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re: Question/Concern about 'What to Throw Away' Wednesday, August 22, 2001 at 1:21 pm Posted by amaralliya e. thenardier (3194 messages posted) Hence, why not just delete the file System.1st and if a problem arises, extract the CAB file/s? what files do you plan to extract? anything on the win98 cd wont help you if the registry is corrupted. system.1st on this machine is less than 700k... thats not going to gain you much space. instead of deleting it, convert the partition to fat32 (if it isnt already) or remove some windows components from control panel -> add/remove programs: windows setup tab (themes, screensavers, sounds, online services, accessories, etc). as a side note, harddrives are very cheap - you could easily pick up, say, a western digital 30gb 7200rpm ata/100 drive for under $100. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question/Concern about 'What to Throw Away' Wednesday, August 22, 2001 at 4:35 pm Posted by Shiva (7 messages posted) On Wednesday, August 22, 2001 at 1:21 pm, amaralliya e. thenardier wrote: Hence, why not just delete the file System.1st and if a problem arises, extract the CAB file/s? >what files do you plan to extract? anything on the win98 cd wont help you if the >registry is corrupted. Well, lets look at the files I spoke of. The User.Dat, System.Dat and *.DA* files are backed up each time the comp is turned on. They are in ones c:\windows\sysbckup folder. Unless of course you're like me and have a 001 foldewr for Windoze, which I won't go into as to why. Suffice that they are there and the oldest is replaced with the newest. So, there are always 5 of them. They start with rb000 and go to rb005. I know, that's SIX, but oddly enough, there is no rb002! There is a strange one called RBBAD... hmmm... BAD as in Micxrosoft Bad, or bad cab or bad? Oh well. They, the RB00*.CAB files are the cab files I refered to. Not the cab files on the CD. Hang the Win 98SE CD. In effect, if your system goes ballistic because you lost your System, or User DAT files or over-edited your registry then re-start the computer in DOS, go into your sysbckup folder and Extract everything in the most recent RB CAB file to the Windoze folder and restart. System and User Dat files and the .DAx files are your registry - No? Some folk turn off the backup registry option and one day regret it. I said S-o-m-e :) Then, there are those that don't turn their computers off except on rare occasions AND those that don't who also don't do a timed backup of the registry now and then -- say at 1:00AM DAILY! They lose. A friend does this, or I should say doesn't, and when a certain Flight Simulator he ran violated his registry, his last RB file was 3 months old! Not everyone's is the same size. Maybe yours is only 700k but mine IS bigger -- 5 MEGs bigger! Mine's bigger probably because I'm Scots and the fact I upgraded from Win 95 to 98SE AND I had a ton of stuff on there already. The comp I'm working on that needs space is Comp 4 of a LAN. It has it's own special software, not shared, and only has a 2 gig and 1.5 Gig drives. You know what a glutten the Windoze folder can be. I shall don my cape and venture into the grey area and see what happens if I do /hide System.1st. Since it was created two years go, and in the event of a problem, and since it's 5 megs, and I do need space, and the machine runs stripped down (as per the things you mentioned), and because I enjoy a challenge and we might as well find out, and it's worth a try, As for the hints you gave, they are good one's... must be because I've been there, done that. ;) As for your "side note" --- tell my wife that. She'll tell you about the computers in the basement ranging from an old Atar 800, Atari 130XE, IBM XT, 286 (3 of them), 386 (2 of them), 486 (3 of them a 486/33 66 and 80) and the four sitting here in front of me. Each had hard drives. Yes, I had a 80 meg on the Atari! Reply to this, delete most of it for brevity, and I'll let you know how it goes after removing System.1st -- if I can :) Thanks >system.1st on this machine is less than 700k... thats not going to gain you much >space. instead of deleting it, convert the partition to fat32 (if it isnt already) >or remove some windows components from control panel -> add/remove programs: windows >setup tab (themes, screensavers, sounds, online services, accessories, etc). > >as a side note, harddrives are very cheap - you could easily pick up, say, a western >digital 30gb 7200rpm ata/100 drive for under $100. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question/Concern about 'What to Throw Away' Wednesday, August 22, 2001 at 4:46 pm Posted by Rundll (167 messages posted) win95, win98, and winME all create the system.1st file when the OS is installed. it is not necessary for day-to-day operation. it is used for troubleshooting...to take the machine back to a simpler registry...to resolve registry corruption issues, to help determine whether there may be a hardware issue, etc. i would be inclined to leave it. if you are that low on space, there are other things you can do. you could try going to add/remove programs > windows setup...and uninstall games, extra sounds, themes, system tools that you don't use, etc. that would help more than the few hundred k freed up by deleting system.1st. you might also delete your temporary internet files. i have seen 100+ MB freed up this way. also, if you are going to stick with win98, see if you can go into add/remove programs and delete the win95 uninstall information. oh, and it goes without saying...go into add/remove programs and uninstall any applications that you don't use anymore. finally, like amaralliya said, if you are in a position where you can get a new HDD, that is by far your best bet. On Wednesday, August 22, 2001 at 11:28 am, Shiva wrote: >I have a question/concern about What >to Throw Away: > >I understand that that Win 95 Install creates the file System.1st. Since I am using >Win98 SE, and the article was updated today, I gather that Win 98SE does NOT require >the file. Win98 SE I notice, create the 5 day/event backup in the form of CAB files >anyway. Accoridng to the article, System.1st is used IF the four files, System.Dat, >User.Dat and associcated .DA0 files are corrupted. >Hence, why not just delete the file System.1st and if a problem arises, extract the >CAB file/s? > >I need the space. