Hello!

This post is about disk partitions and why they are so great!
They are so great, that in fact everyone should have one!

A good idea is to partition your harddisk to have 2 partitions.
This way you can have your operating system and system files on one partition (the primary partition) which usually is C:

Then you can have another secondary partition which is D:
where you store any other data such as media files (music, movies) and all sorts of stuff.

Maybe you have a 100 gb harddisk. Then you can allocate for example 20 gb to have on a system/primary partition (C:) where you have for example Windows XP. Then the rest (80 gb) you have on your secondary partition (D:).

This can help you keep stuff categorized and prevent you from accidently deleting something on the system partition when you are handling your files.

Now imagine if your operating system didnt work so well, you needed to reinstall it, and you thought it would be a good idea to reformat the harddisk. Now if you only had one partition on the harddisk you wouldnt be able to format the disk without all your files get deleted.

But because you have partitioned your harddisk to two or more partitions you can format the system partition, reinstall your operating system and still have all your files left intact since you cleverly stored them on the other disk partition.

So now you know!

It also has other benefits. Lets say you move around files, copy files, delete files, download files, etc to your harddisk. This will lead your files gets defragmented and your computer will be slower.

But if you mainly use the secondary partition for your files, then it will take much longer time for your primary system partition to get fragmented which means your computer will work optimally for a longer period of time before you need to defragment the partitions.

Want a deeper insight into disk partitions?
See the Wikipedia article on disk partitions!

Good post.
Even if I knew this stuff, would really help others out!

Did you just get bored or something?
Anyway you made some good points. Althought I would just rather keep my files on an external hd and be completely worry free about loosing my files.

Nice post.

Very good post Eldmannen, more folks should know about partitioning to keep there collection of music, movies, pictures, etc., off the primary partition of C: which is subject to all sorts of problems. Having a separate partition is also ideal for keeping downloaded programs, it negates having to grab tons of CD-R's just to find the installer(s).

Thanks for the replies!

I wrote it because I thought I should educate some people about computers and stuff. Sad thing is that maybe this thread will disappear soon, maybe I or someone should put it on a website or something.
If anyone has a website and thought it was useful, feel free to put it on your website or something.

Partition their drives is something everybody should do, it can save them alot of hassle and provide them with much convenience.

As rridgely having two harddrives is also a good idea, unfortunately that makes more noise, cost more, eats more electricity, etc. But it can be good.

Two hard drives can also be runned in something called RAID, which there are different modes to. You can mirror the content of the harddrive in real-time or provide reading from two disks which can provide fast performance. This is not so common for home users, but it is common for servers.
Redundant array of independent disks (RAID) on Wikipedia

I'll pin it for you in hardware if you would like.

I have two internal hdd's on my XP system. The reason I haven't got around to partitioning them is because currently they're too small 80GB for me to even bother with, if/when I get a series of 250GB or larger then I'd partition them for my music collection -- that is if I don't just build a unit (series of insane capacity hdd's) solely for music and perhaps movies that runs via a moderate priced or perhaps used laptop with XP.

I think saving this topic would be a vwery good idea

If you have 2 hard drives moving the pagefile to the 2nd hard drive will reduce the time the computer needs to read and write to it. This can be helpfull on ram challenged computers such as mine .

That would be great!



80 gb isnt too small (imho), creating two partitions 20 and 60 gb wouldnt be all too bad. However I see why you dont partition them as you have 2 disks anyways.

Dont see why anyone would need a system disk bigger than 20 gb though.

yeah i should really partition my harddrive becuz defragging games, is ridiculous.

Have you considered adding more memory to your computer? About 6 weeks ago I added memory cards to my computer, and it is AWESOME!!! Definitely worth checking in to. It's so easy that a novice like myself accomplished the task in 10 minutes.

I hope that you try it!!
K

I think he just needs to quit kicking his system!

And I just built a new system with 2 GB of Corsair RAM (dual channel). Speedy little booger! You can never have too much memory.

That's actually a false rumor. The speeds of hard drives are a lot faster than what they used to be. The same with RAM. It's best to (if you have a pagefile) keep it on the same drive/partition as your Windows install.

I'm not sure I agree with you. You said that drives are a lot faster than they used to be, so it seems like you're saying that in the past it was faster to have Windows and the pagefile on separate disks. Whether or not that was what you were implying, it is true; if I took two old HDs and split up my OS and pagefile between them, it would be faster than having both on one old HD.

If disks have gotten faster, than sure a pagefile and OS on a single new HD would be faster than the pagefile and OS split up on two old disks. Disk speeds and caches have more than doubled and octupled, respectively, so there would be no contest, even though having both on the same drive is a less logical setup.

But, what if you had the pagefile and OS on two separate new HDs? Obviouly, it would be faster than having both on one new HD, because the OS drive could totally dedicate its rotations and cache to the OS, while the pagefile HD could totally dedicate its rotations and cache to the pagefile.

Even if you had both the pagefile and OS on an HD with NCQ (native command queueing), it would still be a slower setup than having two new non-NCQ HDs dedicated solely to either the OS or pagefile.

[size=6] Greetings to all. I am a new member. Just wanted to say thank you for this topic. I have just stared to build my first computer and was think I should plan on patition the new H/D.
For a newbie there are so many thing to consider. Already had to return the new motherboard because it was socket 478 and the CPU was socket -LGA775. Live and learn.
Just wanted to join in and say Thanks for the info. on partitions. Now I will have to study up on how to do it.

Cugie

BAD cuggie! BAD! INTEL BAD!

Oh, I know it, I even have AMD on the HP computer I am using now. Butt {always the big but}
I received the Intel P4 as a gift and it is hard to hurt their feelings. Anyway as this is my first building attempt ; if I messed it up and it will not work I will start over with AMD. Life is just a learning experiance.
I will find out if Intel runs cooler than AMD. I hope it is ok if I post my buildf list here to see what you folks think? If not some one just let me know I should post it in a differant place. I am most interested in what video card I should have as I have no experiance with that. Just starting to play games on here.
Thanks to Any and All for any input. " Smile alot - Makes people wounder what you're up too"
Cuggie

MoBo - MSI P4N SLI-FI Socket T[LGA 775] ATX Intel -$119.00
CPU - Intel P4 Processor 521 800MHz FSB - Free
Case - Rosewill 114 A - 59.99
Keyboard/m Logitech LX 700 - 40.00 [on sale]
Dell Moniter - 289.00
RAM Corsair 1GB(2 x 512 MB) 240 pin SDRM DDR2
533 (PC2 4200) - 73.00
Hard Drive WD Caviar SE 160GB Serial ATA 150 87.00
DVD Burner Plextor PX-740A 60.99 [rebate]
Video Card eVAG 128-P2-N352 TX GeForce 6600LE
128MB PCI Express x 16 79.00

PS. forgive my typing

Definitely not! That is AMD's big selling point: less pipelines and a lower clock speed, which causes it to run much cooler and more efficiently. But by no means is AMD slower! AMD gets more processing done per cycle than Intel, so it effectively goes faster and still generates less heat.

Amen

I heard about partitions but I'v got a problem.

I only have one partition (with my OS) and I don't have the windows CD.

Is it possible to add another partition without disrupting whats on this one?

Not normally. But there is 3rd party software (such as Partition Magic) that supposedly can do that. But I dont trust it.

This thread made me realise that I should have partitioned my drive - but, buying these commercial machines, you don't really get a chance to partition.

Anyway, without my games etc., I've only used 13 gig of a 240Gig HD - the games fill another >150 Gb (if anything needs partitioned ...!) - I really want to shift my swapfile at least.

Is there any utilities that allow you to take a chunk of exisiting drive, and create a new partition ? (preferably free as I'll probably do it only once)

I've tried a few shareware utils., but all they suceed in doing is telling me if 7Meg unallocated (wonder is that the total of my slack space ??) I'd prefer not to reformat (mainly cos I don't really know how) etc.

