If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Rate Thread | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties
Use the Toolbox for your SSD and record the total
writes today. Then check back after a week of your typical usage and check again. Does ReadyBoost result in a lot of writes ? That's what you have to watch for. Paul Thanks Paul. As of now, ReadyBoost (ReadyBoot) survives reboot in accord with theory. I burned the .iso to optical disk. I have no idea what Parted Magic does or why, but it does not work for me. Now I possess no tool(s) equivalent to Partition Market. Partition Magic has been taken off the market just like the electric car at the beginning of last century. I got Win10Pro by download upgrade, I have no install DVD. Even of I had an install DVD, it would be much better to clone/move my Win10Pro partition, given all the updates. This message is Xposted. Does anyone know of a tool like Partition Magic for moving partition to 240GB SATA SSD? I have two Win10 machines. Here's a question that might be universal. What is the deal with two system partitions, one 100 MB (67% free) and one 450 MB (100% free)? These were created at Win10 install time. Is that configuration needed on a Win10 bootable SSD? Thanks in advance. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
Ads |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties
On 20/09/2016 1:36 PM, Norm X wrote:
Use the Toolbox for your SSD and record the total writes today. Then check back after a week of your typical usage and check again. Does ReadyBoost result in a lot of writes ? That's what you have to watch for. Paul Thanks Paul. As of now, ReadyBoost (ReadyBoot) survives reboot in accord with theory. I burned the .iso to optical disk. I have no idea what Parted Magic does or why, but it does not work for me. Now I possess no tool(s) equivalent to Partition Market. Partition Magic has been taken off the market just like the electric car at the beginning of last century. I got Win10Pro by download upgrade, I have no install DVD. Even of I had an install DVD, it would be much better to clone/move my Win10Pro partition, given all the updates. This message is Xposted. Does anyone know of a tool like Partition Magic for moving partition to 240GB SATA SSD? I have two Win10 machines. Here's a question that might be universal. What is the deal with two system partitions, one 100 MB (67% free) and one 450 MB (100% free)? These were created at Win10 install time. Is that configuration needed on a Win10 bootable SSD? Thanks in advance. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- Use Macrium Reflect -- Free Edition in place of Partition Magic -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Maurice Helwig ~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties
Norm X wrote:
Use the Toolbox for your SSD and record the total writes today. Then check back after a week of your typical usage and check again. Does ReadyBoost result in a lot of writes ? That's what you have to watch for. Paul Thanks Paul. As of now, ReadyBoost (ReadyBoot) survives reboot in accord with theory. I burned the .iso to optical disk. I have no idea what Parted Magic does or why, but it does not work for me. Now I possess no tool(s) equivalent to Partition Market. Partition Magic has been taken off the market just like the electric car at the beginning of last century. I got Win10Pro by download upgrade, I have no install DVD. There are free partition managers out there. Although Wikipedia doesn't list it, I found one by Paragon. pm_2014_free.msi paragon_partition_manager, cnet download (I can find a 64-bit version of that now...) http://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Par...-10904411.html The Paragon page doesn't show a download link for pm_2014. It looks like I got mine from CNET (and never tested it). The feature set is impossibly basic (it allows "move" which Windows Disk Management does not support, so that's the only extra function). Modern Windows does "shrink" and "expand" but you cannot move the origin of a partition. And the shrink and expand functions, the Windows GUI controls kinda suck. Commercial products are generally always better at it anyway. https://www.paragon-software.com/hom.../features.html ******* Parted Magic is mentioned here. It's likely to be something like "Gparted" as a tool, loaded into its own Linux LiveCD with some flavor of Desktop Environment(DE). Generally Gparted is a bit more basic than some of the other commercial tools. The authors of Gparted (rightly so) are risk averse, and at one point, they rewrote the code to take the sketchy parts out. You're not likely to find a dangerous "merge" function, like you might on a Windows tool. Microsoft doesn't do "merge" either on any of their tools. The "merge" function is used to merge two partitions into one - as far as I'm concerned this is dangerous as hell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parted_Magic Generally, I just download a Ubuntu or Mint DVD, and some of those have GParted right on the DVD, ready to use. I probably have a Parted Magic here, but haven't used it in a few years. ******* Easeus is also missing from this list. Some of the Easeus free offerings contain "half-hearted" adware. One of their tools, had OpenCandy, but it wasn't armed! It refused to download anything when tested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...oning_software If we use this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EaseUS there is a review of the Free version listed. http://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Part...