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question/Concern about 'What to Throw Away' Wednesday, August 22, 2001 at 5:45 pm Posted by Shiva (7 messages posted) On Wednesday, August 22, 2001 at 4:46 pm, Rundll wrote: >win95, win98, and winME all create the system.1st file when the OS is installed. > it is not necessary for day-to-day operation. it is used for troubleshooting...to >take the machine back to a simpler registry...to resolve registry corruption issues, >to help determine whether there may be a hardware issue, etc. i would be inclined >to leave it. Which is what the RB000 - RB005 Cab files are for in the sysbckup folder are they not, to revert back to most recent or other most recent registry (see http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/registry) ? I mean, my System.1st file was created 11/15/00. I really don't want to get that far back to a "simpler registry". If something goes awry with my registry, I can just extract the one created this morning, when I turned on my computer, or yesterdays et cetra? >you could try going to add/remove programs > windows setup...and uninstall games, Been there - done all that. And, as I pointed out to amaralliya, mine is bigger. My System.1st file is 5+ megs. >oh, and it goes without saying...go into add/remove programs and uninstall any applications >that you don't use anymore. >finally, like amaralliya said, if you are in a position where you can get a new HDD, >that is by far your best bet. Not the best bet. I have two drives, cannot add a third. It means replacing the D drive with about 1.2 gigs of installed software where for some dumb reason, most all stored their DLLs on the C drive. We know what replacing the C drive a with a bigger drive means - loss of all installed software AND Dlls. The other suggestions you both came up with are good. But, I've already been through all the temp files, useless files like TXT, PRV --- and so on junk files. It is 32Fat BTW. I've removed progs I rarely use or re-installed them on another computer (LAN). It is for this reason that I'm moving System.1st out of root onto D to see just what will happen. If, like you both feel, it is only used in the event of a serious problem, usually with the registry, then I have the last 5 days worth of registry backups on a continuous basis. A 5 meg file, that's almost 2 years old, as a back-up file when I have more recent backups irks my ire. :) I know that System.1st is not the same thing - exactly -. I'll reply, when I'm done - if I can ;) Here goes ---- Thanks > >On Wednesday, August 22, 2001 at 11:28 am, Shiva wrote: > >>I have a question/concern about What > >>to Throw Away: > >> > >>I understand that that Win 95 Install creates the file System.1st. Since I am using > >>Win98 SE, and the article was updated today, I gather that Win 98SE does NOT require > >>the file. Win98 SE I notice, create the 5 day/event backup in the form of CAB files > >>anyway. Accoridng to the article, System.1st is used IF the four files, System.Dat, > >>User.Dat and associcated .DA0 files are corrupted. > >>Hence, why not just delete the file System.1st and if a problem arises, extract >the > >>CAB file/s? > >> > >>I need the space. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question/Concern about 'What to Throw Away' Wednesday, August 22, 2001 at 7:34 pm Posted by Rundll (167 messages posted) a system.1st that is almost a year old (11/15/00) would be of marginal use...though you never know. the differences between it and a regular registry backup are it is created during the installation of the OS and is pre hardware enumeration (i believe). if you replace system.dat with system.1st, you will find yourself at a point in win9x setup. if my own machine got to the point where i had to consider using system.1st, i would just reinstall...no big deal. others feel differently. i still keep the file around though ;) rbbad is created if scanreg determines that there has been registry corruption and restores a backup. also, its possible to swap your primary boot disk with a new one and maintain your current files and system configuration in the process. if you like to play...and from your list of computers it looks like you do...check out this article: Duplicating Windows 95/98/98 Second Edition Installation to a New Hard Disk [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question/Concern about 'What to Throw Away' Thursday, August 23, 2001 at 4:44 am Posted by amaralliya e. thenardier (3194 messages posted) i know about scanreg making backups - it was just a little unclear what you were talking about. at some point, maybe when you installed win98, you glossed over the setup and missed where it decided to install to a new folder? hehe... if its that old, delete it. having it around wont do a bit of good anyway. i suppose a clean install is out of the question? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question/Concern about 'What to Throw Away' Thursday, August 23, 2001 at 4:53 am Posted by amaralliya e. thenardier (3194 messages posted) We know what replacing the C drive a with a bigger drive means - loss of all installed software AND Dlls. just to add to what rundll already posted... yes, it can be done without loss of data. throw the new drive onto the secondary ide channel and partition and format it. then copy everything from c: to the primary partition of the new drive (you can do it with windows explorer). then put the new drive in place of the old c:, boot with a startup diskette and make the primary partition active, reboot, and everything should be fine. ive done it before. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question/Concern about 'What to Throw Away' Thursday, August 23, 2001 at 8:47 am Posted by Shiva (7 messages posted) On Thursday, August 23, 2001 at 4:53 am, amaralliya e. thenardier wrote: > We know what replacing the C drive a with a bigger drive means - loss >of all installed software AND Dlls. > >just to add to what rundll already posted... yes, it can be done without loss of >data. throw the new drive onto the secondary ide channel and partition and format Ok... one hurdle left - wife aaand - money. With all the comps sitting around, it's hard to justify more spending and I'm just not ready to spend again. But, I have enough free'd up space now to make this thing go the way it should. Any new installs will go on the other comp/s. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question/Concern about 'What to Throw Away' Thursday, August 23, 2001 at 11:52 am Posted by amaralliya e. thenardier (3194 messages posted) when you upgraded to 98, you didnt choose to keep a backup of 95 did you? if so, remove it. it takes up about 50mb of space. pricewatch.com: • western digital 20gb 5400rpm harddrive, $88 • western digital 10gb 5400rpm harddrive, $79 • western digital 4gb 5400rpm harddrive, $55 those are with shipping (in the states). sell some of the old equipment if youre not using it... college students are looking for computers at this time of year. your wife will probably be happy that its gone. [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows 98 Discussion Forum