Microsoft

[flamethrower205]

I would just like to express my utter disgust with Microsoft products. After I formatted the HD on my comp, the boot disks created using the win2K cd didn't work, as well as the cd which was supposed to be bootable apparantly wasn't. After I got this problem, I tried win NT 4.0, and found that it couldn't handle partitions at all. I then tried Win98 and Win98 SE, bth telling that they couldn't write to my hard drive. As a last resort I tried Win 95, which gave me the windows protection error screen every time I rebooted. It was not until I got the help of jc14all that I was able to get my comp up and running. In conclusion Microsoft makes THE WORST products I have tried, and is in my opinion a disgrace to software making companies.
Ahh, there, just vented out my anger.

When I rule the world, Apple will only mean the fruit.

 

[jc14all]

I glad all worked out well for you, but I cannot take all the credit for that information. I actually, by a little study with trial & error was able to pull my own hind part out of a firey situation using this learned method. It worked for me and I'm glad it worked for you. Plus the tongue lashing of M$ always brings peace of mind. LOL.

Anybody: a real helpful but pricey book $39.99 "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Expert Companion" by: Craig Stinson & Carl Siechert

I do know all the answers but I love to research and find good stuff that I never knew. This is a great forum for sharing knowledge. I thank everyone for their valuable help, and good ole Tom Pabst for giving us this medium of free expression.

JC-------<*){{{>{~~~~~
Fisher of men

 

[Morwing]

I agree with you, 'tis nice to give such a good way to help people in need. Want to know more about tweaking? I found this nifty site.

<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/axcel216/" target="_new">Windows tweaks (also DOS)</A>

 

[hammerhead]

Ack! I'm actually going to defend Microsoft, nooo....

While M$ O/S's have always been flawed, I've found installation to be easier than any other, eg Linux (having installed Win '95, '98, Me, NT 4.0 and 2K on more systems than I care to remember).

Never come across a Win 2K CD that wouldn't boot either...

I imagine your Win 9x problems with writing to the hard drive came from already having NTFS partitions... just a guess.

Understand your frustration but given the correct boot disk and working hardware, any Windows installation can be completed within an hour (save perhaps earlier NT releases, they could be a bitch)

 

[jc14all]

One thing I forgot to tell you is that you can update your BIOS to support boootable CD's and you won't experience that problem of booting to your W2k CD ROM. Check your M/B web site for the newer BIOS.

I don't discount your frustration with $Microsoft$ because they are really more interested in the contents of your wallet than you as a customer. They also, assume that you will find all the neat little bells and whistles to make your system friendlier. Whereas, they uses to provide you the Resource Kit along with the software until they wised up and started selling it as a separate package (boy someone got a perk for that one). So feel free to vent all you want.

JC-------<*){{{>{~~~~~
Fisher of men

 

[flamethrower205]

Actually hammerhead, the partitions were Fat32. I am still perplexed as to why this happened. But as one of the fellow community members said, when in doubt blame it on microsoft .
I have a question though. I heard that the NTFS is more stable and reliable than FAT32, yet previously under Win2k I could install Deux Ex, play music using winamp, and do something else. Now, I can't play music while installing Deus Ex b/c it gets choppy and the musi slows down. I have found many other power nuisances as well, such as when I minimize limewire, the mouse doesn't move smoothly across the screen. Finally, my programs take longer time to load as well as win2k, which now takes half minute where as before it took 5 seconds. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks.
When I rule the world, Apple will only mean the fruit.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by flamethrower205 on 08/23/01 08:57 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[NickM]

What is compared: before and after Convert from FAT to NTFS?
Or just another separate Win2000 NTFS installation that has nothing to do with previous good working Win2000 on FAT?

Anyway, the problem looks like typical configuration problem, when drivers not properly installed.

 

[flamethrower205]

I'm comparing the previous fat32 "good" install of win2k (in which my hdd was running at ata 33 btw), and the current ntfs install in which my hdd is ata100, but for some odd reason under the hdd controller, I have enabled dma, but it still says pio mode. I have disabled pio in the bios though. The fat32 and ntfs were both installed the same way w/ the exact same drivers. I formatted and reinstalled b/c there was too much bs on my hdd. What could teh problem be?

