deleting files from hard drive

[jim 0]

I have a gv card that has filled 90% of my hard drive and I cannot find them to delete I have used this sys for over a yr. with no problems

these files are really hidden also I have added another hd wich works fine

any sugg. wil be appreciated

[VST_Man 1]

what operating system are you using? Under windows you need to go in and change the "view hidden files" under the folder view option, which will allow you to see the hidden files. BUT, you need to bevery carefule now that you are viewibf hidden files as they are normally hidden for a GOOD reason......so you don't delete them. My guess is if you don't know how to view them then you should not be deleting them. I'm not a GEO_man so I can't tell you which to delete. Most PC based systems, like mine, record video to a specific hard drive or specific space alloted on initial install of that card/software. My next guess is that the 90% that you are seeing as used hard drive space is actually saved video that is written over and therefore it seems to appear as wasted files space......which it is not. Advice, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Run defrag and leave it be. Ask via this forum what to dele or not BEFORE you do it. You'll thank me in the morning!!!

[rory 0]

like VST man said, defrag ..to start with.

do a disk cleanup also, delete all temp internet, and temp files..

ofcourse could be scandisk or spyware files also...

run spybot s&d also.

 

ofcourse you should not be browsing the web with a DVR anyway so you shouldnt have spyware..but..ya never know.

Edited March 8, 2005 by Guest

[Thomas 0]

Um, I didn't say to defrag.

[rory 0]

Sorry i meant VST man..i guess my mind was still on the other thread!

[Integratek 0]

2 jim

it's really bad idea to store recorded video on same partition as operating system

u should split your hdd in two using program like Partition Magic

make system partition about 5-7 gigs, it's enough for WinXP+DVR soft+all drivers+progs like winrar and nero burning rom+virtual memory

 

2VST_Man - what good can defrag do to video files ?

[rory 0]

defrag for other stuff..not the video files...

[Thomas 0]

Partitioning a drive is a waste. Back when PC's could see drive geomtry it made sense. It made sense when file systems were less robust and you could lose part of a drive. It's a waste now.

[Integratek 0]

not really a waste

although NTFS is quite robust now, M$ Windows itself is buggy enough and still in certain conditions corrupt data on the HDD

It's highly recommended by all makers of all OS'es to make separate partitions for system and user data

having 2 partitions allows you to do whatever you please with your OS not worrying about loosing any important files located on second partition

defragmenting only 5-10 gigs of system files is much faster than 160 gigs of all other files not nesserarily requiring defragmentation

at any hand, PRO's of partitioning overweight CON's of "waste" of few gigs on system partition, drivespace is dirt-cheap now, 1 gig cost only about $1.20

let alone viruses...

or just global system failure, so the only way to bring the computer back to work is format c: ?

i always put My Documents on d: drive and in My Documents i put windows installations files, drivers and all required software (dvr, burning, etc) so in case client somehow managed to screw up the system (or system somehow manages to screw itself) it only take couple hours to have it back on-line.

even better than that, if client have agreed to spend few bucks on program like Norton Ghost or Drive Image, it only takes few minutes to restore damaged system.

it is quite imposible to do without partitioning

sure you can burn all backups on CD's, but CD's tend to get lost, scratched brocken and make unreadable at many other ways, the hard drive however is not.

[rory 0]

thats what i do too, makes life easier...

[Thomas 0]

Except NTFS can be rebuilt pretty well. It keeps a redunant copy of it's file table. And any event that takes out one partition is going to damage any other partition. OS's don't take out thier partitions anymore. Journaled file systems (NTFS is kinda one) have pretty much put an end to the OS breaking the system. Partitions fail now from physical damage to the drive rather then the OS. And partitioning isn't going to protect you from that because the drive geomonitry is hiden from the OS. If you want that kind of protection, then use a second drive (and I recomend this). Using differant partitions is a false sense of security.

[Integratek 0]

sure partitioning won't protect from physical drive damage, but all other benefits of it definetly worth much more than $10 for 5-7 gigs wasted

[Thomas 0]

The only benfit is purely organizational. There is no speed benfit. There is no stability benfit.

[rory 0]

i stay away from NTFS, slows yah down...

 

there is the speed benefit when reformatting and reinstalling windows..dont have to back up..

[Thomas 0]

Naw, if speed and accuracy of back ups is critical then Raid 1 is your friend.

[rory 0]

who are we talking about..who can afford raid..?

point is, if your clients, or yourself, have their docs, drivers & data on drive D:, then you can save alot of time when reloading the C: drive..

 

Average Hme PC:

windows Xp backup docs, data, reformat, load windows, load drivers and software, update windows, nortons, etc, clean up, defrag and tweak, reload backed up docs (if the CD or jump drive is still good)...average time=6 hours.

 

especially when they dont have a CDRW or USB doesnt work, or other issues from spyware/virus....arGHh...

[Integratek 0]

RAID 1 ????

well

raid 1 is really 50% drive space waste with small read speed increase and same write speed

IMO worst possible solution

 

although ntfs is bit slower than fat32, on systems better than p3 1000 gHz 256 RAM running WinXP the difference in speed is really small

i've never installed fat32 on NTFS capable system since 1995 and every single time it worked fine with NTFS even on nt4 with 32 mb SDRAM

as for stability and speed increase having drive partitioned - you don't really want to completely run out of free space wich can happend easily for stored video files tend to take all free space and DVR software in not 100% error-free and in some cases might have memory leaks resulting in increased swap file size

reboot system once a day is of cource solves the problem but still does not provides solution for video files taking whole space

anyway

as i've told b4, there's few recommendations by OS makes, including microsoft, berkley, linus torvalds and whole bunch more. every single one of them says that hard drive should be partitioned for better stability and speed

you might either follow their recommendations or make up ones of you own, yet who knows the OS better ? you or a person or a company who actually developed it ?

[Thomas 0]

Um no, RAID 1 is perfect redunancy. It makes a perfect back up of a drive in real time. Since it's goal is to make a perfect back up then it's not a waste of drive space. MS hasn't changed thier recommenations in 10 years. In Posix systems it makes more sense to move the kernel and the swap file to seperate partitions for security/permissions reasons. But you won't gain anything for stability or speed by using partitions.

[joe4 0]

Thomas,

 

I would not call RAID1 perfect redunancy. A bad RAID controller will stop RAID1 in its tracks. No hotswap if it is a software RAID. Only one drive can fail at a time.

[Thomas 0]

Eh, software raid should generally be avoided anyway. And both drives failing and being non-recoverable is god awful luck.

[joe4 0]

Eh, software raid should generally be avoided anyway. And both drives failing and being non-recoverable is god awful luck.

 

Happens everyday to sombody

 

I was just trying to say RAID1 is not very good.

[Thomas 0]

For the average user it's fine. For a corperation then raid 1 plus off-site rsync.