I've heard this term tossed around in forums so often I thought i'd ask. What is disk compression? And what does it do on a Win9.x and a NT system? Does it compress all the files on a HDD so it can hold more data?

Disk compression should be avoided. It was popular when a 500MB drive cost hundreds of dollars. With today's huge cheap drives using compression is dumb, a small disk error can cause the loss of all your compressed data.

Perhaps i should clarify. I never said i wanted to use it. I was just wandering what exactly it is because i'm preparing for my A+ certification and wanted to be prepared in case it was on the test. (i.e. I wanted to know if my initial hunch was correct or incorrect).

>>>Does it compress all the files on a HDD so it can hold more data?<<

Yes.

Chewy,
from my old A+ course notes re: 'Drivespace' in Windows 9X:

A compressed drive is not a drive at all; it's a file.

What Drivespace does to compress a drive:

* Assigns a different drive letter to the hard drive, such as H.
* Compresses entire contents of the hard drive onto a single file on drive H
* Sets up the drive so that Windows 9X and other applications view this compressed file as drive C.
* Configures Windows 9X so that each time it boots, the Drivespace driver will load and manage the compressed drive.

It gets a bit confusing when you start to try and understand where data is actually going on a compressed drive and what the data compression engine does to the appearence of your disk drives.

One more thing to remember for the exam: Drivespace doesn't work with FAT 32 under Windows 98.

Like Shelly said, the whole process is extinct these days.

Horatio, thanks for the info. That's helps to get a better handle on what it is.

You're welcome Chewy,
Good luck on the exam..:)

Just reading this thread- i have Win xp and use the file compression. NTSB or whatever it is called- i do not need them for anything- just do email, etc here. So, I read it is slower than not compressing them- I read in help , etc they recommend it. I want to keep my Hd uncluttered as I do not need all those old files. Is there a way I can go in and UNDO it so when i do disk clean- it does not compress but deletes them all.I looked and could not seem to find where I had set it up to begin with. Thanks