Thanks, Ian. I reached the same conclusion over the weekend after reading one
of my Photoshop books in which they also warned against using a single
unpartitioned drive with Photoshop. You're right, I have an single 80 GB 5400
rpm drive and it is not partitioned. I plan to buy a second drive, probably 60
GB and 7200 rpm, and I'll set aside 20 GB on it for Photoshop and SilverFast
scratch area. (I know how to use Photoshop's Preferences to assign the logical
drive for scratch area, but didn't know that you could do the samething with
SilverFast. I'll have to figure out how to do that.) The 7200 rpm should also
speed up Photoshop's operaton with large files.
For what it's worth, the error message I was getting was, "Photoshp has caused
an error in <unknown>. Photoshp will now close. If you continue to experience
problems, try restarting your computer." It wasn't exactly a memory error, but
I'm sure now that it was a drive partition problem.
Also, my flatbed scanner, which is capable of generating large files (like my
medium format SS120) has caused similar Photoshop errors from time to time.
With the smaller files from my SS4000, I never had a problem. Guess I was
lucky.
Once again, thanks.
In a message dated Mon, 13 Aug 2001 3:36:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Ian
Lyons <ilyons@msn.com> writes:
> Re: filmscanners: SilverFast Upgrade Disaster
> I've been delaying doing a defrag because it takes at least 3 or 4 hours
>with
> an 80 GB hard drive that's half full. This simply forces the issue. Also,
> I'll try SilverFast after the defrag and maybe Photoshop will work and I
> won't have to do all of the reinstalls.
>
>
> If I'm reading you correctly you have one hard drive and only one partition
>on that drive. Like Windows Photoshop creates its on swap file (called the
>scratch disk - temporary work area). Usually when Photoshop throws up a memory
>error its because the scratch disk is full and not because of real memory
>issues. Unfortunately the message is erroneous - the Photoshop scratch disk
>REQUIRES contiguous hard disk space of approximately 5 times the actual amount
>of ram on your computer. Typically the memory error means that your hard disk
>doesn't have the required amount of contiguous space left. Normally this
>results from the way Windows throws files around the hard disk. Quite simply
>massive hard drives don't solve the problem if we don't properly manage the
>data. Having 50% spare capacity on your drive is meaningless if that 50% is
>made up of tiny chunks spread like pebbles on a beach.
>
> To solve your problem I would partition your 80Gig drive into at "least"
>four partitions. One of these should be dedicated to the Photoshop scratch
>disk. Given that you are working with pretty large files I would and have done
>on my own computer set aside 20Gig of space for the scratch disk - NOTHING
>else should have excess to this partition. Every time you close down Photoshop
>the scratch file will be cleared so defraging isn't an issue. SilverFast also
>has its own scratch file and again it should point to an area of contiguous
>hard disk space - I usually just pint to the same area as Photoshop - 20 gig
>is a pretty big beach when only Photoshop and its plugins use it.
>
> As for your other software and data (including the saved Photoshop images)
>put the on the remaining partitions.
>
>
> Ian
>
>
> Ian Lyons
>
>
>
>
>