-10863346.html So that's two Windows freebies, plus the Parted Magic LiveCD if you want a Linux based approach. Always back up the target device, before testing a free Partition Manager. I could find one report from a while back, where Easeus corrupted a FAT32 partition during a resize. Things like this sometimes happen because the partition is not "CHKDSK clean" before the operation begins. Even of I had an install DVD, it would be much better to clone/move my Win10Pro partition, given all the updates. This message is Xposted. Does anyone know of a tool like Partition Magic for moving partition to 240GB SATA SSD? Macrium Reflect Free has a "clone with resize and align" function. Which is damn close to being a partition manager of sorts. Again, like most "almost" efforts, it lacks the ability to move the origin of a partition. Starting at Frame 9 of this filmstrip, the Macrium resize and alignment stuff are shown. You use the "Next", then the "Back" button when setting up the clone operation, and the dialog in frame 9 is the same. In Frame 10, you can see the red text "In this case I moved the center divider to the right". That dialog can align preferentially to 1MB boundaries (suitable for Win10) as well as allow the partition size to be adjusted. (You cannot clone, unless the actual amount of data will fit on the SSD...) https://s9.postimg.org/6mko7k7m5/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif You can get Macrium Reflect Free (Backup/Restore/Clone) software here. The green button gives you the ReflectDL.exe stub downloader, and using that, you get the 40MB program installer plus a WADK kit (hundreds of megabytes) for making a boot CD for emergency restores. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx I have two Win10 machines. Here's a question that might be universal. What is the deal with two system partitions, one 100 MB (67% free) and one 450 MB (100% free)? These were created at Win10 install time. Is that configuration needed on a Win10 bootable SSD? Thanks in advance. The 450MB partition provides materials for this. The partition is used two ways. It might be used during "boot repair". It is also used to make a boot CD when you want to restore an image made with "Windows 7 Backup" (see the control panels on Win10 for this - Windows 7 Backup is a program which lives in the Win10 Control Panels interface). http://s14.postimg.org/bi2rht501/done_like_dinner.gif The 450MB one is a hidden NTFS (partition type 0x27 instead of the normal 0x07). It has a ~300MB winre.wim and the partition is an emergency boot OS for repairing the OS. It isn't big enough to reinstall anything. I think there is a way to put that thing into the boot menu, so you could then select it during boot (as a multi-boot). The winre.wim (or winpe.wim on a Windows 7 backup boot CD), those are very basic pre-install environment OSes (no Metro) where the WIM is read sequentially off the media and into RAM. You'll see the rotating balls or rotating circle boot thing, so they look similar to the regular OS booting. But the similarity ends after that. A favorite reason for that to be present, is to repair the OS when it doesn't boot. Note that, it doesn't need its own partition. There is also a place to store the contents, right on the C: drive, but if you do that, if C: is corrupted, you cannot expect the WinRE.wim to boot from a corrupt partition. That's the reason it has its own partition. The partition is "hidden" in the hope that less will befall it, than the visible partitions. The keyword for working with WinRE is "reagentc". Reagentc allows moving the partition, then telling BCD where it is loaded, so the appropriate things happen if your Win10 won't boot. In this picture, I used Linux (fdisk command) to change the partition type to 0x07, then mount the partition for a look. Presumably the reagent.xml helps reagentc when you point the OS at the thing. So that's in case you were wondering what hides in there. And that picture is also intended to show why the partition is 450MB. It contains a 300MB emergency boot OS, plus the other folders have more config info (small files). https://s15.postimg.org/pwvs3fee3/re..._partition.gif ******* I have no idea what a 100MB directory is, unless it's the System Reserved from Windows 7 (i.e. not SP1). The System Reserved (which contains /boot and BCD) contains the boot menu for booting Windows 7. Again, that pig can be moved into the C: main partition. The reason it was given a separate partition, was in case the user has used Anytime Upgrade to the Ultimate edition, then the user wants to enable BitLocker full disk encryption. The 100MB partition remains unencrypted and supports the boot process, while C: is entirely encrypted. If you move the contents of the 100MB partition inside C: , then that BitLocker feature would no longer work. I changed that on my laptop, zapped the System Reserved (I no longer have that 100MB partition) and I moved the files as described here. