VGN-FE31M

[topbannana]

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.

[topbannana]

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.

[Thalamus.]

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..

[kee-lo_]

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

[Thalamus.]

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

That a good idea Kee-Lo..

[sunking101]

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.

[Blencogo]

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.

[sunking101]

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?

[Blencogo]

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.

[sunking101]

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