jaclaz

No practical restriction, the (new or old) windows will create a volume (FAT, NTFS has NOT "reserved sectors") with a certain number (automatically determined) of "reserved sectors" as well as a certain size of the FAT tables (2 of them), you can increase the number of "reserved sectors" (shifting forward the FAT tables) as much as you want, or you can increase the single FAT table size (leaving one or more "unused" sectors at the end). Cluster size is instead normally automatically determined by volume size, namely, according to this table: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/default-cluster-size-for-ntfs-fat-and-exfat-9772e6f1-e31a-00d7-e18f-73169155af95 as you might know there are third party formatting tools allowing 32 kB sized clusters on largish volumes (up to the limit of FAT32), that "unsupported" [1] size might give issues with different Operating Systems, particularly as "boot" volume, but there are too many possible combination of volumes sizes, operating system versions and *what not* to be able to be more specific. The check may be legit, but - with all due respect - it seems to me rather pointless. I mean ("normal" way): 1) format a volume as FAT32 2) read and jolt down from its bootsector the number of reserved sectors and FAT size, then add "sectors before"+"reserved sectors"+2*"FAT size" and divide the result by whatever alignment value you choose 3) if you have a remainder either increase the number of hidden sectors and shift both the FAT tables or (if the remainder is even) increase the FAT size of 1/2 of the remainder and shift only the second Fat table Your check: 1) format a volume as FAT32 2) write a file to it, find the address (in sectors offset) of the beginning of that file and divide the "sectors before"+"address of file in sectors" by whatever alignment value you choose 3) if you have a remainder either increase the number of hidden sectors and shift both the FAT tables or (if the remainder is even) increase the FAT size of 1/2 of the remainder and shift only the second Fat table (but you will have to additionally overwrite with 00's the area when you wrote the file as it will likely become part of the second copy of the FAT tables) The tricky enough part is #3. And remember that Steve6375's experiments led to aligning NOT to the file area, but to align to the actual first file (i.e. excluding the cluster occupied by the "label" on a freshly formatted disk to a MUCH larger value (1 Mb) so that it is a multiple of *everything*, i.e. not only cluster size but also page size. If you prefer, if you format and use a label, you have already written a first file to it, and you should align to the next cluster (where the actual first file will be written to). Of course, instead of the above you *can* align the volume contents by simply moving the volume/partition monolythically ("sectors before" in the boot sector an partition table in the MBR), but this would lead to "crazy numbers" in the MBR and this may actually cause an issue, either as the "booting" one you seem to remember[2] or - before or later - with Diskpart or some other partitioning tool, again this may depend on the specific OS and tool versions, and - besides the "move" will anyway need to be done manually as most partition tools align partitions/volumes with either the canonical "head" or the "MB" conventions, I don't seem to remember any valid tool that is both "automatic"/"user friendly" and has the sensibility to move/place volumes/partitions at single sector granularity. Anyway, on internal devices you won't notice any improvement in access or transfer times. jaclaz [1] even if MS calls the 32 kB cluster size "unsupported", it actually means that they don't provide a tool to format a volume with that cluster size, but once you have a validly formatted volume with 32 kB clusters, in normal operation it behaves just fine, at least for "data" volumes [2] never experienced it, but in theory it is possible that this or that OS throws a fit with not canonically aligned boot volumes

Wait a minute, I have seen the post where your ego is cited, but I missed the ones where your person, political views and appearance were discussed. jaclaz

The 1 MB is only a round, consistent number, multiple of *everything*. The actual "typical" cluster size is 4 kb, BUT when we are talking of SSD's or flash devices there is a "page size" (that usually is larger, like 16 kB, 32 kB, 64 kB, 128 kB). As a matter of fact (and this has briefly happened in Vista times with certain sizes of mass storage devices) a 128 kB alignment is as good as the MB one. Having the start of the partition (more properly of the volume) on a "round multiple" automatically makes (on NTFS BUT NOT on FAT) any file become "aligned" (to 4kB), set apart very small files, the "bulk" of files will be largely (except for the uneven "tail") be "conforming" to the page size also. On FAT (16/32/64) it is possible to either offset the partition or manipulate the reserved sectors and/or FAT size so that the first file is aligned (and from then onwards all files will be aligned). Steve6375 did quite a few tests (on USB sticks where the difference is actually noticeable) and made special provisions for partitioning/formatting in his tools, at the moment reboot.pro (where he shared tests results) is down, here it is (hopefully temporarily) via Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20190530042213/http://reboot.pro/topic/16783-rmprepusb-faster-fat32-write-access-on-flash-memory-drives/ but you can probably read something about the matter on his site: https://rmprepusb.com/ jaclaz

