Isolating OS and Files

[camaz]

I've been told that some people partition their primary hard drive so that
the Operating System, the Applications, and actual data files (documents,
images, music, etc.) are installed on separate partitions, so that the
Operating System can be reinstalled at any time with no effect on the other
partitions. Sounds like a great idea. Anybody know where I can find this
procedure detailed?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I've been told that some people partition their primary hard drive so that
the Operating System, the Applications, and actual data files (documents,
images, music, etc.) are installed on separate partitions, so that the
Operating System can be reinstalled at any time with no effect on the other
partitions. Sounds like a great idea. Anybody know where I can find this
procedure detailed?

Placing data files on a partition or physical hard drive separate from
the operating system and applications can greatly simplify both system
repairs/recoveries and data back-up.

There's really very little point, however, in having a separate drive
or partition for just applications. Should you have to reinstall the
OS, you'll still have to reinstall each and every application and game
anyway, in order to recreate the hundreds (possibly thousands) of
registry entries and to replace the dozens (possibly hundreds) of
essential system files back into the appropriate Windows folders and
sub-folders. Placing an application on a separate partition is a useful
solution only if your system partition lacks sufficient space for all of
your applications.

You can use any of a number of 3rd party partitioning utilities to
resize existing partitions (to create unallocated space) and create new
partitions for data storage. Naturally, the specific instructions would
be specific to, and accompany, whichever 3rd party solution you elect to
use. Some possibilities:

Symantec Partition Magic
http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/system_performance/pm80/index.html

Terabyte Unlimited's BootItNG
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

VCom's Partition Commander
http://www.v-com.com/product/Partition_Commander_Home.html

To use nothing more than WinXP's built-in capability, you'd need to
reinstall the OS, creating partitions as part of the process.
Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

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


--

Bruce Chambers

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[Ken Blake, MVP]

I've been told that some people partition their primary hard drive so
that the Operating System, the Applications, and actual data files
(documents, images, music, etc.) are installed on separate
partitions, so that the Operating System can be reinstalled at any
time with no effect on the other partitions. Sounds like a great
idea. Anybody know where I can find this procedure detailed?

I very much disagree that it's great idea. I think it's a poor partitioning
scheme and rationale for it.

First of all, note that if your applications are installed on a partition
separate from that the operating system is on, you can *not* reinstall the
operating system without losing the applications. The reason is that all
applications (execpt for a very occasional near-trivial one) have enjtiries
and pointers to them within Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. With
Windows gone, all those ntries get lost, and the applications get broken. So
that benefit goes away.

2. With regard to separating data from the operating system, as far as I'm
concerned, the reason to do that is if your backup scheme backs up data only
(as opposed to imaging the whole drive). Backing up data is easier if you
separate its partition from what you don't want to back up.

Separating data from the operating system so you can reinstall Windows
without affecting the data might be useful if you have no backup for your
data. With a backup, such a rationale goes away, since you can always
restore from your backup if you ever reinstall Windows. So that rationale
sounds to me like a substiture for a backup, and it's a very poor
substitute, since the risk of losing everything on the drive simultaneously
(due to head crashes, severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus
attacks, even theft of the computer) is always great.

Execpt for those who run multiple operating systems, most people are best
served with either a single partition or two (one for the operating system;
one for data), depending on how they plan to do backups.

 

[anno_triangle]

That is really much easier to recover in case the partition is gone. In
this case it is possible to simply use special tools such as Partition
Recovery to bring the partition with data back. Actualyy, that happened
with me before, and that worked, the partition was back again with all
of it's data. That tool is included into a data tools set cd image,
boot disk(also includes data erase, recover, backup utils).
http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm