Laughingstar~* said:
Is it wise to create partitions? I've wondered from the sheer ease of
backing-up quickly. Still haven't a clue what to really back-up. Thank
you.
Laughingstar:
It really would be best if you provided some details concerning the system
you're working with and specifics as to what you have in mind re what your
objectives are and what you have in mind re creating a multi-partitioned
hard drive (HDD). That way you might get better responses to your query that
zero-in on your specific needs.
But in a general sense...
All things being equal I think you should be thinking in terms of a
comprehensive backup system - one that backs up not only your user-created
data, but also your XP operating system (OS) and all your programs &
applications - in short, *everything* that's on your day-to-day working HDD.
So that in the event your working HDD fails because of some
electronic/mechanical reason or because of some corruption of your OS so
that the system is no longer bootable - you would have a "good" copy of that
drive and you could then restore your system to a bootable, functional state
with a minimum of fuss.
As far as partitioning your HDD, unlike some of the other responders to your
query, I'm not a great fan of multi-partitions unless there are some very
specific reasons you think it's necessary to do so. For the vast majority of
users (in my experience) it's sufficient and more organizationally sound to
simply create a single partition on their HDD that contains the drive's
*complete* contents and then create individual folders to contain this or
that program or group of programs. Admittedly this is an issue that has been
debated for more years than I care to remember, with so many different
approaches recommended that it's a bewildering experience for most users.
And (again, in my experience) unnecessary and more often than not,
counter-productive.
What *is* important in my view is as I've stated above. Establish a
comprehensive backup system involving the *entire* contents of your working
HDD and maintain such on a routine, systematic basis. And this can be
achieved reasonably easily & quickly through a disk-to-disk cloning type of
program.
If you want any further recommendations from me re the above so indicate and
I'll post such.
Anna
