Partition second hdd with C:\ drive?

[John P.]

Hi,

I have a quick question preparing a system for someone.

Recently bought a hdd and plan to temporarely install it in my system as the
second drive, partition it (since other person is not that familiar with
partitioning) since it's kind of large (300gb) thinking about c, d, e, f
(OS, Programs, Music, Videos, etc on each partition). Other person bought
WinXP and is going to install it since from what I know it's going to be
useless installing it myself in this computer.

The only problem I see... Since my computer allready has a C drive, will it
assign another C:\ drive to the other drive? I'm affraid it's going to start
partitioning the other drive like d, e, f and so on and other person will
have problems installing it in C drive since that drive letter was allready
assigned from this computer...
btw. I'm also using Partition Magic 8

Thank you,
John

 

[DatabaseBen]

just a thought....
but would it be possible to let your
friend use your pm on his pc and
on his hdd??

might be a little easier....

 

[John John]

These letters (c,d,e...) mean nothing. They are arbitrary letters
assigned by the current operating system, they will change when the disk
is mounted to another machine and when the operating system is
installed. In computer language partitions have numbers, not letters.
Just partition the disk but as a precaution mark the first partition on
the disk as "Active".

There is nothing to gain by separating the program files from the
operating system files, it just makes the drive work for nothing seeking
between the system32 folder and the program folder. Just stick all of
that on the same partition. Separating the user data files is a good idea.

John

 

[Gerry Cornell]

The logic goes with separating files that are regularly rewritten from those
which stay the same. Whilst programme files tend not to change frequently
and data files can often change you need to remember this is not always so.
It is logical to separate current from archived data files!

Comments are often made that a fragmented System Restore file does
not matter because the system never needs to access the file or if so only
once. However, if a System Restore file amongst other files which are
written to regularly will cause those files, if they are of any size, to
fragment
even more.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Anna]

Hi,

I have a quick question preparing a system for someone.

Recently bought a hdd and plan to temporarely install it in my system as
the second drive, partition it (since other person is not that familiar
with partitioning) since it's kind of large (300gb) thinking about c, d,
e, f (OS, Programs, Music, Videos, etc on each partition). Other person
bought WinXP and is going to install it since from what I know it's going
to be useless installing it myself in this computer.

The only problem I see... Since my computer allready has a C drive, will
it assign another C:\ drive to the other drive? I'm affraid it's going to
start partitioning the other drive like d, e, f and so on and other person
will have problems installing it in C drive since that drive letter was
allready assigned from this computer...
btw. I'm also using Partition Magic 8

Thank you,
John

John:
Setting aside the wisdom of your (or your friend's) intention to
multi-partition the HDD along the lines you (or he/she) contemplate...

In all honesty, it borders on an absurdity for you to partition/format the
HDD on your machine, then give it to your friend to install the XP OS and
whatever on his/her machine. There are so many ways for the ultimate
installation to go wrong that it's simply not worth doing what you propose.

As I'm sure you know from your own experience -- freshly installing XP is a
relatively simple & straightforward procedure, even to the extent of
creating multi-partitions. You would better serve your friend by helping him
or her with the installation of the OS directly on your friend's machine.
Anna

 

[DL]

If you are preparing a sys for someone, do it on their PC with their copy of
win.
What you propose is a disaster waiting to happen
And use win to partion, if you must, not a third party app.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have a quick question preparing a system for someone.

Recently bought a hdd and plan to temporarely install it in my system
as the second drive, partition it (since other person is not that
familiar with partitioning) since it's kind of large (300gb) thinking
about c, d, e, f (OS, Programs, Music, Videos, etc on each
partition). Other person bought WinXP and is going to install it
since from what I know it's going to be useless installing it myself
in this computer.
The only problem I see... Since my computer allready has a C drive,
will it assign another C:\ drive to the other drive?

No. The letters are per system, not per drive. You can only have a single C:
drive.

I'm affraid it's
going to start partitioning the other drive like d, e, f and so on

Yes, that's exactly what it will do,

and other person will have problems installing it in C drive since

What do you mean by "installing it in C drive"? Your plan is to move it to
his computer. Does his computer have any other drives or will this be his
only drive? Assuming the latter, it will normally become his C: drive.

that drive letter was allready assigned from this computer...

What drive letter it gets assigned on your computer has nothing to do with
what drive letter it gets assigned on his.

I don't want to insult you, but this is very basic stuff. If you 're not
familiar with things like this, your friend would be better advised to let a
professional do this.

btw. I'm also using Partition Magic 8

Moreover there's no reason to use Partition Magic for a job like this. It's
a needless complication. It's primarily a tool for *repartitioning* a drive
without losing what's already on it. All your friend needs to do is boot
from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if necessary to
accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a clean installation

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

He should create his first partition of whatever size he wants doing that,
then create the other partitions from Disk management after Windows is
installed.

One more point. your partitioning scheme ("thinking about c, d, e, f (OS,
Programs, Music, Videos, etc on each partition") is almost certainly
overkill. Unless you are dual-booting, hardly anyone needs more than two
partitions--one for Windows and one for data. there is no point in
separating programs from Windows, since if you ever have to reinstall
Windows, you will also have to reinstall all the programs. And further there
is little point in separating various kinds of data (music and videos) from
each other. If your friends backup scheme is to backup just data, rather
than imaging his drive, that backup will be facilitated by having all data
on a single partition.