In case it helps, I have also have a 4 Gig recovery partiton (D drive) included when I bought the m/c - the rest is free-ish (and an aparent 7Mb unallocated)

I would like to create a partition for the swapfile (can the MFT go on a partition ?), one for games, one for work stuff ... am I getting carried away ?

Anyway, I think my question is - can I create an additional partition after Windows has been installed ?
(so far I'm thinking the answer is no), BUT if anyone knows otherwise, please help !!

Ta,
B.

That is why you either do not buy a commerical machine, or ask to get it delivered without an OS pre-installed, or repartion the computer as soon as you get it.
Now, formating a harddisk is not difficult, actually, it is very easy.
You can right click on the disk/partion in "My Computer" and select "Format..."
Or you can boot with a floppy disk so you get to the CLI (Command Line Interface), and type: format C: or format D: or whatever.
Doing any of the 2 mentioned steps above will format your disk/partion and erase all content on it.
Partition a disk is a little more difficult than formating it. You can do this at the by booting the computer with a bootdisk and running the command 'fdisk'. Then you need to tell it how many paritions to create, what size they should be, etc and declare an active partition. The active partition is usually the first and is the one that the OS (Operating System) is/will be on.

I partitioned my drive last month using Partition Magic and there were no probs :-)

Partition Magic is, in fact, really good.

A shame all Symantec products can be that good

I would love to do this but doubt I can with only 80GB hard Drive.

My disk is only 80 gb too. But I have it partitioned.
C: - 20 gb. (Operating system, programs, games)
D: - 40 gb. (Media, music, movies)
E: - 20 gb.

If I could get a Raptor or other 10k drive I would partition it so that OS and games would be on the 70/130 GB drive,
with media, music, movies on whatever slower, 7200 drives I have lying around.

ATM however, I don't really have a need for it - so it's all one 160GB fat... thing... One C:/ for all my stuff plus the family pictures, videos, etc.

I have a 200GB hard drive that is only recognized as 128.

So i just partitioned the rest using disk management

Do I have to like install windows on that separate partition and stuff for the 50GB to work?

I want partition magic but dont want to spend $70...

I really like gparted live. Its linux boot up cd that is only a disc partitioner.(works very well and requires no linux knowledge)
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

Also this site is giving away paragons partitioner for free:
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/downloads/216...on-manager-2005

I assume gparted works with windows? If it does, do you know of a good link for instructions on use? Also will this destroy info on existing partitions?

I assume I assumed wrong.
I used Partition Manager 2005, worked great!

GParted is the best partitioner I've ever worked with

Hi rridgely,

I`m picking your brains again here from your Nov. 23rd post re. partitions. (Yep, takes me awhile to get round this place).

Since I cracked the DVD backup method, I find I`m fragmenting my HD a lot with saving and deleting these big ISO files. So therefore having to defragment more often.

I`ve an 80gb HD, (big enough for me at the moment), with a 6gb recovery partition. Still 56gb free.
My idea is to make a seperate partition, maybe about 10gb to use simply for Decrypter and then Shrink files.

I intend deleting all files when DVD backup confirmed OK.

A: Is this possible with gparted, which I`ve just dl`d but not installed ?
B: Would this cause premature wear to this part of the HD moreso than the poss damage caused by too frequent defragmenting ?

Thanks
Regards

Edit: Just dl`d the Paragon one as well to try.

Ok, I should have checked this post sooner... I forgot I posted in it.

Gparted is a live linux cd. What you do is burn it to a disc as a imagefile and then boot into it. Don't worry though because its not really linux, it right away opens the partition program and its really simple.
--------------

Dennis I get what your saying.
That could work, but when you partition make sure that you defrag your hard drive before you make the partition.(this will help make sure you don't loose any data.) Also make sure you back up any data that you have on your hard drive that you would be sad if you lost before making the partition.

