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Installation prep question



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 3rd 13, 10:16 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
Yes
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 39
Default Installation prep question

I will be doing a clean install of 8.1 Pro - not an upgrade. I have
two hard drives c: and d:, already formatted by WinXP Pro as NSFT and
each has files on them. One with data I use in various apps and the
other with the O/S and installed apps.

When I install 8.1, will it reformat both drives as part of a clean
install or only the drive on which I will be installing the O/S (the
one on which WinXP is currently installed)?

Will 8.1 recognize and read the NSFT format on drive d: or does 8.1 use
a different file format from NSFT?

Thanks,

John
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  #2  
Old November 3rd 13, 10:52 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
philo [_3_]
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Posts: 984
Default Installation prep question

On 11/03/2013 03:16 PM, Yes wrote:
I will be doing a clean install of 8.1 Pro - not an upgrade. I have
two hard drives c: and d:, already formatted by WinXP Pro as NSFT and
each has files on them. One with data I use in various apps and the
other with the O/S and installed apps.

When I install 8.1, will it reformat both drives as part of a clean
install or only the drive on which I will be installing the O/S (the
one on which WinXP is currently installed)?

Will 8.1 recognize and read the NSFT format on drive d: or does 8.1 use
a different file format from NSFT?

Thanks,

John





First off, you undoubtedly mean NTFS.

Though you do have an option to format or not the format the drive, I
would be sure to have the drive with data on it /not/ connected to your
machine when you do the installation...just in case you make an error.
  #3  
Old November 4th 13, 01:24 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
...winston[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,861
Default Installation prep question

Yes wrote:
I will be doing a clean install of 8.1 Pro - not an upgrade. I have
two hard drives c: and d:, already formatted by WinXP Pro as NSFT and
each has files on them. One with data I use in various apps and the
other with the O/S and installed apps.

When I install 8.1, will it reformat both drives as part of a clean
install or only the drive on which I will be installing the O/S (the
one on which WinXP is currently installed)?

Will 8.1 recognize and read the NSFT format on drive d: or does 8.1 use
a different file format from NSFT?

Thanks,

John


It's NTFS

If installing Win8.1 on an existing system with two different discs
(hard drives)...you will be given the option to choose one of the drives
(or partition if multiple exist on either drive).

If you don't choose the drive that XP is on then you will end up with a
dual boot system.

Any drive or partition chosen will be wiped, formatted as NTFS prior to
installing Win8.1.



--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps
  #4  
Old November 4th 13, 01:39 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
...winston[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,861
Default Installation prep question

philo wrote:

First off, you undoubtedly mean NTFS.

Though you do have an option to format or not the format the drive, I
would be sure to have the drive with data on it /not/ connected to your
machine when you do the installation...just in case you make an error.


When installing 8.1 on a drive with an XP o/s - Win 8.1 will format the
drive...once done (finished formatting) the user is prompted to click
'Next' which will then install Win8.1

The steps are basically in this order
Agree to install Windows
Enter product key
Agree to license terms
Choose type of install (unless Win7 or later is present only a custom
clean install)
Choose where you want to install
Click the partition and the formatting option
When formatting is finished - click Next
Win8.1 installs to a now clean and blank drive/partition


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps
  #5  
Old November 4th 13, 04:11 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
R. C. White
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Posts: 1,058
Default Installation prep question

Hi, John.

Will 8.1 recognize and read the NSFT format...


Might be easier to remember that NTFS means NT (New Technologies) File
System. From days (in the 20th Century) when NT was the New Thing. NTFS
was - and is - an advance from the former FAT (File Allocation Table system)
and its 32-bit version, FAT32. That's for a 32-bit file address on the
disk, not a 32-bit operating system.

Installation of Windows (8.1 or earlier) might reformat your boot drive, as
Winston and Philo said. It won't automatically reformat your other drives;
you can do that later, if you choose, using Disk Management or other tools.

I have two hard drives c: and d:...


As you will see if you run Disk Management and study its screen, the "drive"
letters actually refer to partitions on the disk, not to the full physical
disk. Each partition must be formatted separately, and their formats may be
"mix or match". Almost everything uses NTFS these days, and Win8 insists on
NTFS for its boot drive (where it puts the many gigabytes of folders and
files in its Windows folder tree), but it will happily use FAT/FAT32
partitions for everything else, such as your data.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2012 (Build 16.4.3508.0205) in Win8.1 Pro


"Yes" wrote in message ...

