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- 2000.04.05
You want to know how to make your old computer faster than it
was when you bought it? Just erase everything on your hard
disk!
I know that sounds drastic, and I don't mean dragging all your
files to the Trash, chanting, "must destroy, must destroy." I don't
have any expertise in that field. However, if what you want is
speed, reliability, and lack of file fragmentation on your older
Mac's hard disk, just initialize it!
The procedure for initializing the hard disk is fairly easy, all
you need is a secure backup device and some free time. The steps of
the process are as follows:
Back up all necessary documents and applications you don't
have saved anywhere else. This is essential, since you will be
wiping everything from your hard drive.
Boot up from the system disk or CD that came with your
system.
Open Drive Setup, HD SC Setup, or Internal HD Format -
whichever is on your system disk.
Select the disk you want to erase and click initialize.
Restore your original system software.
Install any needed system software updates.
Reinstall your backed-up stuff and the other applications from
their respective CDs or disks (likely not the latter for newer
Macs.)
Get back to whatever fun thing you were doing!
Whew! I didn't say it was easy.
There are programs, like Norton Utilities and Alsoft
DiskWarrior,* that can defragment your disk and do other
maintenance jobs, but those fixes don't promise the same speed and
reliability improvement. Here's why: When you save anything to the
disk, it puts it at the next available sector on the hard disk. The
farther away the sector is, the longer it takes to write the file.
If you have two documents far away from each other, it will then
take a lot longer to open them than if they were closer. After
you've initialized your disk, you will reinstall all your documents
and programs at once, and thus they are positioned sequentially
next to each other. Unless you're batch-processing hundreds of
small files, or have a very slow disk, the difference in "access
time" (the time it takes for the drive heads to be aligned with the
track on the disk and for the sector to be lined up) will be
unnoticeable. However, CD-RW disks can also benefit from 'dozing,
and the difference will be very apparent, as such drives can have
an access time of over a half-second.
Also, if a portion of a platter on your hard disk gets damaged,
the initializing program will block off that portion, preventing
anything from being written there. This is an excellent feature,
because if something were written on a damaged block, it might be
unretrievable.
I tested the bulldozing technique on a Performa 636 CD, the family computer.
Since we don't have any backup-worthy drive to use, and the
Performa doesn't have an ethernet card, I sent the files
modem-to-modem to my iMac DV to store on its drive. The process was
quite time-consuming. Transfer rates are a lot slower than ordinary
downloading because the files are sent one allocation block at a
time, and then it confirms that the block was sent before sending
the next one. However, I didn't have to buy any additional hardware
and didn't tie up the phone line. Apple has information about this
procedure at TIL article #22229.
The Performa had Mac OS 8.0 on it, but I installed System 7.5.5
after bulldozing, because the performance is much better with that,
since the computer only has 20 MB of RAM.
Bulldozing isn't for everyone, it's very complicated and takes
several hours to complete. However, if you've got the time on your
hands, want to get better-than-new performance out of your older
Mac, and aren't afraid to answer OK to "This process will erase all
the information on this disk," you'll be glad did!
* Current versions of Alsoft DiskWarrior and Norton Utilities
can not only defragment the disk, they can also optimize the
directory structure of your hard drive, further improving
performance. Of course, they cost more than bulldozing. DK,
editor
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