board77

Right, so ... after yet another system crash and hours spent on trying to sort out the problem I've really had it. I mean... REALLY!

Several people that supposedly know have smiled at me and said very 'ah- you know': just add a partition and put your stuff in there, then you'll have much less problems.

Thing is - after just spending 4 hours to figure out how to do it on a PC that runs windows XP home, I still have absolutely no clue how to do it

What I want to do - but only if it makes sense (which frankly I'm not even really sure about) is create a seperate partition to put my games in as it is apparently some of those that create a problem.
Basically what happens is: the system crashes, goes through a disk check(which only takes like 10 hours no kidding) and then I get messages about crosslinked files (solved by copying), invalid entries that are being trunctuated (sounds painful).. and most of the time this happens with my games.

So, am I assuming correctly that by putting those in a seperate partition I can save myself some future headaches? Or do I have to quit playing games?

If you know how to go about doing all this, then your advise (and step by step guidance for a dummy) is most appreciated.

First things first. If you want to create a partition on an existing system you need to have unused space on your Hard Drive. I'm assuming you don't. What this means is that you'd have to resize your primary partition and then create an extended partition out of the free space thus created. You would then have to create a logical drive within the extended partition and format it. XP provides a tool for doing this, but being an untrusting soul when it comes to Microsuck products I use Partition Magic. This, however, costs you money.

All of this does not amount to a hill of beans in your case because you have been misinformed. Installing games to a seperate partition will make no difference to your Windows XP stability. Anything that is installed into XP directly such as dynamic linked libraries will still be installed there even if the games are installed on drive Z:


My strong advice is to backup important data, format the Hard Drive and reinstall Windows XP. The errors you're seeing look like an XP or file system problem. It may be that your FAT (File Allocation Table) is corrupt.

Sorry the news is not better. Perhaps someone else might have a more painless solution.

Alatar

A partition can help. You need to reformat to do so, though. I don't remember if XP has partitioning software already installed (it might), but you can use a program Magic Partition (I think that's the name) to partition your harddrive.

The last time I had these errors was my IDE controller being to old to handle my 120 gb hard drive. How old is your pc?

you could go to the motherboard's manufacturer's website and download new chipset drivers. Putting your games in another partition won't change squat. You should regardless always keep your data on a 2nd partition.

The only other explanation I can think about is that your hard drive is dying. If it happens to click or squeak, back up your stuff very quickly.
In any case, consider reformatting.

Alatar is correct. You don't need a second partition to cure this problem.

Try this:

- goto MY Computer

- right click on Local Disk (C:)

- select Properties

- select Tools

- in Error-checking, click Check Now

- with both boxes unchecked, click Start

- let it cook

- when it is done, see if it reported errors


If it reports errors, then backup everything valuable and go through the same process with both boxes checked. If you have the nerve, you can have it fix them the first time. I never lost anything that wasn't already lost by being aggressive here, but backups are a good idea. You should run it again to see if the errors were fixed. Sometimes it takes several passes. You may or may not lose something that is already broken, which may, but usually not, require you to reinstall something, even XP itself, but this isn't likely.

Assuming you and your PC survive that, while you are playing at being a geek, you should start a defrag and take a nap.

Error-checking, Defrag, and Backup are all in Tools.

In XP you are likely to get a message that says you must reboot and asks you if you wnat to do the defrag at the reboot. Click Yes.

Another neat trick you can try is this:

Click Start -> Run and type the following in the box:

sfc /scannow

This runs the System File Checker. It effectively checks your install for corrupt System files that a scandisk may miss.

Alatar

I bought this piece of 3 1/2 years ago - probably half a lifetime when it comes to computers.

Thanks for all your input though reading through it all I'm gettig more and more .
The biggest problem is that I don't have an XP disk I can start from all over again. This thing came pre-loaded with XP and I only have a 'recovery' disk. Somewhere on this HDD (I think) there is a copy of XP stored... only I have no idea where and how to access it. But even if I find it, I would still have to download all the XP updates and fixes that have been made by Microsoft since then, aye?

.... yet even if I do all this, it still won't solve the problem - if I get you right. Sure it's safer to have personal files on a seperate partition but then I'm quite diligent in backing up stuff anyway. I won't really 'win' anything.

Different question:

Would it makes sense to buy another hard-drive and install that? Configure the start-up settings (somehow?) such that one has to choose which 'system' to load. E.g. a 'normal' every-day setting accessing the regular/old drive and a seperate setting where the 'games' drive is? I would not necessarily keep up-to-speed with Microsoft XP updates (or I could load it with Windows 98 I still have and which works just fine with the games).
Would there be any way to then 'crosslink' the two drives, e.g. choose to run the HDD with Windows 98 installed yet still be able to access personal files stored on the HDD with XP installed?

btw: over night now I have run checkdisk and defrag and upon reboot this morning I got no errors - one good thing. Trouble is, I know - each time I get another Windows XP update it crashes yet again I usually get them on a Thursday.... I hate Thursdays!


edit to add: am trying that trick of yours right now Alatar

All of that is doable, but should be unnecessary. It sounds like your underlying problem is the disk and if the tools fixed it, you should be OK. You didn't say if it reported fixing problems. If it didn't, it should have told you that too.

You can set up a dual boot. Partition Magic and System Commander help, although in theory you don't need them with a new disk. You can buy them together in a single package.

Let us know if you made it through the day OK.

~

Hello Alandriel,

How did everything turn out with your PC?

I've had two hard drives in my PC for the last three years. At first I just used the small one (only 4GB) for storing all of the important stuff I wanted to save and it worked fine; it may be a solution if you haven't been able to work out the bugs in your system.

Recently I decided to update my PC (it was built for me by my daughter's boyfriend) and taking the plunge I bought XP and re-formatted my HDD and did a clean install of XP.

At first I liked XP, but soon found out I just couldn't tinker with my PC like I'd been able to with Win 98 (plus I was having issues with a few things) so I bought another HDD and now I have a dual boot system and run both XP and 98. It's been working pretty good so far. Most of my programs are installed in XP and I use Win 98 for a few favorite applications and as a storage place.

There are some good sites out there where I found all of the information to make it work. It did take time (clean installs on both HDD's), and after a few trials and errors (mostly stupid ones ), everything is updated and reinstalled again. Well worth it; my PC is running as good new.

~