Update : Different format times.

A few weeks ago, I posted a question asking what possible reason there
could be for the fact that my son consistently manages to format a
hard disk partition (in FAT32 under Win98) in a much shorter time than
I.

One reply advised moving the mouse while formatting. Frankly, I
thought he was pulling my leg and I didn't try it. Well, I tried it
yesterday and it's true ! By moving the mouse smoothly and
continuously, I can now full-format a 20GB partition, new or used, in
less than 5 seconds.

Another poster expressed doubt that my earlier times of a minute or so
for a 10GB partition couldn't be a real format process, citing his own
MUCH longer times. So far, I've formatted four partitions with my
"new-found" technique, saved and copied several GBs of data into each
partition, opened, moved, deleted, renamed, defragged, etc. Used them
in Win98 and XP. No problem at all.

I'm posting the result in case someone else finds it useful. And also
because I'm hoping someone with more in-depth knowledge of computers
and MS Windows can provide an explanation.

-Zotin

On 29 Apr 2004 01:05:01 -0700, (Zotin Khuma) wrote:

A few weeks ago, I posted a question asking what possible reason there
could be for the fact that my son consistently manages to format a
hard disk partition (in FAT32 under Win98) in a much shorter time than
I.

One reply advised moving the mouse while formatting. Frankly, I
thought he was pulling my leg and I didn't try it. Well, I tried it
yesterday and it's true ! By moving the mouse smoothly and
continuously, I can now full-format a 20GB partition, new or used, in
less than 5 seconds.

Nope, I wasn't leg-pulling... There's a system here *somewhere* that
behaves exactly the same, certain IDE activities are very fast if moving
the mouse but very slow if not. In everyday use the system seems to
perform fine and hard drive benchmarks look about right without touching
the mouse. Mouse is PS/2. If that system weren't significantly slower
than several others I might've investigated further but no sooner had I
set it up and observed this than I was already moving on to another system
build.


Another poster expressed doubt that my earlier times of a minute or so
for a 10GB partition couldn't be a real format process, citing his own
MUCH longer times. So far, I've formatted four partitions with my
"new-found" technique, saved and copied several GBs of data into each
partition, opened, moved, deleted, renamed, defragged, etc. Used them
in Win98 and XP. No problem at all.

It is indeed possible for a windows format to be VERY fast; much, much
faster than DOS. I have confirmed that a clean drive can be partitioned
then formatted in this manner, it's not just a "quick format".


I'm posting the result in case someone else finds it useful. And also
because I'm hoping someone with more in-depth knowledge of computers
and MS Windows can provide an explanation.

-Zotin

Don't know why but if it's important to know I can compare similarities
with the system here that does that. What motherboard are you using? I
believe the one here is a Gigabyte 6XV7B-4X, Via 694X chipset, with a
Tualatin Celeron upgrade via a generic slotket pin-only adapter. Hard
drive is a Maxtor Plus 8, 40 or 60GB (I forget which) running in ATA100
mode, DMA enabled, Master as only device on IDE channel 1 of the board's
Southbridge, 686B integral IDE controller. That's the same IDE controller
that was problematic when used on Athlon motherboards in conjunction with
some PCI devices but in this particular configuration the system has
nothing interesting on the PCI bus besides a winmodem (never used) and
typical linksys (or maybe D-Link or Netgear) 10/100 NIC. Neither needs be
transmitting data to make a difference. Board didn't have sound ports but
I hacked them out of the chipset feature and soldered on the I/O sound
jacks, as there was a place for them on the PCB. However sound is never
used except anything that might've been left enabled after software
installation... At some point I wiped the drive, installed Win98SE with
major updates, and then left the system sitting unused except for rare
occasions. In typical use it behaves no differently than any other
system.

I really don't keep close tabs on the system and am surprised I remember
this much of it, the only reason being that i had the spare Tualatin
Celeron and decided to upgrade that box with it. Upon rechecking the box
right now, the PS/2 mouse is on IRQ 12 alone and IDE channels on 14,
15... the typical arrangement. Video is a Maxtrox G200TV, AGP. IIRC,
it's running newest Maxtor driver and Via 4in1 v.4.35, or maybe it was
v.4.45.

On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 07:22:04 GMT, kony wrote:
snip

it's running newest Maxtor driver

Correction: it's running newest MATROX driver