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Hello everyone! This is my first post here so be genital.
I just ordered my Sammy NC10 day before last and should receive it tomorrow or the next day.
From what I’ve read, a person has to partition the hard drive upon first starting up their NC10. I have, however, read conflicting reports. Some people saying that they were not prompted to partition the hard drive after the first startup and, others saying that, they had to partition after their first start up.
I would prefer not to have the hard drive partitioned at all. So, if I am asked to partition the hard drive after I get the machine, is there an option not to? If not, can I reinstall the OS (Win XP home) and somehow “un-partition†then hard drive? (I have a USB CD drive).
Also, if reinstalling the OS is an option to solving my partition problems; does the Sammy NC10 come with “bloat-ware†that I have read so much about (Dell computers seem to be notorious for this)? If it does, indeed, have “bloat-wareâ€, and I am reinstalling the OS, which programs should I not authorize to install, which ones are recommended, which are necessary, etc?
Any other suggested “first things first†for when I receive my machine are much appreciated.
Many thanks in advance,
Elephant
P.S. I already have 2gig RAM upgrade on the way and will install ASAP.
Welcome Elephant
First, I would recommend that you boot up and check your NC10 is working properly beofre you update the RAM. Also, make sure you keep the Samsung supplied RAM – if you subsequently have a problem with your NC10, Samsung customer services will ask you to reinstall the original memory chip. Jez has written an excellent guide to installing the 2 GB RAM chip.
When you first boot your netbook, you will be prompted to partition the drive, but at this stage you can create only one partition which fills the whole drive apart from the 6 GB used for the recovery partition.
Samsung is actually very good in relation to bloatware, especially compared with Dell. However, I loathe recovery partitions and I prefer a minimum installation, so I did a clean install of XP Home as supplied on the Samsung Recovery Disk using an USB boot drive created using WinSetupFromUSB as explained in the guide WinSetupFromUSB.
I reclaimed the 6 GB wasted space from the recovery partition and I have allocated the disk space (all primary partitions) on my drive as follows:
* 50 GB as partition hd 0,0 for WinXP
* 50 GB as partition hd 0,1 for Windows 7
* 3 GB as partition hd 0,2 for linux-swap
* and the remainder (about 46 GB) as partition hd 0,3 for Ubuntu 8.10
The Samsung NC10 comes with two recovery CDs, the System Recovery Media (i.e. WinXP Home) and the System Software Media (i.e. drivers and Samsung software). When I reinstalled Windows XP, I didn’t install any Samsung software – I reckon I can manage my NC10 using Windows Control Panel. So far, I haven’t run into any problems. However, should you wish to install the Samsung drivers and software, all the latest versions may be found here.
May I suggest you try a really useful, free tool CCleaner. “CCleaner (originally CrapCleaner) s a freeware system optimisation, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! “
I also use DriverMax. “DriverMax allows you to download the latest driver updates for your computer. No more searching for rare drivers on discs or on the web or inserting one installation CD after the other. Just create a free account, log in, and start downloading the updates that you need. You can also export all your current drivers (or just the ones that work ok) to a folder or a compressed file. After reinstalling Windows you will have everything in one place!
I also use OpenOffice 3.0, Firefox, and Thunderbird on my NC10. I use Microsoft Office 2007, Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc.on my other computers and have no problems transferring documents from any of these to my Sammy and vice versa.
Just one more tip. The NC10’s screen is a bit short of vertical space to display web pages. If you use Firefox as your browser, I recommend installing Ken Barbalace’s Classic Compact theme. This is “A very clean and compact theme with classic arrow buttons that minimizes space consumed by menu, tool, tab, find and status bars without hurting the overall usability.”
Sorry I’ve gone on a bit, but all the above has worked well for me. I hope this helps you too 🙂
No worries about a lengthy reply! I appreciate it!
However, I have a question. You said that you did not install any of the Samsung software after your reinstall and that you manage your NC10 using Windows Control Panel. My question is: Don’t you need to install some of the Samsung software tools that deal with the battery manager (or power saver or what ever it is called) and a program which deals with the Fn keys? And what about the web cam ? (Not sure I’ll be using it, but I figured I’d ask anyway).
Also, thanks for the suggestions about the CCleaner and the Classic Compact theme for FireFox. I use Internet Explorer on my desktop but figured I’d use FF on the sammy to keep things as speedy as possible given its CPU etc.
Again, many thanks.
Elephant
I recommend partitioning even if you have a single operating system. The reason is to keep your windows files and the data separate. That comes in handy if a virus infects your sammy. Viruses usually infect the windows partition only so you will be able to reinstall windows from scratch but keep your data intact.
[quote1233067872=Elephant]
My question is: Don’t you need to install some of the Samsung software tools that deal with the battery manager (or power saver or what ever it is called) and a program which deals with the Fn keys? And what about the web cam ?
[/quote1233067872]
I suspect the batery manager is similar to ‘Power Options’ in the control panel.At the moment, I haven’t found I need to use any of the function keys, except the ones to mute the speakers and raise and lower the volume and these work fine without installing any Samsung software.
I haven’t tried to use the webcam, so again I can’t comment.
