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Hey guy,
Before I installed xp, I partion my hard drive . My C drive is only 3gigs and the D drive 37gigs. I have done this before but can't seem to remember how to set the vir. memory up so nothing can be written on the C drive, so the size can stays intac. thanks for any help.
While it is possible to move the swap (virtual memory) to the other drive, I would rather you adjust the partition size of C to a more reasonable size of 10-20 gigs. You won't be able to install much programs if you keep your partition size of 3 gigs.
To risize the Virtual memory in Windows XP right click in "Mu Computer" or go to "System" in the control panel.
Then go to "Advance" tab and click on the "setting" button inside the performace section, there go to the Advance tab and select change, and set no paging file for C, but remember to set a pagin size in D before, if not your system will crash when you run out of space.
As Conan advised, I am not very much in favor of small primary drives. Actually I am not in favor of partitioning at all when you have more than 1 phisical drive, because you lose writable space, but with one drive I usually partition to half the drive, or at least 10 Gb because most programs will try to install in the active partition and not always will you remember to change the instalation partition, and not always will you be able to do anyway (ex. Office).
Changing the file size would be usefull if you can alocate a drive for it, or use a drive where you usually don't write to (phisical drive)
[edit]opps read it wrong :o
[edit] maybe I didn't....you want your swap file on the D: drive ?
Yes swap file on D: won't it make xp faster?? that leaves the rest of C: for cache?? I think
I wrote an article about this and published it on my web site. Here is the meat of it.
Definition of Windows Paging File: A hidden file on the hard disk that Windows uses to hold parts of programs and data files that do not fit in memory. The paging file and physical memory, or RAM, comprise virtual memory. Windows moves data from the paging file to memory as needed and moves data from memory to the paging file to make room for new data. Paging file is also called a swap file.
The Windows Paging File is one of the most important, yet least recognized features of Windows XP. Optimizing the paging file will increase hard disk access and defragmenting it on a regular basis will noticeably increase system performance. Max out the PCs RAM and you have the perfect Windows Paging File recipe.
Windows XP includes an option that allows you to run the OS without the paging file. However, selecting this option may cause memory errors, so it isn't recommended. In fact, the system will perform much better if you configure the paging file for optimal performance.
Here are some paging file optimization tips:
* Do. The more RAM the better. RAM is faster than a hard drive and the paging file is located on the hard drive. Since the data is constantly swapping locations between the hard drive and the RAM your PC will access the data faster if the majority of the data is in the RAM.
* Do. Use Task Manager and Performance Monitor to monitor the paging file and RAM usage. Since memory prices have dropped, you should always have plenty of RAM. In fact, this is the best thing you can do to optimize your paging file.
* Do. If you know the optimal paging file size for the system, set the initial and maximum size to the same value. This will prevent the paging file from growing and fragmenting. See below for step-by-step guidelines.
* Do. If you have more than one hard drive -- no partitions -- you can split the paging file between these two drives. Alternatively, you can put the paging file on the hard drive that doesn't hold the Operating System, especially if that disk is faster.
* Do Not put paging files on different partitions that belong to the same physical hard drive. This will severely hinder your performance!
* Do. Before you create a new paging file, defragment your hard drive.
Follow these steps to change your paging file settings( Click the Images to Enlarge):
The rest is just screenshots if you want to see them
Click Here
Now, without all the techno gizmo speak I would recommend a different performance solution > SCSI !
Replace the C Drive (IDE) with a SCSI drive. They cost too much, but thats puters. A 18 GB SCSI Maxtor here in Germany retails for approximately US $120.00 Might be cheaper in other parts of the world. Grab a decent SCSI card, SCSI drive, and later a SCSI CD-ROM (reader/writer/whatever) drive. Then your IDE connectors are free and will allow you to mix it up.
Sunday blog ;)
Hmm Well is it possable to increase the partion of the C: drive without installing the os again??
Yes it's possible with Partition Magic.Quote:
Originally posted by sob
Hmm Well is it possable to increase the partion of the C: drive without installing the os again??
Whats up,
Yeah, definately enlarge your xp partition, but if I'm understanding what you where initialy trying to do, it sounds like your shooting for:
Partition1 - XP OS
Partition 2 - Swap File
Partition 3 - Data
This is my set up and it acctually works well. From my understanding the point of making a seperate partition for the swap file is that partition will never be fragmented, as oppossed to windows dynamiclly ng a portion of your hard drive for a swap file every session. The above suggestions for putting the swap file on a seperate drive however would really lead to best results.
Black Viper has alot of good data on this and some other XP tweaks at http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/supertweaks.htm.
Peace out,
Hex
By using Pefectdisk and doing a boot defrag, it moves the swap file (on the same drive) to an area where no fragmentation occurs.
Well partion magic 8 wasn't the answer lol, I wasn't thinking but I installed migic8 on the D: drive, so when it tryed to put everything back together, it deleted itself so everything was lost on that Drive. Live and learn :rolleyes:
from what I know it wont really wont help you putting the swap on another virtual drive. It needs to be on a physically different drive.