Resizing a partition

[Dapper Dan]

Planning on resizing a large existing partition and creating 5 new
partitions, one of which will be to hold backups from this XP and a Win Me
OS Laptop. When I format this particular partition, should it also be
designated NTFS or do I need to make it Fat32?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Planning on resizing a large existing partition and creating 5 new
partitions, one of which will be to hold backups from this XP and a
Win Me OS Laptop. When I format this particular partition, should it
also be designated NTFS or do I need to make it Fat32?

You can make it either.

But I urge you to rethink your plan of backing up to a second partition on
your only drive. I don't recommend backup to a second partition or even to a
non-removable second hard drive because it leaves you susceptible to
simultaneous loss of the original and backup to many of the most common
dangers: head crashes (if it's a second partition), severe power glitches,
nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer.

In my view, secure backup needs to be on removable media, and not kept in
the computer. For really secure backup (needed, for example, if the life of
your business depends on your data) you should have multiple generations of
backup, and at least one of those generations should be stored off-site.

My computer isn't used for business, but my personal backup scheme uses two
identical removable hard drives,I alternate between the two, and use Drive
Image to make a complete copy of the primary drive.

 

[Dapper Dan]

Thank you Ken. If I can make it either, I assume I'm better to stay with
NTFS.
I understand re backups however I'm not sure I want to get too
sophisticated. I thought it would be simpler to hold the backups on one
drive and then occasionally burn to a DVD from there. Will rethink it. In
the meantime, I plan on reducing a 225 GB partition to 25 GB and then
creating 5 new partitions including a future use partition approximating 125
GB.

Dan

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thank you Ken.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

If I can make it either, I assume I'm better to stay
with NTFS.

NTFS Is normally better. In my view almost the only reason to use FAT32 is
that you're dual-booting to an older operating system that's not NTFS-aware.
In this case, although Me is not NTFS-aware, it won't be accessing the drive
locally; if it accesses it across a network connection, there's no problem.

I understand re backups however I'm not sure I want to get too
sophisticated. I thought it would be simpler to hold the backups on
one drive

Simpler, perhaps, but also considerably less secure. I think backup to a
second partition is only slightly better than no backup at all. I've seen
more than one person who entrusted his data to such a backup scheme and lost
everything.

and then occasionally burn to a DVD from there.

The more often you burn a DVD, the better, of course..

Will
rethink it. In the meantime, I plan on reducing a 225 GB partition to
25 GB and then creating 5 new partitions including a future use
partition approximating 125 GB.

Two points here:

1. Are you aware that no version of Windows provides any way of changing the
existing partition structure of the drive nondestructively? The only way to
do what you want is with third-party software. Partition Magic is the
best-known such program, but there are freeware/shareware alternatives. One
such program is BootIt Next Generation. It's shareware, but comes with a
free 30-day trial, so you should be able to do what you want within that 30
days. I haven't used it myself (because I've never needed to use *any* such
program), but it comes highly recommended by several other MVPs here.

Whatever software you use, make sure you have a good backup before
beginning. Although there's no reason to expect a problem, things *can* go
wrong.

2. Each to his own, but in my view, unless you have very special and unusual
needs, five partitions is considerably too many. What do you plan to use
each of those partitions for and what do you expect to accomplish by
separating things five ways?

 

[Dapper Dan]

With respect to the two last points you made, I am using BootItNG so
hopefully it will be non destructively <vbg>. Re point #2, I was planning on
doing this only once and decided to cover a number of future uses. Thus my
intention is ;
to reduce the current C: from 225 to 25 GB
create a small partition for tmp, temp & swap
create a 25 GB partition for all my data files & OE store
create a 25 GB partition for other uses, incl photos
create a 25 GB partition for Backups
create a 125 GB for future use

Dan

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

With respect to the two last points you made, I am using BootItNG so
hopefully it will be non destructively <vbg>.

My recommendation is not to hope, but to play it safe by being sure you have
an external backup of anything you can't afford to lose.

Re point #2, I was
planning on doing this only once and decided to cover a number of
future uses. Thus my intention is ;

to reduce the current C: from 225 to 25 GB

OK.


create a small partition for tmp, temp & swap

Not a good idea. Putting the page file on a second partition move it to a
location on the hard drive distant from the
other frequently-used data on the drive. The result is that every time
Windows needs to use the page file, the time to get to it and back from it
is increased.

