Drive Spanning - There Must be an Easier Way

[sub]

I've made a change so the next release will not show hidden directories.

[HtV]

In 'This Computer" you can configure the system restore settings for each drive. So if you turn it off for that drive you should get rid of the System Volume Information dir.
When you rightclick the windows dustbin you can configure the dustbin for the seperate drives.
I hope this works I haven't tried it:eek:

[HtV]

I've made a change so the next release will not show hidden directories.

Always take the easy route .

[madcat]

Click "Add" and then "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder"

You can then browse to a folder on your "old" drive and create a new folder there named "Video2" or something. Now you can access the new drive from that folder on the old one.

Yes, but this means each drive can appear as a folder under another drive. If what you want is the folder "Recordings" to grow beyond a size of a given HD, this solution will not help.

[|)uffman]

In 'This Computer" you can configure the system restore settings for each drive. So if you turn it off for that drive you should get rid of the System Volume Information dir.
When you rightclick the windows dustbin you can configure the dustbin for the seperate drives.
I hope this works I haven't tried it:eek:

I've tried it. With restore turned off and recycler disabled (which presents its own set of problems) I can take ownership of the folders and delete them, but Windows keeps recreating for me, so I gave up. I'm sure I'm the only person who uses my PVR who even notices.

Yes, but this means each drive can appear as a folder under another drive. If what you want is the folder "Recordings" to grow beyond a size of a given HD, this solution will not help.

That's what I meant:

This may not be the solution OP is looking for (it won't auto load balance and I can't guarantee it on XP Home), but it is an easy way to keep multiple drives organized into one master folder.

I can't think of a way to join 2 disks into one partition that doesn't involve raid or a spanned partition (XP home doesn't support this???). Either of those methods involves losing the data on the old drive.

I've experimented with all of these configs and found this one to be the best for convenience vs. cost. Once you make a raid array you are committed to that drive size anyways, so he'll run into the same problem he has now.

Probably video archive is the best solution here, but I don't know how to hide my porn in that plugin...

[madcat]

What about this: seems XP (Pro I guess) already has built-in software RAID?
http://www.techimo.com/articles/index.pl?photo=149
Never did it. and not going to try on my live systems now.
But hey - I'll try it later on a virtual PC and post comments.

[Jeff]

Probably video archive is the best solution here, but I don't know how to hide my porn in that plugin...

:eek: The video archive plug-in supports the concept of groups and users. You could create a group for files you you want to hide (whatever the content) and assign certain directories to that group. You would then create two accounts. One without a password that had access to all directories not assigned to a group and a second with a password that had access to your hidden group (or to your hidden group plus all files not assigned to a group). Just make sure you don't set the auto login property. You use the pause key (control Q) to log in.

Jeff

[|)uffman]

:eek: The video archive plug-in supports the concept of groups and users. You could create a group for files you you want to hide (whatever the content) and assign certain directories to that group. You would then create two accounts. One without a password that had access to all directories not assigned to a group and a second with a password that had access to your hidden group (or to your hidden group plus all files not assigned to a group). Just make sure you don't set the auto login property. You use the pause key (control Q) to log in.

Jeff

Do you have to login??? Can I have an auto login that displays all my pg-13 videos and then use ctrl-q to give access to the nc-17 stuff? Will the pg-13 account see any traces (titles, history, etc) of the nc-17 stuff?

[madcat]

Yep. Piece of cake.
I did it in my virtual PC. Added two "physical" disk (as much as u can call physical something that is virtual...).
Mounted the first, created a partition, formated, and was E:
Added a file to it, so i see if file remains.

Then I created a second HD.

Made both Dynamic (all is done thru the XP Management console). Asked to "extend" the "volume" of the first drive, and added the second HD to this volume - and voila - double the HD size under E:, and the file is still there!

couldn't be better? no idea re performance though, but see no reason it should deteriorate much.

[|)uffman]

Yep. Piece of cake.
I did it in my virtual PC. Added two "physical" disk (as much as u can call physical something that is virtual...).
Mounted the first, created a partition, formated, and was E:
Added a file to it, so i see if file remains.

Then I created a second HD.

Made both Dynamic (all is done thru the XP Management console). Asked to "extend" the "volume" of the first drive, and added the second HD to this volume - and voila - double the HD size under E:, and the file is still there!

couldn't be better? no idea re performance though, but see no reason it should deteriorate much.

Nice one. This is called spanning & I didn't realize you could maintain your data on disk 1 when adding disk 2 to a partition. The key, I'm sure, is Dynamic Partitions. The problem - what happens when you lose one of the disks in the spanned partition? Does the whole partition die?

What Virtual Machine program are you using that allows you to have more than 1 drive?