Are you looking for a HDD caddy? Maybe HDDcaddy.com would do (nomen est omen) : https://hddcaddy.com/ jaclaz

Usually it depends on the specific video card and related driver and/or "control Panel", you can try (via Wayback Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20200627082814/http://funk.eu/hrc/ Also - for what it costs - en el-cheapo VGA to HDMI converter might solve the problem without needing to edit Registry/Edid, etc., these thingies are typically in the 8-15 Euro range. jaclaz

Still it should work in safe mode, at a low refresh rate and 640x480, i.e. using the built-in (very basic) VGA,SYS driver. That display should be "native" 1366x768: https://www.crutchfield.com/S-Ck1x8D2nHIj/p_05232HL67U/Toshiba-32HL67U.html Then as suggested by RanyShadow, you should be able to modify the .inf/EDID if needed, but it is "queer" as this kind of modifications are usually not needed for relatively recent displays. Are you sure you did not - by accident - forced a higher than 1366x768 resolution or a stupidly fast refresh rate (probably that thingy cannot go faster than 50 or 60 Hz)? Try with another surely working monitor/display and try setting the video card resolution to 1366x768@50Hz or 1366x768@60Hz,, and then try connecting that Toshiba TV, first thing. jaclaz

If I may, and if I get your story right , youmade fun of your dad, but what could you propose as an alternative? Bitcoin wasn's invented yet at the time and investing in the market/stocks does not provide - last time I checked at least -a roof over a family. jaclaz

More or less the issue is the following: 1) the traditional alignment was on "head", which plainly means in 99.9999% of hard disks with a geometry of n/255/63 that the "gap" from the MBR to the beginning of first (primary) volume was (is) 62 sectors (i.e. 63, the amount of sectors in a "head" minus one, the MBR). 2) the SAME gap happens inside extended partition, between the EMBR (first sector of the extended partition) and the first (logical) volume inside it, AND between the following EMBR ant the relative (logical volumes). When the alignment "(non-)standard" changed to 1 MB, these gaps became 2047 sectors (i.e. 1048576/512=2048 sectors minus one, the MBR or EMBR). There is nothing wrong with eoither of the two "conventions". The bug is in Disk Manager coming with (and likely in the Diskpart version that can be used on) XP. In order to do what amounts to changing one single byte in the MBR from 0x80 to 0x00 (or viceversa) *somehow* the disk manager "travels" the whole chain of logical volumes inside extended and when the (normally on 1 Mb alignment 2048 (2047+1) value of "sectors before" is encountered the whole EMBR logical volume entry is "wiped" (i.e. overwritten with 00's) but the MBR and thus primary volumes/partitions are not changed, of course this same happens if other (possibly any) changes in Disk Manager are attempted, not only changing the "active status", I don't think anyone made extensive tests on this. It is as if there is an implied check on current status of the disk partitioning and when something is not the expected value the entry is wiped (silently). Different (third party) tools are usually fine (particularly those that - in the same version - run on both XP and Vista/7), as generally they are written to do what they are supposed to do (change a single byte) and not to *somehow* check the consistency of the partitioning scheme of the disk at every run, but of course you cannot be sure-sure until you try the specific tool on the specific system. As said on the mentioned thread, it is not particularly difficult to find and "undelete" the logical volumes as - luckily - only the first entry in the EMBR is wiped, whilst the second (address of "next" EMBR) is left unchanged, but still it is not exactly "trivial". About speed, generically speaking when we are talking of storage devices they belong to a "bus", where controllers (and relative drivers and protocols) are involved. Notwithstanding whatever you read at the time when SATA (SATA I) came out, there was not any particular advantage in speed over good ol' ATA (ex IDE) disks (at the time already at the fastest incarnation of the bus at , i.e. theoretical 133 MB/s vs the - as well theoretical - 150 MB/s of SATA I) because the actual devices (rotating hard disks), both the 7200 rpm and the more economical (and largely used in laptops due to lower power requirements) 5400 rpm were slower than that. (to be fair there was a tiny advantage because of NCQ, Native Command Queing that was available on some SATA disks but not on ATA/IDE ones). In other words, the bottle neck was the hard disk. Then faster hard disks came out and the bottleneck became the bus or controller or protocol, so motherboards started getting SATA II. SATA II (theoretically 300 MB/s) is usually enough to deal with *any* rotating hard disks, the bottle neck is again the mass storage device. Then came SSD's (that in their SATA version largely outperform SATA II speed) and motherboards started getting SATA III. SATA III (theoretically 600 MB/s) is enough to deal with *any* (SATA) SSD. Still SSD (in themselves) can be much faster than what SATA III allows (the bottleneck is again the bus or controller or protocol) so new faster buses (for SSD's) were introduced, direct PciE or Nvme. Putting a "high end" SSD topping the SATA III standard (like 480-500+ MB/s) on a SATA II bus gives no advantage (the resulting speed will be roughly half of what the device is capable of on a SATA III bus), a "more common", cheaper SSD (with a speed like 350-400-450 MB/s) is already faster than the SATA II bus, i.e. any speed difference in the device speed is cut off by the bus capacity, i.e. leveled down to the bus max speed. jaclaz

