Windows 2000 Quick Fixes

Chapter 2. Configuring Hardware

Although Setup does a great job of configuring your system’s hardware—in many cases with little or no input from you—occasionally you’ll need to either modify the existing configuration or add new devices. In some cases the configuration change is required because of a conflict between two devices. In this chapter you’ll learn about hardware profiles , how to create and use them, and how to avoid hardware conflicts by disabling devices under specific configurations. You’ll also learn how to make a backup of your system’s critical files so you can restore the system if a problem occurs.

Disk space is another issue that will eventually crop up. This chapter covers installation of a new hard disk and how to clone your system from one disk to another. You’ll learn about other steps you can take to increase available disk capacity, such as converting from FAT to FAT32 or NTFS, removing unneeded Windows 2000 components, using mounted volumes, employing disk quotas, and using compression.

You might also want to take advantage of some of the benefits offered by Windows 2000’s new dynamic disk structure, which overcomes the four-partition limitation of the basic disk structure used by previous Microsoft operating systems. You’ll need to use dynamic disks if you intend to create volume or stripe sets on your system, because Windows 2000 only supports existing volume and stripe sets on basic disks (those created with Windows NT).

Finally, this chapter offers ...