topic VGN-FE31M in PCs & Accessories

VGN-FE31M

topbannana — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 12:28:27 GMT

I've just purchased this model and it comes with a 160gig HDD.

The reason i'm posting is that the HDD is partitioned into a C: and 😧 drive, with also a hidden partition.

I would like the HDD to be a single partition ( C: ).

To do this would i need to use the System Recovery Disc that i created when i first fired up this great machine, or would it be better to leave it as a C: and 😧 drive.

Could some great info please be posted about wether or not a single partition or two partition drive is the way to go and how i could make it a single partition if this is possible.

Reason being is i have about 80 gig of mp3's and because of the default 2 partition drive, the partitions are about 66 gig a piece. So my mp3's wont fit on 1 partition.

Thanks in advance.

Re: VGN-FE31M

Blencogo — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 14:26:46 GMT

Hi topbannana and welcome to Club Vaio.

The idea to have two drives C: and 😧 is that in the event of a system crash, you can reinstall your system drive C: without losing any of your data on drive D:. If you have one big drive, you will lose everything if you have to recover your system.

That said, if you back up your data to an external drive then this is not so important.

You can resize your partitions and choose to keep/delete the Recovery Partition by running the Vaio Recovery Utility - you can even delete 😧 altogether. You will of course lose everything installed since you bought the Vaio and have to set the Vaio up again.

If I were you, I would go out to the Newsagents and buy the current version (Issue 150) of PC Pro magazine. On the cover disc (in addition to lots of other useful stuff) is a full version of 'Paragon Partition Manager 8' which will allow you to change partition sizes without even rebooting. I would keep 😧 personally and resize C:\ to about 45GB and D:\ to about 100GB.

Re: VGN-FE31M

paul_k — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 14:55:21 GMT

According to the Paragon website, Partition Manager 8 is NOT compatible with Windows Vista.

Re: VGN-FE31M

Blencogo — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:02:05 GMT

Good point Paul - I should have mentioned that for anyone using Vista.

However, topbannana's FE31M comes with Windows XP MCE 2005.

Re: VGN-FE31M

topbannana — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:13:06 GMT

I also can't understand this also.

HDD is meant to be 160 gig.

The C: drive says total size 74.5 gig , free 61.1 gig.

The 😧 drive says total size 66.6 gig , free 66.6 gig.

So 74.5 + 66.6 = 141.1 gig , so wheres the other 19 gig gone.

Strange but true.

So this is why i wondered about a single partition.

Re: VGN-FE31M

Thalamus. — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:27:44 GMT

Hi topbannana

The difference in hard drive size is due to the different way manufactures and Microsoft report the sizes..

Manufacturers use the SI scale for example 1KB = 1000 bytes

Microsoft, ie windows XP, use the binary, for example 1KB = 1024 bytes

Therefore manufactures 160 GB hard drive = 160,000,000,000 bytes

Whereas MS 160 GB hard drive = 149 GB

example 160GB manufactures size converted to MS binary scale...

160Gb = 160,000,000,000

/1024 = 156250000 kilobytes
/1024 = 152588 megabytes
/1024 = 149 Gigabytes

Also you have a hidden recovery partition, which is probably 7.6 GB, which takes you down to 141.4GB..

I hope that makes sense..

Re: VGN-FE31M

Blencogo — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:35:41 GMT

This is for several known reasons:

Your hard drive is 160,000,000,000 bytes
Windows uses the bianary system of measurement 1GB = 1024KB so:
160,000,000,000 bytes is shown in Windows as:
=156250000KB
=152587.89063MB
=149.01161GB
You have a hidden Recovery Partiton of about 7GB to 12GB
The remaing few GB go into formatting and indexing the drive.

Removing the partitons will not make it any bigger !!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: Damn - you were quicker on the calculator than me this time Thalamus

Just found this http://www.personal-computer-tutor.com/abc3/v30/vic30.htm

Re: VGN-FE31M

topbannana — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:40:47 GMT

I understand it wont make it any bigger.

