Using Your Hard Drive Effectively.
This guide is intended to help you make best use of your hard drive space inside your PC and to explain some of the terminology you may hear when people talk about hard drives.
All Gateway™ PCs are shipped with a hard drive and
this device is used to store data. By data we mean applications, your
operating system (Windows), and your personal documents. Take a look at
how your hard drive space is allocated by double clicking on the "My
Computer" icon in the top left-hand corner of your Windows desktop.
You will see a window similar to the one shown below.
Even though you probably have only one physical hard drive inside your machine you will see two hard drives, in this case C: and D: A partition is a split in the hard drive making the one physical drive into 2 usable drives. Imagine having a cake, and cutting it into 2 slices. Even though you have one physical cake, it is now in 2 pieces. This is the principle behind a hard drive partition.
It is important to monitor the amount of remaining space on your hard drives. This is because Windows™ does not automatically swap between drives when one is full. For example, when installing an application on drive C: it becomes full: Windows™ will not continue the installation on drive D: and the installation of the application will fail. To rectify this situation, re-start the application installation and specify the installation to take place on drive D:
Other tips to retain space on the C drive.
* Only use the c:-partition for Windows and Office.
* When you are asked during installation for a location to keep the files necessary for the program, choose a folder on d:. Take care: this can only be done during the installation of the program. If you change the location of these files after installation, the program will not function correctly anymore. This is because the location of those files is also kept in other places like the registry. You will have to remove and reinstall those programs. The deinstallation is done with the wizard of the program or through My Computer, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.
* Place your personal files on another partition than C:, eg D:.
* Remove Temporary Internet Files. You can reach those files by opening Internet Explorer and then you click on View in the grey menu bar and then on Internet Options .
* Always try to maintain about 10% of drive C as free space. Windows uses this space to store temporary files so if you fall below this 10% mark, you may notice Windows performing noticeably slower.
How Do I Check How Much Space Is Remaining On My Drive?
This is actually quite simple. Open the "My Computer" icon again by double-clicking on the icon. Move the mouse pointer over the drive that you wish to check and press the right-hand mouse button. A menu will appear as shown below:
With the left-hand button click on the "Properties" option and the following screen will be displayed.
This shows you exactly how much room you have remaining on your hard drive. Repeat the above procedure for any other hard drives that you have on your machine.
Tip! This procedure also works with floppy disks!
What's The Difference Between FAT16 and FAT32?
There are 2 main differences between FAT16 and FAT32. Firstly, the File Allocation Table (FAT) is a "map" showing the operating system where files are physically located on the hard drive. FAT16 is older than FAT32 and is seen mainly on older DOS-based machines. FAT32 is newer and is found in Windows 95 and 98.
FAT16 is relatively inefficient when storing information and will only see up to 2.1GB on a hard drive. This means that if you have a 10GB hard drive you will need to have 5 different partitions (drive letters) for your hard disk (C, D, E, F and G). This means that you have to monitor the remaining space on all drives which can be time consuming and makes files difficult to find.
FAT32, on the other hand, is more efficient at storing information and does not have the 2.1GB size limit. A FAT32 partition can be of any size up to 2 tera-bytes!
Gateway™ ships its Windows 95 and 98 PCs with a 2.1GB FAT16 partition and the remaining space on the hard drive as a FAT32 partition – its size depends on the hard drive fitted to your machine.
How Do I Know If My Drive Is FAT32 Or FAT16?
In Windows 98 the Properties screen (shown above) shows the file system used on the hard drive (FAT 16 or FAT 32).
Some Useful Tools
Again, when you are in the Properties screen, as shown above, click on the Tools tab and you will have access to all of the tools you need to keep your hard drive in top condition. You will also notice that you are told how long it has been since you performed one of these checks.
Let’s take a look at 2 of the most commonly used, ScanDisk and Defrag.
Scandisk
This checks your hard drive for errors and will automatically fix any problems with the drive. To start ScanDisk click on the button marked "Check Now" and you will see the screen below:
There are 2 types of check, Standard and Thorough. Most of the time a Standard check will do fine. Occasionally a Thorough check should be performed as it takes a long time to complete.
Defrag
Defrag makes your drive more efficient by collating together any fragmented files. Windows automatically manages this and so you should only have to perform this check infrequently. If you click on "Defrag Now" Windows checks your hard drive and will report on the fragmentation level of it:
Most of the time you will be told that this utility doesn’t have to be used, but if you click on the Start button the process will begin. We recommend that you only perform a defrag if you do not need to use your PC for around 30 minutes. It is also a good idea to disable any screen savers or power management routines on your PC so that it does not affect the results of performing a Defrag.
