How To Partition A Hard Drive In Vista?

How To Partition A Hard Drive In Vista?

Have you move your OS to Vista ? If yes, I'm sure you want to know how to make new partition in Vista. For your info,in Vista new partition is called "volume".

OK let's get started. First go to Start Menu > Run and type in "diskmgmt.msc" and press Enter. It is actually a shortcut to open Disk Management Utility.

Then to create space for new volume(partition), right-click on existing volume and select "Shrink Volume" to resize the volume. Note that you can only shrink the volume that using NTFS format.

After that new dialog box will appear, asking you to enter a new size of your volume. Make sure to see total volume before shrinking process.

After "Shrinking" process done, right-click on "Unallocated" space and choose New Simple Volume.
Just follow the wizard in order to create and format your new volume. Then you're done !!!

NTFS vs. FAT

To NTFS or not to NTFS—that is the question. But unlike the deeper questions of life, this one isn't really all that hard to answer. For most users running Windows XP, NTFS is the obvious choice. It's more powerful and offers security advantages not found in the other file systems. But let's go over the differences among the files systems so we're all clear about the choice. There are essentially three different file systems available in Windows XP: FAT16, short for File Allocation Table, FAT32, and NTFS, short for NT File System.

FAT16
The FAT16 file system was introduced way back with MS–DOS in 1981, and it's showing its age. It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive, and has had minor modifications over the years so it can handle hard disks, and even file names longer than the original limitation of 8.3 characters, but it's still the lowest common denominator. The biggest advantage of FAT16 is that it is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX. The biggest problem of FAT16 is that it has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2–GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesn't support compression, encryption, or advanced security using access control lists.

FAT32
The FAT32 file system, originally introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, is really just an extension of the original FAT16 file system that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. As such, it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system. However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation—many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32—most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well. Now this isn't a problem if you're running FAT32 on a Windows XP computer and sharing your drive out to other computers on your network—they don't need to know (and generally don't really care) what your underlying file system is.

The Advantages of NTFS
The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file–by–file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if you're doing an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, you'll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS. Don't worry. If you've already upgraded to Windows XP and didn't do the conversion then, it's not a problem. You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point. Just remember that you can't easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the drive or partition), not that I think you'll want to.

The NTFS file system is generally not compatible with other operating systems installed on the same computer, nor is it available when you've booted a computer from a floppy disk. For this reason, many system administrators, myself included, used to recommend that users format at least a small partition at the beginning of their main hard disk as FAT. This partition provided a place to store emergency recovery tools or special drivers needed for reinstallation, and was a mechanism for digging yourself out of the hole you'd just dug into. But with the enhanced recovery abilities built into Windows XP (more on that in a future column), I don't think it's necessary or desirable to create that initial FAT partition.

When to Use FAT or FAT32
If you're running more than one operating system on a single computer (see Dual booting in Guides), you will definitely need to format some of your volumes as FAT. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system on that computer should be stored on a FAT16 or possibly FAT32 volume. But keep in mind that you have no security for data on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume—any one with access to the computer can read, change, or even delete any file that is stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 partition. In many cases, this is even possible over a network. So do not store sensitive files on drives or partitions formatted with FAT file systems.

How to make your Desktop Icons Transparent

Go to ontrol Panel > System, > Advanced > Performance area > Settings button Visual Effects tab "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the Desktop"

TO PUT UR NAME INSTEAD OF AM OR PM

Start ->
Control Pannel ->
Regional and Language option ->
Customize (beside English US) ->
Go to TIME tab ->
Change AM symbol and PM symbol from AM and PM to ur name ->
Apply ->
Ok ...

Lock Folder Without Any Software

Suppose you want to lock the folder games in d: which has the path D:\Games. In the same drive create a text file and type
ren games games.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
Now save this text file as loc.bat

create another text file and type in it
ren games.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} games
Now save this text file as key.bat

Now you can see 2 batch files loc and key. Press loc and the folder games will change to control panel and you cannot view its contents. Press key and you will get back your original folder.

Intel plans to tackle cosmic ray threat

Computer processor manufacturer Intel have revealed details of a patent for protecting future generations of computers from the growing threat of cosmic rays.

The company has designed an on-chip cosmic ray detector to try to cope with the particles, which originate in space before sporadically entering the Earth's atmosphere and going through everything they encounter.

Because the operation of computers is through charged particles, the unpredictable hits from the rays are problematic, potentially causing the system to crash.

"What happens is if a cosmic ray causes a collision inside the silicon chip, that releases lots of charged particles," Intel's senior scientist Eric Hannah told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme.

"All our logic is based on charge, so it gets interference."

'Bigger disturb'

The risk from cosmic rays may not be thought of as a big problem on a single computer with a single chip, as there is the potential for error only perhaps every several years.

But Mr Hannah explained that on a supercomputer with 10,000 chips, there was the potential for 10 or 20 faults a week.

And the risk of cosmic ray interference will only increase as chips get smaller. This is because circuits will require less charge per switch to operate.

You could be going down the autobahn at 200 miles an hour and suddenly discover your anti-lock braking system doesn't work because it had a cosmic ray event Eric Hannah

Since the amount of charge from cosmic rays will remain the same, there will be a "bigger disturb," Mr Hannah explained.

And this is potentially a problem not just for PCs and supercomputers, but anything with computer-operated parts - for example cars.

"You could be going down the autobahn at 200 miles an hour and suddenly discover your anti-lock braking system doesn't work because it had a cosmic ray event," Mr Hannah said.

"It's strange, but this is the reality we're moving into as we get smaller and smaller circuits."

The cosmic ray detector is therefore designed to spot when rays have caused interference and then tell the chip to repeat the command.

"Everyone else was trying to do it with circuit resistance and more robust designs, or looking at the architecture," said Mr Hannah.

"I looked at it and said, 'that's a lot of energy being deposited in a short amount of time, and if you could detect that event with a cosmic ray detector.'

"Being a physicist it didn't look too hard to me - we could simply say, 'you were just hit by a cosmic ray, you may want to redo that calculation'."

He said that discussions are now under way within Intel about how to build such a detector and see how it works.

But he admitted that it will be hard to say when such a device may become a practical reality.

Such devices are "not too easily built," he said, and required a way to build, for example, very small microphones.

"It's hard to say when it might or might not hit a product," he added.