I will be doing a clean install of 8.1 Pro - not an upgrade. I have
two hard drives c: and d:, already formatted by WinXP Pro as NSFT and
each has files on them. One with data I use in various apps and the
other with the O/S and installed apps.

When I install 8.1, will it reformat both drives as part of a clean
install or only the drive on which I will be installing the O/S (the
one on which WinXP is currently installed)?

Will 8.1 recognize and read the NSFT format on drive d: or does 8.1 use
a different file format from NSFT?

Thanks,

John

  #6  
Old November 4th 13, 09:26 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default Installation prep question

Yes wrote:
I will be doing a clean install of 8.1 Pro - not an upgrade. I have
two hard drives c: and d:, already formatted by WinXP Pro as NSFT and
each has files on them. One with data I use in various apps and the
other with the O/S and installed apps.

When I install 8.1, will it reformat both drives as part of a clean
install or only the drive on which I will be installing the O/S (the
one on which WinXP is currently installed)?

Will 8.1 recognize and read the NSFT format on drive d: or does 8.1 use
a different file format from NSFT?

Thanks,

John


Maybe some other people will chime in with their
favorite settings, but this is what I'd try.

1) Using Disk Management, see how many physical hard
drives are present in the system. (execute diskmgmt.msc)
Each horizontal row of blocks is a disk, each block
is a potential partition.

If any of the physical disks will have nothing to
do with the installation, then unplug the SATA cable
from the drive. So if you see three rows of blocks,
you might want to disconnect any drives not associated
with the installation.

And if you do actually have multiple disks, and the install
target for Win81 is a separate disk from WinXP, then that
makes the installation all that much safer.

If this is a laptop, chances are you only have one hard
drive, and so this step won't have any hardware work to do.

You disconnect any SATA data cables, just before the step
where you boot the Win81 DVD.

2) For the remaining disk (the one with WinXP where you'll
be adding Win 8.1), do a complete backup of the disk. No
serious brain surgery goes on, without a backup first.
You can use Macrium Reflect Free for this, if you don't
have a backup utility. Prepare the Macrium Reflect boot
disc, and test that the computer boots the disc, the
Macrium recovery screen appears, and the fresh backup
you just made, can be viewed there. I use an external
USB for this, and the relative speed Macrium runs at,
is a pretty good match for a 30MB/sec USB2 connection.
So using USB2 isn't really a penalty when backing up.

3) Next step, now that you're down to just the install
hard disk drive, is to again use Disk Management, but this
time to create a primary partition on the drive. This
falls into the category of "leading a horse to water".
Create an NTFS partition with standard 4K clusters,
format it. Give it a label at this time as well, such as
WIN81. You can assign a label to your WinXP C: drive. This
step is to enhance your ability to recognize them later.

Offering a single partition for installation, may have the
side effect of preventing BitLocker full disk encryption
from working later. I presume Win81 still prefers two
partitions to support that option, where the SYSTEM RESERVED
is unencrypted and C: would be encrypted by BitLocker.
Offering a single partition for Win81 to install to,
may coax it to not create a SYSTEM RESERVED, saving
a primary partition for other things. But also preventing
a certain BitLocker operating mode.

You can move a system from a two partition install
(C: and SYSTEM RESERVED) to a one partition install, after
the fact. I've done it, on my Windows 7 system. This article
kinda shows the component parts these systems use.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

4) (Optional)

I disable System Restore on WinXP, when dual booting.
On the assumption I'll want the System Restore on Win81
to work. I cannot be sure the two operate independently
enough (share System Volume Information folder), without
causing one another grief.

As an adjunct to this suggestion, now you're relying
on your WinXP partition backups, in case of an issue.
If an April 2014 Windows Update on WinXP borks the
machine, use your recent April 2014 backup to put
the WinXP partition back, etc.

5) When the Windows installer DVD boots, look for whatever
Custom install option it offers. Don't proceed with
the installation, unless you're given a view of the
partitions. Click the newly created partition labeled
WIN81. The installer will want to format that partition
again, and let it do so. (This could wipe out the label
you put on it, but you can put the label back when the
installation is finished.) The idea of step (3), is to
give the installer an "easy bombing target", and try
to prevent it from doing something stupid. If it
does decide to do something stupid, you have your entire
image of the disk in step (2) to use, to do a restoration.

