RE: [newbie] Recoverable disk space
on 21:59 15/09/1999 -0700, Ken Wilson,wrote I have heard that Partition Magic can move all this stuff for you and allow you to resize the partions. But that is just heresay on my part, I had one experience with Partition Magic and it was not good, corrupted 23 Gig of secondary storage. Fortunately it was not heavily used and key pieces had been backed up previously. I would certainly suggest Partion Magic as a solution but only if you can get the full version not the lite thing that comes with some Linux distos. Version 3 and 4 are both great. I've done everything imaginable with it: creating, resizing, moveing, copying never any problems. Infact I use it regulary to back up entire partitions to a spare hard drive. I couldn't live without it and swear by daily. Stuart ++ Real Geeks do it with the lid off ! (A)bort, (R)etry, (T)ake down entire network? ++
RE: [newbie] Recoverable disk space
Not wanting to seem like I'm talking down to you but I might think you wouldn't want to be using a hex editor yet if you have to ask what it is. That said, it is a tool, much like a regular text editor, EXCEPT, it lets you play with the individual bytes as hexadecimal values and arbitrarily change them to any value you wish. As you can see, doing this to a simple text file might not be so bad, doing it to an executable or a specially encoded file could be deadly. It's located off one of the utilities menus in your desktop. Take a peak at a file with it if you wish. Play with it if you're brave, but don't say you weren't forwarned. Ken Wilson First Law of Optimization: The speed of a nonworking program is irrelevant (Steve Heller, 'Efficient C/C++ Programming') -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jeremy Kersenbrock Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 1999 7:06 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Recoverable disk space Bob, Perhaps my newbie status concerning technical issues is showing... What is a hex editor? I have already uninstalled a good portion of the software on my machine and have nothing left in the Running Programs list (CtrlAltDel) other than Explorer and Systray. All I've gained is 60-some MB of recoverable space. At least I've eliminated some of the scattered clusters, but now I have two large (1000+ cluster) clumps near the end of the drive that I can't get out of the way. If I could move or eliminate these cluster groups, I could recover sufficient space and almost half of my drive. As it is, I can only now recover 120 MB from a disk with more than 1 Gig of free space! I suspect that the problem clusters are acutally parts of Windows itself -- maybe even something vital like the Registry. Maybe I'll be able to tell once I know what a hex editor is and how to use it. Thanks Jeremy - Original Message - From: Bob Jackson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 1999 9:35 PM Subject: Re: [newbie] Recoverable disk space I was just using Commander as an example of the type of program. Hmmm, have you tryed looking at the sectors with a hex editor? Don't change anything, just look, maybe you can find a clue as to what program that they belong to. Another indicator will be the date on those files. If you can figure out what the filenames are (hex editor again) check the dates, if they get updated regularly then they probably belong to a ysytem level program. If they haven't been touched in a long time they may be leftovers from something that's no longer on your system. Once you identify them there ater ways to deal with them. See what you can find out. Good luck Bob Jackson
Re: [newbie] Recoverable disk space
Ken, Thanks for the warning. It has been noted. This isn't my primary system -- so it would be little more than an inconvenience should I wreck it and have to reinstall everything. I still have a question. How do I tell exactly what files are in the disk clusters which I am battling. I see little benefit of playing with a hex editor when I don't even know what files to open with it. I know they exist and that they include approximately 2500 disk clusters too close to the end of my drive, but they could be anything -- Windows Registry, old temp files, something from software I've previously installed, or maybe even Windows core components. I need to be able to find out what files to tinker with before I can open them in a hex editor. Can I do it, and, if so, how? Thanks. Jeremy - Original Message - From: Ken Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 1999 7:32 PM Subject: RE: [newbie] Recoverable disk space Not wanting to seem like I'm talking down to you but I might think you wouldn't want to be using a hex editor yet if you have to ask what it is. That said, it is a tool, much like a regular text editor, EXCEPT, it lets you play with the individual bytes as hexadecimal values and arbitrarily change them to any value you wish. As you can see, doing this to a simple text file might not be so bad, doing it to an executable or a specially encoded file could be deadly. It's located off one of the utilities menus in your desktop. Take a peak at a file with it if you wish. Play with it if you're brave, but don't say you weren't forwarned. Ken Wilson First Law of Optimization: The speed of a nonworking program is irrelevant (Steve Heller, 'Efficient C/C++ Programming')
Re: [newbie] Recoverable disk space
Bob, I've never had a Norton product on this machine. What do you mean by "running"? Do you mean those programs running on the system all the time, or all the software on the machine? I hadn't thought of this yet, but it does make sense that the clusters that the defragger cannot move are those programs that are running while the defragger is operating. I only have 4 that are supposed to run all the time (I have disabled 3 of them with Registry hacks); they include: MS Office "Findfast" disabled MS Office "OSA" disabled Visioneer Paperport "Flatbed" (scanner software autolaunch) disabled Windows Printing System (Windows95 driver/print manager for Canon printer) running I think I'll try killing the Printing System. Thanks for the tip (still open for more). Jeremy - Original Message - From: Bob Jackson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 1999 12:49 AM Subject: Re: [newbie] Recoverable disk space Jeremy If I recall correctly the files at the end of the disk are put there by certain programs. I'm not sure but I think it's things like Norton Commander and similar progs. If anybody can correct me or shed more light on this, please do. What programs are you running? If you can kill these maybe you can delete those pesky files. You can always fire them up again after you get Linux installed. I've got win95 and I stripped all non-essentials before I installed Mandrake. The defrag/partitioning went smoothly. Bob Jackson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [newbie] Recoverable disk space
Jeremy Kersenbrock wrote: I'm new to Linux (and this list) and am attempting to install Linux-Mandrake 6.0 on a system which currently has Win95 installed on its only hard drive with the FAT32 file system. I want to add Linux without destroying Windows or investing in a new hard drive (for a while). My problem is that I cannot recover enough room at the end of my drive in which to make the Linux partition(s). I have tried using FIPS and Ranish Partition Manager and both are convinced I can only recover about 40MB from a drive with 853MB of free space. Here is my problem, as I understand it. Please correct or make suggestions as necessary. Even though I have used the Win95 defragger to defrag the drive before I attempt to partition; there are still clusters that the defragger "will not move" that are too close to the end of the drive to allow me to recover the necessary amount of space. My Windows swap file is not part of the problem as I disabled it and then rebooted and re-defragged only to see no change in my problem. How can I move these clusters up to the front of the disk? If this is not possible, how can I verify what files are in these clusters so that I can unistall them? Jeremy If I recall correctly the files at the end of the disk are put there by certain programs. I'm not sure but I think it's things like Norton Commander and similar progs. If anybody can correct me or shed more light on this, please do. What programs are you running? If you can kill these maybe you can delete those pesky files. You can always fire them up again after you get Linux installed. I've got win95 and I stripped all non-essentials before I installed Mandrake. The defrag/partitioning went smoothly. Bob Jackson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