Maybe - just maybe - the *whatever* Memory Booster "sees" is a sort of "virtual" page file (somehow residing in memory or however not on a volume/drive) i.e. something more like a peek in the way the system behaves internally and not a "proper" or "normal" page file (that swapadd would "see"). At least in theory there should be not any practical difference in normal use between having a (even minimal) page file and having none, IF there is enough memory for the *whatever* the system requirements are, the page file (on disk) is actually never or rarely hit. Some references: though on 32 bit XP (without PAE patches) there are the known limits. As said here: http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=22361&p=216117 it is not like XP stopped working when the amount of RAM+(large) page file was less than the RAM you have, a typical system (not so many years ago) was often 512 MB RAM + 1.5 GB page file or 1 GB RAM + 2 GB page file, so with 3+ GB of direct accessible RAM you are already (without any page file) exceeding the condition of a "normal" system with 1 GB RAM, only with a much, much faster access to memory. jaclaz

Suggestions: 1) fix that d@mn stuck key 2) get a floppy emulator (GOTEK or similar) jaclaz

Let's talk about partition disk alignment (if needed). It is largely a non-issue that grew much larger than needed/required. It originated from some very "narrow" cases: Find some more considerations here: http://reboot.pro/topic/9897-vistawin7-versus-xp-partitioning-issue/ particularly my post: http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=9897&p=85960 An actual properly written article about the matter is lost, but you can have it via Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20171111042401/http://www.dcr.net/~w-clayton/Vista/DisappearingPartitions/DisappearingPartitions.htm and here: There is no noticeable performance difference (read/write/access speed) on "normal" systems for internal devices, in a top class server even shaving off a few milli-micro-nano-pico seconds from each operation may make sense, but on a normal PC that is largely pointless, you can (and will see) differences on external (USB 2.0) devices such as USB sticks, CF cards and similar, as they are much, much slower and with rotating hard disks, as well, particularly the laptop ones that are slowish, not on internal SATA 3 SSD's that are usually stupidly fast. BUT on SSD it makes sense to use the "new" (since 2006 or so) MB alignment, as the net effect is slightly (and I mean slightly) less memory cells usage which translates in theory in increased life of the device, though - still - if you can make a device that (with the "wrong" alignment) will last 10 years last (with the "right" alignment) 10 years and two months it is not a life changing result, as after three to five years you will likely anyway change the system or the SSD. All in all, on internal SSD's it can be "good practice", but you MUST be aware how the disk manager of XP won't like it, a single change in the status (active/not active) of a partition makes likely that all your logical volumes inside extended will be gone. (they can be recovered, but it is not particularly smart to create the issue), so you either use the "classic" 63 sectors alignment or you shouldn't use the extended partition and logical volumes in it (or - third option - don't use the disk manager or diskpart from XP). jaclaz

Try opening a command prompt and run swapadd.exe (without parameters) it should show the status of the current swapfile settings, see: http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=15146 It is entirely possible that other utilities/tools see the pagefile differently or do not see it, or it is hidden in explorer, or *whatever*, swapadd should be the most accurate tool. As well it is possible that *something else* and not the running of swapadd.exe configured this pagefile, the advice from Olof (the Author of swapadd.exe) in the thread above is to make a very small "normal" pagefile on C: and then use swapadd to add a larger one on Ramdisk (that will have precedence). jaclaz

Look for Blackviper's site, he has a list of all services wiith details on what can be disabled, what shouldn't, etc. for NT based systems starting from XP. jaclaz

Get BootIce and check the \boot\BCD. http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=21956 jaclaz

Loosely., get a USB Wi-Fi dongle with external (cabled) antenna, this way you have more possibilities to put it in a "good spot".by using an antenna extension cable OR (IMHO better) use a "larger" one via a USB extension. Example (not a recommendation or endorsement) of the kind of device: https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/usb-adapter/tl-wn822n/ jaclaz