But i would like a bigger drive whether its 2 partitions or 1.

I guess Sony havnt got it wrong by default sizes, but if i make it 1 drive will i be doing the wrong thing then.

Or should i make C: smaller and 😧 bigger.

Cheers

Re: VGN-FE31M

kee-lo_ — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:45:48 GMT

If you have Windows XP you could use Partition Magic, but beware it could go wrong and leave you loosing important data, so backup to DVD or external drive.

Re: VGN-FE31M

Thalamus. — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:47:21 GMT

Hi topbannana,

Have you thought about buying an external harddrive..?

You could use this to store your 80 gig of mp3's..

Re: VGN-FE31M

topbannana — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 16:47:16 GMT

Also i'm intitled to a Vista Premium Upgrade.

When will this be available , or should i stay with XP Media Centre 2005.

Cheers.

PS. Is this upgrade from Sony Direct or from Microsoft.

Re: VGN-FE31M

Thalamus. — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:05:23 GMT

Hi topbannana,

You have to claim the Vista Express upgrade here

The upgrade is being handled by a company called moduslink, have a look at this thread for moduslinks contact details..

Also you may not want to read this Moduslink Report ..

As to staying with XP, looking at the problems members of CV are having, I for one would wait..

Re: VGN-FE31M

kee-lo_ — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:35:41 GMT

You could get the upgrade and wait a few months for the bugs to be ironed out

Re: VGN-FE31M

Thalamus. — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:49:57 GMT

You could get the upgrade and wait a few months for the bugs to be ironed out

That a good idea Kee-Lo..

Re: VGN-FE31M

sunking101 — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 22:01:35 GMT

Hi topbannana and welcome to Club Vaio.

The idea to have two drives C: and 😧 is that in the event of a system crash, you can reinstall your system drive C: without losing any of your data on drive D:.  If you have one big drive, you will lose everything if you have to recover your system.

That said, if you back up your data to an external drive then this is not so important.

You can resize your partitions and choose to keep/delete the Recovery Partition by running the Vaio Recovery Utility - you can even delete 😧 altogether.  You will of course lose everything installed since you bought the Vaio and have to set the Vaio up again.

If I were you, I would go out to the Newsagents and buy the current version (Issue 150) of PC Pro magazine.  On the cover disc (in addition to lots of other useful stuff) is a full version of 'Paragon Partition Manager 8' which will allow you to change partition sizes without even rebooting.  I would keep 😧 personally and resize C:\ to about 45GB and D:\ to about 100GB.

I've read this thread with interest and am just curious why you'd size to 45 and 100? I'm faced with a similar split system but this time over 120GB. If the whole point of having the 'two' drives is to avoid tiresome data loss if the system crashes, why not have nothing but the o/s on drive c and all your personal data on drive d? I must say that I'm not familiar with partitions as I've always had the single disk before.

Re: VGN-FE31M

Blencogo — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:18:35 GMT

Hi sunking,

There is no exact reason for choosing 45GB for drive C: except that your Operating System PLUS all your installed Program Files need to go on the system drive. I picked 45 GB because my system has about 35GB on drive C: with some hefty programs like Office, Photoshop, Premiere and several others built up over the years.

If you don't have many programs you could probably get away with much less 15 to 20GB.

Re: VGN-FE31M

sunking101 — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:28:41 GMT

Got you. So all program files have to go on the system part of the disk. So what goes on the other then, just music and photos?

Re: VGN-FE31M

Blencogo — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:34:59 GMT

Yes - Music, Photos, Videos, Documents, Spreadsheets, other files - things you have created using the installed programs and things you cannot easily replace if your system crashes.

It is also easier to back these up - you just backup the whole D:\ drive.

Re: VGN-FE31M

sunking101 — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:53:43 GMT

Thanks for explaining this to me. I have another query but I'll start a new thread...