When I rule the world, Apple will only mean the fruit.

 

[Guest]

As I recall NTFS is going to be slower than FAT32, but at the benefit of added security and stability.


First thing though. If you are experiencing slow down in a game like Deus Ex, it's usually not going to be your hard drive acting up. I don't know how much RAM you have, but few games should even be accessing the HDD once the level is loaded. But does it sound like your HDD is thrashing when you get the slow downs? Same thing goes for your WinAmp. How are your cache settings set up and swap file usage? I use an Intel Ultra ATA Storage Driver to enable UDMA5.

Sample...

 

[Lucol]

If W2K is reporting that your hd is running in PIO mode, then 9 times out of 10, it IS running in PIO mode. This should be your problem with not so good performance. What board/chipset does your rig have? You'll probably need to get yourself some new drivers to get it running at ATA100.

 

[tdean]

do you have an intel system w/a P3? if so, i know i had a problem that was similar and had to g oto the intel developer site (sorry, dont have the url) and download and install the updated inf files for 2000 and the ata 100 patch. just a thought.

...and i would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling kids...

 

[flamethrower205]

My chipset is amd761 w/ the via for my hd controllers. I have heard so much crap about the 75gxp that I will try to return it, and get 2 20gb 60gxp's and then a raid 0 controller. I realized also that ntfs is very good b/c it is almost as good performance wise w/ a 2 mbps transfer rate (my hard drive is messed up), than w/ a 37mbps transfer rate under fat32.

When I rule the world, Apple will only mean the fruit.

 

[Guest]

NTFS is more versatile than fat32, and more secure. The only reason NOT to run NTFS is that partitions are not accessible in other OS's. I know www.sysinternals.com makes some dos>ntfs and windows>ntfs and nt4>fat32 drivers, but they are slow and cumbersome. In otherwords, if your OS f*cks up, and you have data you want to keep... you'd best be running fat32.

www.stoleyourdomain.com $12 a year domain registration! whoo! go SYD!

 

[flamethrower205]

Yeah, but w/ Win2k, it won't F*ck up as much. Solved my HD problem by installing SP2. The thing with Deus Ex was also HDD problem, I was actually refering to when installing the game (I like to install and listen to music). Anyway, win2k is great (like I said in another post), and I am happy.

Your brain: PC
You brain on drugs: Mac

 

[ejsmith2]

NTFS is quite a bit faster than FAT. But the whole '12.5% of a 2gig partition reserved for the mft when most people will never even come close to using 20meg (1%)' bothers me.
At the absolute most, I have used just under 14meg. It would be nice to be able to claim back the 200+ 'reserved' meg.


And why won't Win2k (read:msft) give you the option for FAT32 instead of 'automatically' deciding that a 1.6gig partition is best served with 32k clusters and FAT16. Granted, I can just use my Mandrake 8.0 disk to partition before installing Win2k, but it would have been nice to be able to actually *select* the FAT type with win2k/win98/winme/win95osr2.

<font color=blue>I hacked Msft, and all I got was this lousy source code.....</font color=blue>

 

[flamethrower205]

The reason that happens is b/c it's Microsoft.

Your brain: PC
You brain on drugs: Mac

 

[Guest]

uhm, in win2k and 9x you can choose fat32 on any size partition... in 9x FDisk asks "enable large disk support" which simply means fat32... in 2k you can do fat16, fat32 or ntfs right in the install after booting off the cd... I have formatted dozens of drives ranging from 1gig to 60gig in win2k setup without a problem...

www.stoleyourdomain.com $12 a year domain registration! whoo! go SYD!

 

[ejsmith2]

Ok, then I've been doing something wrong.

Please tell me how, starting with a completely unpartitioned disk, I partition a 1.6gig section with FAT32. Using only the tools included from msft; which amounts to fdisk, format, and the win2k install.

<font color=blue>I hacked Msft, and all I got was this lousy source code.....</font color=blue>