I had the Linux Swap, XP & W7 Pagefiles all on the same HDD (different HDD from the OS though).

You should be able to create those partitions on the same HDD as your OS.
I use separate partitions because it was recommended in an article about XP (many years ago).
The article said to use a separate partition and if possible use a different HDD.

IIRC, the W2K8 text books we used in my Networking course, also recommended a separate partition for the Pagefile (and for some directories e.g. the one containing the log files).

When I rebuilt my setup in September 2012, I wish I had stuck to my usual practice of having a separate partition for my programs (due to issues my friends had with W98).
Moving the programs and Pagefile to different partitions:

• Reduced the amount of fragmentation on the OS partition
• Seemed to prevent the W98 "Bit Rot" issues my friends complained about.

Since operating systems and HDDs have improved since W98 & XP, there may now be no benefits to be gained from my preferred setup.

lehnerus2000 said:

See post above

I could put the parts on my internal HD, but I'm limited to 5 4 parts. The OS and my Data push the free space to the middle of the drive and then I'd have to create the part in the extended part. A little extras overheard and the arm distance .... maybe I'm working of habit .

Drives have improved but I don't think I'll going to do the analysis I did 20 years ago again to see if the old rules still apply.

It's been nice discussing the old days and how we got here. My next machine will be a desktop and I can add more drives. The laptop is nice, but it's a pain to reorganize.

Bill
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