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409 ******* The following recipe (took me a while to figure out why I tested this) is because the Windows 7 Backup "make a boot CD" function is broken in Windows 10. This procedure demonstrates how to tell the OS there is a recovery image available for the purpose of making the boot CD. This is copied from a previous post. The 0x27 partition really isn't visible to ReagentC. So I have to make it visible with ptedit32.exe (no longer available for download, so you better already have a copy). reagentc /info --- mine is disabled reagentc /disable --- this is superfluous as a result # reagentc is apparently not magic, and cannot make the invisible # partition visible. What a surprise... (ptedit32, run as administrator, change 0x27 partition to 0x07, save, quit, reboot) # Now that we're back, try the command, in the Administrator Command Prompt. $ [This syntax is used because the drive has no letter.] reagentc /setreimage /path \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition2\Recover y\WindowsRE # Well, that one didn't work, because being a silly git, my backup drive # is drive 0, and the Windows boot disk is drive 1. So, try again... # [Partition2 is my 450MB hidden partition, temporarily made visible # until this recipe is finished.] reagentc /setreimage /path \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk1\partition2\Recover y\WindowsRE reagentc /info # Great, path is set, but recovery boot from the hard drive is # not enabled. This is more for fun, than as part of getting our CD. reagentc /enable reagentc /info # Now, my recovery boot is enabled and should be in # the boot menu. I check to see if my BCD is changed. bcdedit # the "recoverysequence" has a new GUID # the "recoveryenabled" remains "Yes" The disc can now be burned. The first disc the Microsoft software burned was bad. The second one was good. This is on a drive that has never produced a coaster to date! http://s14.postimg.org/bi2rht501/done_like_dinner.gif [It's when I saw that picture, I remembered the problem I was attempting to experiment with, and fix. It's because the "burn a CD" thing was throwing an error.] If you want to get rid of the 450MB partition, you can. You could try reagentc /info, then reagentc /disable, and then you won't be able to make an emergency boot CD for Windows 7 backup. ******* Finally, you did a Windows Update "upgrade install". If you haven't housecleaned yet, look in C:\$WINDOWS.~BT\sources and there should be a 2.5GB or 3.5GB WIM. You can use that single file, plus this recipe, to make your own Windows 10 DVD. I use this all the time, making Win10 Insider edition DVDs for installation on a second OS partition. http://deploymentresearch.com/Resear...y-tools-needed So while you could just download 14393 from a Windows 10 download link (MediaCreationTool), you can also build a DVD using that single (big) file. When you get to the WADK download page, there is a stub downloader, and all you need is a 50-70MB "tools" download, rather than needing to download the whole thing. After the "tools" are installed, you'll then have your very own "oscdimg.exe" file for the project. ******* Summary: You must want to free up partitions badly, to do all this. If you plan on multibooting, maybe it's worth while. The easiest recipe to do, is probably moving the 100MB System Reserved (containing /boot and BCD) into the C: partition. So there will then be a C:\boot . Make sure you have a backup of the disk you're modifying, before removing the 100MB partition. The C: partition should then be "Active" and have the 0x80 boot flag, and then C: depends on itself for /boot and the BCD boot menu file. Maybe freeing up one partition, will be enough at this point. Paul |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties
"Paul" wrote
[snippage] pm_2014_free.msi paragon_partition_manager, cnet download (I can find a 64-bit version of that now...) http://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Par...-10904411.html [snippage] Thanks Paul, I downloaded that PM but the free version did not work for me. I went back to my old Paragon PM bootable DVD and found that with some effort, I could make it work. The GUI says it is moving the Win10 partition to the Kingston SSD. There is a page somewhere that details necessary changes to run Win10 on an SSD. Among many other changes, it says that the pagefile should by moved to an HDD to save the SSD from too many writes. After partition move is finished in a few hours, I should use EasyBCD to put it on the boot menu. Then in time, I will disable the HDD with Win10 and maintain it for recovery. After adding up the size of three VMs and Win10 OS, 125 GB of 240 GB SSD are used. We are crammed. That is why it is a good idea to keep at least one HDD working. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties
Norm X wrote:
"Paul" wrote [snippage] pm_2014_free.msi paragon_partition_manager, cnet download (I can find a 64-bit version of that now...) http://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Par...-10904411.html [snippage] Thanks Paul, I downloaded that PM but the free version did not work for me. I went back to my old Paragon PM bootable DVD and found that with some effort, I could make it work. The GUI says it is moving the Win10 partition to the Kingston SSD. There is a page somewhere that details necessary changes to run Win10 on an SSD. Among many other changes, it says that the pagefile should by moved to an HDD to save the SSD from too many writes. After partition move is finished in a few hours, I should use EasyBCD to put it on the boot menu. Then in time, I will disable the HDD with Win10 and maintain it for recovery. After adding up the size of three VMs and Win10 OS, 125 GB of 240 GB SSD are used. We are crammed. That is why it is a good idea to keep at least one HDD working. You should look carefully at the source disk again in Disk Management. For the cloning of C: alone to work, all the "system,active,boot,pagefile" would have to be on C: , rather than spread around. That's why some of those procedures come in handy, in case System Reserved happens to be "System,Active" and you really want those over on C: . That's what the TerabyteUnlimited recipe is for. ******* I did some experiments with "Hard Faults", which should