*Never* let an installer loose on a disk with valuable
information on it, without a backup. I had a Win2K installer
CD that wiped all the partitions on the drive, and I had
to use TestDisk to do a recovery. While installers are
thoroughly tested, they will occasionally try your
patience and scare the crap out of you. Be prepared.
In my Win2K case, the damage was the erasure of the MBR.
Nothing serious :-) Easy to fix. Just a little hair loss.

6) Since you're installing a newer Windows over an older
Windows, the OS with the boot.ini will be picked up
while building the BCD boot menu information. Windows 8.1
will steal the boot flag, the Win81 should be the active
partition, Windows 8 will manage booting, and it will hand off
to WinXP when you select WinXP in the boot menu at
startup. There should be no need for menu editing.

7) During the Windows 8.1 installation, you will be pestered
by the request to create a Microsoft account. Before you
start the install, study up (Google) on the options to bypass
this step. There are a few, such as pulling the network cable
just before the account step attempts to function. Or
entering bogus information, causing the Microsoft account
creation step to fail, for it to relent, and offer you
the option to operate with a local account only. This is
to prevent unintentional "Skydrive integration". If you
love what the NSA does, ignore this step.

After the system has come up at least once, and pestered
you for settings and the like, you can shut down some
time after that, and reconnect the SATA cabling.

8) After the install is finished, you can open a Command Prompt
window, right click and select Run As Administrator, then

powercfg -h off

That will disable hibernation. The purpose of that, is so
Win81 will "release" the machine at shutdown, so you have
the option to dual boot WinXP. There may be other options
to disable kernel hibernation, but the next time I'm
reinstalling, I'll probably be using this again.

Windows 8.1 has two flavors of hibernation. Full hibernation
(like your WinXP does). And kernel hibernation. But if kernel
hibernation is used, it won't allow you access to the BIOS.
Disabling hibernation, is so I as the user, stay in
control of the machine, and can use the BIOS setup screen
when I want to. Otherwise, I'll be stuck in a hibernation
reboot loop and won't be able to reach WinXP boot.

I think there is some option called "full shutdown", where
using this hibernation hack would not be required, but
I personally am not playing any "Mother May I" games
at shutdown. When I shutdown, I expect the OS to release
my machine, and that's why I do this step. I don't
want to go through any nonsense, like the nonsense they
want us to go through to start in Safe Mode. Ridiculous.

At the moment, Windows 8/8.1 are not everyday OSes for me,
so my visits there are brief, and a lack of hibernation
is not an issue.

9) Use Disk Management to put the label back on the Win81
partition. And enjoy your new install. Test that both
OSes boot, and there is no mysterious CHKDSK activity
on the WinXP side, when it boots.

HTH,
Paul
  #7  
Old November 4th 13, 06:47 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
Ken Blake[_4_]
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Posts: 3,318
Default Installation prep question

On Sun, 3 Nov 2013 21:11:25 -0600, "R. C. White"
wrote:

Might be easier to remember that NTFS means NT (New Technologies) File
System.



A very minor point, but although "NT" was originally supposed to be
short for "New Technologies," Microsoft now says it stands for
nothing.


--
Ken Blake
  #8  
Old November 4th 13, 07:55 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
Gene E. Bloch[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 7,485
Default Installation prep question

On Mon, 04 Nov 2013 10:47:24 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Sun, 3 Nov 2013 21:11:25 -0600, "R. C. White"
wrote:

Might be easier to remember that NTFS means NT (New Technologies) File
System.


A very minor point, but although "NT" was originally supposed to be
short for "New Technologies," Microsoft now says it stands for
nothing.


As in "NoThing"? :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)
  #9  
Old November 4th 13, 09:39 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
Ken Blake[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,318
Default Installation prep question

On Mon, 4 Nov 2013 10:55:22 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Mon, 04 Nov 2013 10:47:24 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Sun, 3 Nov 2013 21:11:25 -0600, "R. C. White"
wrote:

Might be easier to remember that NTFS means NT (New Technologies) File
System.


A very minor point, but although "NT" was originally supposed to be
short for "New Technologies," Microsoft now says it stands for
nothing.


As in "NoThing"? :-)



g

--
Ken Blake
 




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