How to uncompress a FAT32 Drive in Windows XP

[Mushin]

Nothing profound in this post but it has been a while since I have seen this.

Today we got in a computer that has the entire contents of the drive compressed even though the computer has plenty of hard drive space avaiable. This causes slow performance and it is not worth compressing the dirve since space is so cheep these days.

So to ensure that the majority of the drive gets uncompressed I do this.

1.) goto the root of c:
2.) find and empty folder or make a new folder
3.) bring up the properties and compress that folder

I do this just to ensure that there is a compressed folder in the root so I can do the next part to ensure that all folders get uncompressed

4.) click edit and sellect all
5.) bring up proterties for a folder will all of them still sellected
6.) uncheck compress
7.) apply setting to all files, folders and contents

Let computer run for a while. defrag as needed

 

[kotarel]

You can also right click properties of the drive in xp. Ther will be a checkbox at the bottom to (un)compress all the contents of the drive. Just uncheck it and it should go through all the drive's files.

 

[Xander]

You can also right click properties of the drive in xp. Ther will be a checkbox at the bottom to (un)compress all the contents of the drive. Just uncheck it and it should go through all the drive's files.

Yup, definitely the simpler route.

I'd come up with one of these last week. The tech before me must've ridden the short bus; he'd partitioned the drive and gave the C only 6GB but then turned on compression. It was close to choking. Resized the partitions, turned off compression and a very happy customer.

 

[Mushin]

You can also right click properties of the drive in xp. Ther will be a checkbox at the bottom to (un)compress all the contents of the drive. Just uncheck it and it should go through all the drive's files.

Ok... so maybe I am missing something but I am right clicking on the drive and choosing properties and all I see are the tabs --- General, Tools, Hardware, and Sharing. If I examine these there is no check box to uncompress.

I would love to know where that is because I have gone through the steps I posted for years to the point that I was going to be very mad if what you said was right in front of me.

You know I am talking about XP right?

I see the "compress this drive to save disk space" in Vista and Windows 7 but not XP.

I call foul on you! lol

 

[morr]

You can also right click properties of the drive in xp. Ther will be a checkbox at the bottom to (un)compress all the contents of the drive. Just uncheck it and it should go through all the drive's files.

Yep, that's the method I've always used too.

 

[kotarel]

I see the "compress this drive to save disk space" in Vista and Windows 7 but not XP.

It's at the same place/name in Win XP, General Tab.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307987

It's only available with NTFS partitions, is yours in FAT32?

 

[Mushin]

It's at the same place/name in Win XP, General Tab.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307987

It's only available with NTFS partitions, is yours in FAT32?

On this computer it has to be FAT32. Don't laugh... the customer has us fixing their PIII with a 20 GB hard drive. The other one that had the compressed drive has already left the shop but that should not have be FAT32 but I was not able to look at it.

Thanks for the tip though. Sure beats the convoluted steps above. So... lets change this tip to... Ho to uncompress a FAT32 Drive in Windows XP.

 

[Mushin]

So it must be small hard drive week here!
And all of them seem to have been compressed.


The latest one has a ton of files in the Windows Directory compressed and the system was dog slow.

Usually I don't worry too much about a small number of files remaining compressed but on this one... well I didn't want the extra overhead of windows having to decompress everything...

I booted to Mini XP and decompressed everything from there.

Basic I know but still made a big difference.

 

[hyfidel]

You can also decompress from the command line. You get a better sense what it's doing since it displays each file it's working on.