equate to paging. If a Win10 machine is sub-equipped with RAM, then the hard fault rate is measurable (400 per second, if you run Win10 with only 256MB of RAM). At the 2GB level, you won't see any at all. Pictures of testing Win10 for memory usage... The "Memory Compression" service plays a role... https://s10.postimg.org/htiedl8p5/2_G.gif OS = 900MB Free = 1100MB https://s12.postimg.org/x3sozu1h9/1_G.gif OS = 700MB Free = 300MB https://s22.postimg.org/qermcuyq9/512_MB.gif OS = 434MB Free = 78MB https://s9.postimg.org/a7qzhti3z/256_MB.gif OS = 235MB Free = 21MB If you start a program which "chews up the RAM" until it runs out, usually the program quits with an "Out of Memory" error, if there isn't any more memory to be had. The Hard Fault counter only starts to tick over, in the last second or two of that ramp up in RAM usage. If you start *two* programs simultaneously consuming RAM, one runs out first, then the second is in the process of running out, the transient hard fault behavior is extended in time. But generally speaking, there aren't any hard faults to speak of in normal usage, so the pagefile is not a danger. There aren't too many people running Win10 with only 256MB of memory (exclusive of frame buffer for video). I set all my pagefiles here to 1GB, as I don't want to sit around waiting in any case, for a pagefile to fill up. The paging device will be beaten to hell and back, if you set a large pagefile size and your application has a footprint larger than system memory. I ran a program that needed 80GB of RAM, on a 64GB machine. The pagefile was set to 128GB, and at times, there was 30GB of fill in the pagefile. If you expect to use the computer that way, you're right, move the pagefile. But for light usage (email/web surfing), there is no wear to be expected. The caching of files in the web browser cache folder, probably does more damage to the SSD, than the pagefile does. And when you write to any file, there is a level of indirection inside the SSD, such that there is no physical correspondence between the LBAs claiming to be used at the file system level, versus the physical addresses inside the flash chips. Wear leveling sees to it, that even if pagefile writes were the only writes, no two of them sequentially go to the same flash cells. The "write head" is constantly moving inside the device, to smooth out the wear. All cells are, relatively speaking, written an equal number of times. (If the drive loses the table that maps external LBA to internal flash address, the drive is *screwed*.) For data at rest in a TLC flash drive, some TLC chips perform so badly, that the SSD has to re-write the file every three months, to "refresh it". So even when you think your files are resting, they can be on the move. And this is also why, an SSD isn't sitting in a 100mW state all that often, because it's too busy amusing itself doing maintenance. Paul |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties
"Paul"
[snippage] Paul [snippage] Thanks again Paul, I'll absorb your technical advice after a good sleep. I migrated Win10 to SSD. I set up BCD to now boot from SSD. I did some things suggested for SSD performance. I've disabled pagefile on SSD and made one on Data disk D: I suppose that Win10 on SSD maintains it own disk cache. I cannot update Kingston firmware. Maybe I already have the latest. Since I selected to boot Win10 first, I thought it would be good practice to power off the Win10 HDD for safe storage. But with no drive there, my PC cannot boot. Maybe drive order is relevant. I made the SSD a slave to the Win10 HDD, which is primary master. If so I am surprised. I'll need to swap SATA date cables I checked some performance issue. It seems the SSD SATA is working in SATA 3.0 mode, 6 Gbps? Good for nVidia Tomorrow will bring greater clarity --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties
Norm X wrote:
Tomorrow will bring greater clarity While it is booted, look in Disk Management. See where "System,Boot,Active,Pagefile" sit. My guess is, some on one drive, some on the other. It could be using the System Reserved boot stuff from one drive, and the OS partition of the other drive. If you unplug one of the drives, something will happen. If all the important fields sit on one drive, you should be able to unplug the other drive. Paul |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Kingston SSDNow 240GB = subtleties
On 09/19/16 22:32, Paul so wittily quipped:
http://s14.postimg.org/bi2rht501/done_like_dinner.gif The 450MB one is a hidden NTFS (partition type 0x27 instead of the normal 0x07). It has a ~300MB winre.wim and the partition is an emergency boot OS for repairing the OS. It isn't big enough to reinstall anything. I think there is a way to put that thing into the boot menu, so you could then select it during boot (as a multi-boot). The winre.wim (or winpe.wim on a Windows 7 backup boot CD), those are very basic pre-install environment OSes (no Metro) where the WIM is read sequentially off the media and into RAM. You'll see the rotating balls or rotating circle boot thing, so they look similar to the regular OS booting. But the similarity ends after that. A favorite reason for that to be present, is to repair the OS when it doesn't boot. Micro-**** needs to be more forthcoming about these things, call it a "feature", and put it in the boot menu. Otherwise, another "improvement" for 10 that's worthy of mention: recovery options that don't need a bootable DVD. (these used to be in XP but you needed the DVD and a couple of boot fails to get to it) |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | Rate This Thread |
|
|