Partitioning drives with XP Pro

[Dan]

Running Windows XP Pro SP3. This is the setup....

HD #1 - 40 gig (one partition)
Drive C:\ (System) 40 gig

HD #2 - 40 gig (three partitions)
Drive D:\ (Backup) 3 gig
Drive E:\ (Setup Files) 1 gig
Drive F:\ (Music) 33 gig

Two questions...Is there a way to partition the first drive (with Windows on
it)?
Secondly, if I use disk management in XP to delete the drive D or E
partitions on HD #2, will I lose data in drive F partition? Drive D is the
active partition, E is an extended and F is a logical drive...I think!
Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Ghostrider]

Running Windows XP Pro SP3. This is the setup....

HD #1 - 40 gig (one partition)
Drive C:\ (System) 40 gig

HD #2 - 40 gig (three partitions)
Drive D:\ (Backup) 3 gig
Drive E:\ (Setup Files) 1 gig
Drive F:\ (Music) 33 gig

Two questions...Is there a way to partition the first drive (with Windows on
it)?
Secondly, if I use disk management in XP to delete the drive D or E
partitions on HD #2, will I lose data in drive F partition? Drive D is the
active partition, E is an extended and F is a logical drive...I think!
Thanks in advance for any help.

What is it that you really want to do? One thing for sure, dividing
HD #1 will wipe out Drive C. However, consider the alternative of
buying a larger hard drive and cloning Drive C into a partition that
is less than the full size of the new hard drive. For example, get
an 80 GB HD; clone Drive C into just 40 GB. Save the remaining 40
GB for later use.

As for the second parat of the question, removing Drive D should
not result in any issues with remaining Drives E or F. However, my
choice would be to clone HD #2 into another HD composed of just an
extended partition with 3 logical drives. I am a little concerned
about Drive D being an active, (primary?) partition.

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was 9/3/2008 7:18 PM, and on a whim, Dan pounded out

Running Windows XP Pro SP3. This is the setup....

HD #1 - 40 gig (one partition)
Drive C:\ (System) 40 gig

HD #2 - 40 gig (three partitions)
Drive D:\ (Backup) 3 gig
Drive E:\ (Setup Files) 1 gig
Drive F:\ (Music) 33 gig

Two questions...Is there a way to partition the first drive (with Windows on
it)?
Secondly, if I use disk management in XP to delete the drive D or E
partitions on HD #2, will I lose data in drive F partition? Drive D is the
active partition, E is an extended and F is a logical drive...I think!
Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi Dan,

First, two 40 gig drives is very small. You could partition C using a
3rd party program like Partition Magic, but chances are you need at
least 40 gig for the OS & programs and data.

Usually logical drives are created in an extended partition. So E and F
should both be logical drives within an extended partition. If you have
Partition Magic to do the C drive, then you can easily remove partitions
from HD2, so you could extend drive F to the full space of HD2, which
sounds like you want to do.

XP's disk management can create and delete, but PM can resize and do
much more. I use PM for partition backups in addition to resizing when
needed.

In addition, I suggest you get an external backup drive, to back up your
entire system. You don't realize how valuable your data is until you
lose it without a backup.

--
Terry R.

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[Dan]

Every HD must have an active partition. This is usually the first partition.
Not to be confused with primary and secondary (or slave) HD which is what I
think you were concerned about.

I want to partition the primary HD so that the system partition is only 12
GB. There's no need for Windows and program files to use the entire 40 GB.
Just seems like poor disk management if you ask me. From there, the second
partition can be used for saving documents, for example.

The secondary HD is partitioned poorly also (my mistake a few years ago).
However, I have nearly 20 GB of music I don't want to lose. That's why I was
asking about deleting a partition and its effects on another (latter?)
partition. But I think to be safe, I'll just backup to DVD or the primary HD
(once it's partitioned).

 

[Dan]

Thanks Terry. Yeah, I've been thinking of upgrading to a larger HD.
However, WindowsXP, and all my program files including SP3 and all other
program updates are only using 9 GB right now. I want to partition it so
that the "SYSTEM" drive will be 12 GB in size. I think the extra 3 GB will
suffice as a free space cushion. Does that sound crazy? Personally, I think
it's good use of disk partitioning. If a restore is ever done (and I've got
a recent image of the HD) then I can restore the system files ONLY and leave
the second partition alone which may contain recently updated documents,
photos, ect.

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was 9/3/2008 9:26 PM, and on a whim, Dan pounded out

Thanks Terry. Yeah, I've been thinking of upgrading to a larger HD.
However, WindowsXP, and all my program files including SP3 and all other
program updates are only using 9 GB right now. I want to partition it so
that the "SYSTEM" drive will be 12 GB in size. I think the extra 3 GB will
suffice as a free space cushion. Does that sound crazy? Personally, I think
it's good use of disk partitioning. If a restore is ever done (and I've got
a recent image of the HD) then I can restore the system files ONLY and leave
the second partition alone which may contain recently updated documents,
photos, ect.

9 gig? That's either very efficient or not very many apps! ;-)

My OS partitions vary between 3 (win9x) to 7 (XP), but I have a data
drive and an application drive (8 gig) also. I have additional space
around those partitions, so if needed I can expand their size, but I
haven't done so in quite a while, except for the data drive (which also
has a mirror).

If you don't have a need for more space, it sounds like you already know
what you want to do.

--
Terry R.

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[Dan]

Not very many apps is quite a subjective phrase! I think I've got plenty
enough, but the next person probably thinks I'm running on fumes! I think
I've installed about a dozen to [MAYBE] 18 apps ranging from MS Office 2000
(one of the larger ones on my machine) to smaller apps like 7-zip.