More Questions for the Techies

[SDevil33]

Alright, here is another list, thanks to all those who answered in the first place, you guys are all great. Sorry if these questions are stupid, I'm not quite a techie yet (gettin there with your help though...)

1. How do I specify drive letters for partitions, DVD drive, and CDRW? I want the boot partition, then the DVD, then the CDRW, then the partitions. Is this possible or does the BIOS/OS auto-assign letters?
2. Is a hard drive cooler that sits in a 5 1/4" bay worth the money? Is it necessary? I have an IBM 75GXP 45GB.
3. What are the advantages/disadvantages of leaving a computer on all the time? Do power-saving features really conserve that much power? I live in San Diego, power is expensive out here (just like everything else) P.S. How bout them Chargers!
4. Can you defragment individual partitions or do you have to do the entire drive?
5. What is the best size performance-wise for the swap file in Win98SE?
6. Can you hook up a set of BA4800s and a set of BA635s for a 6.2 speaker set up on an Acoustic Edge?
7. Can I resize partitions at any time? Say, if I have a 10 GB and a 5 GB partition, can I take 3 unused GB from the 10 GB and move it to the 5 GB?

Thanks again for all your help. All you pros need to be places on a pedestal and worshipped.

 

[J3S73R]

1) I think you can only change the letter of an extended(?) partition, and along w/ this only in WinNT or Win2k(?). You can change your CDRW and DVD to whatever you want. Just go to:

Start-->Settings-->Control Panel-->System-->Device Manager Tab

from here why should be listed under CDROM. Just double click on which one you wish to change then go to the Settings tab and change the Reserved drive letters Start and End drive to the same thing and thats how you do it.

2) Dunno

3) Dont have to turn it one, no boot time, Dunno about the powersaving. Chargers are good

4) You can do indivitual partitions since they are "another" drive if you know what i mean by the "".

5) I think its like 2 times your ram up to like 128Megs ram then i dunno...

6) Dunno

7) With software, it can be done. But with the stuff windows gives you to work with, no.

 

[PowerJoe]

1. You can change CD/DVD/CDR(W)/ZIP letters using device manager. You can change non-boot partitions letters only in NT/2000, through the Disk Management tool. In DOS/95/98/ME, the letters are determined at boot time like this.

2. Depending on many factors, including other components, case, current cooling solutions, room temp, etc...

4. Defrag is done on a partition basis.

5. My rule of thumb is "don't muck with the swap file - it will eventually give you problems that will negate any performance gains."

-PJ

 

[TGirl]

#7 Windows 2000 has a new feature called Dynamic Disks where you can resize your partitions, excluding the boot partition. If I remember from class we all agreed we didn't like Dynamic instead of Basic (you have a choice) because it created many limitations because only 2000 can read Dynamic disks and if you need to boot to DOS because of system problems your out of luck!