Since you already have paragon I would just use that. Its a nice program.
Partitioning the drive shouldn't wear it out any.(as long as your not doing it once a week or anything.)

If that didn't answer everything just let me know.

Yep man, that just about covers it.

Today I backed up everything to DVD, as I was planning a destructive recovery to clean out all the crap from the dozens of applications I`ve tried and discarded over the last 6 months.

After doing that would probably be the ideal time to setup another partition.

I liked the other ideas I`ve read in this thread. Partition for music, or in my case, downloaded art. I`m a big fan of art along the lines of Giger. Have found some amazing, wierd, bizarre, surreal and simply stunning examples of the power of the imagination.

And some of it definitely scary.

If anyone else is into Giger type stuff, will happily provide some links.

I`ll let you know how I get on.

Thanks
Regards

Good idea to make backup. Backup is always good to have.


Yes, you can have like D: (Music) and E: (Downloads) or you could have D:\Music\ and D:\Downloads\

Sorry I just read this post. If you're still reading this thread, check the model # of your motherboard.
Usually older Pentium II and Pentium III mobo chipsets had problems with larger drives.

Search the Intel site or whatever site manufactured your mobo (or that of your computer manufacturer). See if there's been a BIOS upgrade.
With the latest upgrades all of the old mobos should recognize larger hard drives.

If that drive had 137 GB not recognized, it means they don't have SP1 (might be SP2?) not installed on XP.

AJ

That would be a possible cause.


---
For anyone who has trouble finding out if they have SP2 installed:

Click 'Start'
Click 'Run'
Type winver
Click 'Ok'

This will display your windows version.

CCleaner also says if you have SP2 installed (at the top under the CCleaner version number)

Thats right, forgot about that.

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 Special Edition + Complete Novice = Making new partition a piece of cake.

What a good programme this is to work with, although I must admit I had everything crossed while it was doing its thing.

Made a new 10gb partition successfully just using the New Partition Wizard.

My bit only took a minute or less. It was when the rebooting started, and the Paragon Engine took over that I had everything crossed. I have no experience of partitioning software, but to the novice eye, this seems to be a very slick operator.

Once everything was done, I quickly realised that like most new stuff we get, I needed a bigger one.

With this software, this was just as easy.

Advanced Partitioning Tasks > Redistribute Free Space Wizard.

30 seconds work. Paragon Engine does its thing. Job done. Now have a 25gb partition.

Thanks Eldmannen, for the Partitioning thread.

Thanks rridgely, for the initial Paragon software link and advice.

Thanks to Sputnik for his link back in April, to the Exclusive Computeractive Download Offer - Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8. Free.

Paragon HD Manager is still available free despite the offer running out months ago:

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/hdmanager8/index

(I've just downloaded it and received a serial from the 'Click here to register' link )

IF you go ahead and create 2 partitions (1 for programs and the other for personal data) it is also good te change the location of the My Documents Folder. To do this, make sure you have the My Documents folder visible on your desktop (or in your startmenu). Right Click My Documents (on the desktop or the Start Menu) and choose Properties. As you can see, there are 3 buttons about half way on the window (because i use a dutch windows version i am going to assume a button name here). Click the one labeled with "Move" or "Relocate". Then choose the second partition that you have dedicated to (personal) data-drive and click OK, to confirm your selection. Click OK again and windows will ask you if you want to move everything from c:\documents and settings\username\my documents to d:\ and confirm this with a Yes (or OK). if you have much data in the c:\documents and settings\username\my documents folder, it will take a while to move all of it, but it will do the job. Now whenever you are trying to save something in the My Documents Folder, it is automaticly saved to the 2nd partition and thus a heck of a lot more safe. (also, many programs create folders in the My Documents folder for there own save files (also games do this often) and they are now also much safer then before...)

I'd recommend making a My Documents folder on the other drive/partition instead of leaving it to move the files to the root directory!

And it still works! ..lol..