I don’t have an ideological objection to Samsung software, I just prefer to keep my systems as ‘lean and mean’ as possible. If I find I need some of the Samsung software, then I will not hesitate to install it. I am nterested in knowing other peoples’ views on the use of the supplied Samsung software.
The other thing that at the moment, I’m mostly using Windows 7 and Ubuntu and there is no Samsung software for these operating systems.
[quote1233068221=Elephant]
No worries about a lengthy reply! I appreciate it!
[/quote1233068221]
You’re welcome, Elephant. If you have chance, could you please click on the ‘Thank Post’ in the bottom right hand corner of the post you have found useful. This is then reflected in the ‘Thanked x times in x posts’ score under the number of ‘Posts’ beneath the username.Many thanks
[quote1233215684=summertan]
I recommend partitioning even if you have a single operating system. The reason is to keep your windows files and the data separate. That comes in handy if a virus infects your sammy. Viruses usually infect the windows partition only so you will be able to reinstall windows from scratch but keep your data intact.
[/quote1233215684]So, I ended up going with the partition plan. I did the C: as 30 (6 of which, I believe is that recovery partition) and the rest is D:, 112 gigs.
My question is: If the idea is that you keep the OS separte from everything else, how do you save everything ‘else’ to the other drive? I’m specifically thinking about “My Documents” etc. Also, when I get around to installing MS Office 2007, where is the proper place for that to go? And, what about other programs that I install?
The idea that I am getting is that the OS should have its own partition and EVERYTHING else should go into the other partition. Correct?
This partitioning business is new to me and, frankly, is rather confusing. Sorry 🙁
Elephant
You don’t have to save stuff to ‘My Documents’. You can save them to anywhere you like.
Why not create various folders in D – call it what you like.
Install Office 2007 in C. Then open Word, Excel, etc and go into the various places (normally options) and change the default location and enter the places you want your files saved to.
Whenever you do a File – Save or Save As, it will default to that folder.[quote1233221551=Elephant]
I did the C: as 30 (6 of which, I believe is that recovery partition) and the rest is D:, 112 gigs.
[/quote1233221551]
The 6 GB is a separate hidden partition, so all of the 30 GB on system and application is available to you.If you add the sizes of the three partitions (i.e. 6 + 30 + 112) the total is 148 which is approximately the size of the hard disk.
[quote1233221868=Elephant]
The idea that I am getting is that the OS should have its own partition and EVERYTHING else should go into the other partition. Correct?
[/quote1233221868]
A typical distribution across partitions is as follows:-
Install the OS and other applications (e.g. Office) to one drive, usually the boot (i.e. the C:) drive
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Save data, e.g. documents, photos, music, etc. to a separate partition (i.e. your D: drive)
There are two main benefits to this:
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As Summertan said, viruses usually attack the partition containing your OS leaving your data safely tucked away
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Keeping your data on a separate drive makes backing it up simpler – you can just copy the whole drive to an external USB drive (for example)
[quote1233222461=Ysabel]
You don’t have to save stuff to ‘My Documents’. You can save them to anywhere you like.
Why not create various folders in D – call it what you like.
Install Office 2007 in C. Then open Word, Excel, etc and go into the various places (normally options) and change the default location and enter the places you want your files saved to.
Whenever you do a File – Save or Save As, it will default to that folder.
[/quote1233222461]
As Ysabel says, this is easy – I have clients who have their documents on servers (i.e. on a different machine on the network) and I just set each of the client machines to look at the server to open files and templates and as a default save location. The users are not aware that they don’t have their documents on their own computers.To change the ‘AutoRecover file location:’ and the ‘Default file location:’ in Office 2007 you have to open each application, e.g. Word. Click on the button in the top left hand corner and select ‘Word Options’ and select ‘Save’. In Word 2007, the dialogue window looks like this:
The Excel 2007 dialogue is very similar:
Hope that helps 🙂
Ysabel and TCMuffin: MUCHOS GRACIAS! (That’s ‘Thanks a boat load’ in French, or so I am told)
I’ll do as you folks advise 🙂
Thanks All for this helpful discussion. I’m still waiting for my Sammy to arrive, so I’m here to learn some tips before I screw anything up on my own. One question I still have after all this about the partition is: What is the right size to partition to the C drive? I’ve seen amounts ranging from the minimum of 25GB up to 80GB (50%) I’m leaning toward using the minimum amount, but not sure if that leaves enough room for the OS and other programs. Any advice would be appreciated.
Here’s the problem, everyone will be using different amounts of disk as they are installing different programs.
I tend to think that if I’m only installing a few programs like Office, Firefox, GIMP etc… then I don’t need that much space, on my old computer I tended not to use more than 20GB for Windows + applications so 25GB is fine. As soon as I start putting games on, the amount of space I’d need goes up by a lot.
Remember you will want some free space as filling up the C drive completely is not a good idea.
My windows files on my 5 years old desktop take about 20GB with all programs I needed through the years installed so indeed 20GB for windows partition is reasonable.
If you start running out of space on the windows partition, you can always start installing on the other partition. Nobody said that all programs have to be installed on C:
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