Sure, to each his/her own . jaclaz

Maybe you are yourself the Magician? The real (good?) question might be "Does it make sense to use a top-performing SSD on a SATA II bus?" Or would using an el-cheapo "normal" SSD be more than enough? And do you really-really *need* a 500 GB SSD (on an old laptop)? jaclaz

Personally I don't think you will notice a difference among any of those proposed settings, though most probably this (or that) largely senseless benchmark might evidence something. jaclaz

Well, you have 3 (three) options (I mean, NOT 3,333,333 ones). It takes what? Ten to fifteen minutes (I mean NOT 4 weeks) to try each of them. In less than one hour you can test all three and see what happens. But how will options #2 and #3 affect your aesthetic sense? (even if they are the same colour, most probably the 4GB do look somewhat different from the 2 GB ones, particularly if seen from the top) Personally I would go for option #1 and call it a day, though I would have to suppress my symmetry sense, the thought of a slot of a pair empty is damning. Graphical explanation (if needed): http://www.marriedtothesea.com/102107/symmetrical.gif jaclaz

Well, you miss the history then (you are either too young or too old - and forgetful ). Back in the good ol'days you had DOS (MS-DOS 6.22) on C: FAT16 (and this was *needed*) then you *added* NT 3.5 or NT 4.00 in dual boot, usually on a second volume (to be able to use the NTFS and a larger volume). The Win9x changed this because it was mainly a shell over DOS, so you needed anyway the DOS boot files on C:, and at that point it was smarter to have also the Win9x on the same volume, but in the meantime you has (with second release of Windows 95) also FAT32 available that allowed to have a much larger volume (but that was then inaccessible from NT). Also, remember how the original Windows 95 was intended (or at least allowed) to dual boot with MS-DOS 6.22, at the time we had lots of fun on multiboot systems, filesystem limitations of the various OS's and the limitations of the *only* bootmanager we had available, i.e. NTLDR, heck, Gilles Vollant wrote Bootpart in 1993: https://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm At the time Microsoft had actual smart people working for them and provided the means to make transitions from an OS (that was working just fine, MS-DOS 6.x+Windows 3.11) to the new one (Either NT 3.5/4.0 or Windows 95 that - particularly the latter - while much more capable were initially far from being "production ready", particularly with the existing tools/programs, that were all DOS-centric) , I believe that anyone in 1993/1994/1995 had similar setups, it was only later (more or less with Win95 second release) that there was a huge turnover of machines (think of 386 and 486) to the new Pentium ones, because - simply put - the new OS's were bloated and needed a lot more resources (history repeats itself, lower end machines that ran just fine with 7 are now largely NOT working smoothly with Windows 10). But the "core" feature of NT based systems (possibility to divide "boot" and "system" volumes) remained unchanged, to the point that starting with Vista (but the trend was more evident with 7) the "default" install would have two volumes (one with no letter assigned with the boot files and one with the actual system with drive letter C: assigned) and this has remained unchanged even now and on UEFI systems. jaclaz

For no apparent reason , some related literature: https://mascotbooks.com/mascot-marketplace/buy-books/childrens/picture-books/do-you-like-blue-like-i-like-blue/ jaclaz

No, there is not any such limitation for Vista+. There is the need of a "boot" (what the MS guys call "system") volume, i.e. an active, primary partition (which normally would get a C: drive letter) where the boot files must reside (i.e. namely) NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI for XP and BOOTMGR and \boot\BCD for Vista, then you can have (say) XP on another volume, let's say D: and Vista in yet another volume, let's say E: (or viceversa, XP on E: and Vista on D:) these other volumes can be either primary partitions or .logical voluems inside extended As an example, I have (or have had) machines with DOS on C: (this is non-negotiable) Windows 98 on D: (and yes, it is possible, though complex to install it this way), NT or 2K or XP on H: and Vista or 7 on G:. jaclaz

Whether odd or not, it depends on the point of view (beauty is always in the eyes of the beholder) While I can well understand how a "special/custom" case (which is in open view) may be sometimes *needed* and while I can well understand the "modders" (yeah, those that have windowed cases that actually show the inside) I find more difficult to understand how the colours that you can see only when opening the case (which for cleaning/maintenance may happen when? once every six months or so) can actually affect your aesthetic taste to the point to prefer a brand of Ram over another only because of a matching or contrasting colour. But of course to each his own . jaclaz

I thought I had seen everything on the internet, but I was evidently wrong, very interesting. Could be an idea for the manufacturers, offering motherboards (and their connectors), Ram sticks, etc. in a limited number of RAL colours. jaclaz

Yep, but the other thread is also started by the same Joaquim and apparently on exactly the same topic. jaclaz