Putting the page file on a second *physical* drive is a good idea, since it
decreases head movement, but not to a second partition on a single drive. A
good rule of thumb is that the page file should be on the most-used
partition of the least-used physical drive. For almost everyone with a
single drive, that's C:.



However, if you have enough RAM, the page file will probably be used very
little, and where it resides won't matter much. I still wouldn't put it on a
separate partition because there is no advantage to doing so.



Putting the temp folder on a second partition is also not a good idea. It
unnecessarily restricts the space available for temp files, and can cause
problems if you run out of space. There's also no advantage to doing this.

create a 25 GB partition for all my data files & OE store

OK.


create a 25 GB partition for other uses, incl photos

What is the point of separating photos from other kinds of data? My view is
that your partitioning scheme should be chosen primarily to facilitate your
backup scheme. Everything that you are going to back up at the same time
should be in the same partition. Since my guess is that when you back up the
other data you would also want to back up your photos, I would recommend
keeping them together in a single partition.

create a 25 GB partition for Backups

I already told you my views on this. I wouldn't do it, but it's your choice.

create a 125 GB for future use

What kind of future uise might that be? More to the point, what kind of
future use might require a separate partition? I guess I believe that you
should set up your system for your current needs, not for future needs that
might never materialize.

If I were in your shoes, I'd probably have only two partitions: one for all
your data, including photos, the other for everything else. And I'd buy one
(or better two, so you can alternate use) external drives for backup.

 

[Dapper Dan]

Thanks for the quick feedback, Ken. I'll be guided accordingly. I'll
probably reduce from my originally intended 5 to 2 additional partitions
only; one for all my data and the other for backups. And as I get into this,
I'll probably figure out that it might be easier to image directly to a DVD
rather than consolidate in one area and then save to DVD.
Again thanks for your feedback and your guidance, it is certainly
appreciated.

Dan

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks for the quick feedback, Ken. I'll be guided accordingly. I'll
probably reduce from my originally intended 5 to 2 additional
partitions only; one for all my data and the other for backups.

Good. I think that makes much more sense.

And
as I get into this, I'll probably figure out that it might be easier
to image directly to a DVD rather than consolidate in one area and
then save to DVD.

OK, but again, if you save to DVD often enough, I don't have serious
objection to what you're doing. Just think of those DVDs as your real
backups, not the partition.

Again thanks for your feedback and your guidance, it is certainly
appreciated.

You're always welcome.

 

[Fred S *****]

Dan,

Please excuse me for dropping in on this so late but I thought I'd
mention a few things that may help you.

I'm in basic agreement with with Ken except that I believe your data and
BU partitions should be on a second HDD and in FAT32. It is so much
easier to get at these files using a DOS disk in case there is a need to
do that. Fat32 is criticized a lot but it is quite dependable.

I also like the idea of creating an image file of the system to another
partition on a second physical HDD as well as the original HDD. Why? The
answer is simple redundancy.

I have a Desktop with two physical HDDs. There is a Windows partition, a
Data partition, and a BU partition. The second HDD has the same setup
except that the System and data partitions are hidden. Since I have so
much space, keeping hidden partitions is no big deal, sort of a luxury,
if you will.

Every night, I use a simple backup program that creates a zipped BU of
my entire data folder which contains all of my "critical" data -
financial (Quicken, stocks, info), documents (word processing, pdf
manuals, etc.), email, newsgroup files, etc. etc. These data files
reside on the D drive of the first HDD and are backed up nightly to a
folder on the second HDD. Remember the second HDD has three partitions
but two are hidden, so windows sees only one extra partition, for a
total of four (visible).

I use BootItNG (Terrabyte Unlimited) regularly and used it to create all
the partitions on both drives. I use Image For Windows (also
Terrabyte)to create images before any major installation or even Windows
Updates. The images of the Windows (system) partition and the image of
the data partition are created to the second HDD partition (the 4th one
seen by windows. Right after I create an image I make a copy to the
third partition of the first HDD just for a quick safety valve. Also,
BING will resize and partition non destructively.

Lastly, I copy the image files to two separate external HDD drives where
copies of my other desktop and a laptop images are stored.

My data files are backed up nightly as I mentioned earlier, using
incremental BUs - Sunday nights, I create FULL BU's of the data. On
either Sunday night or Monday AM, the BUs are copied to the external
drive. This is done with some simple DOS based batch files that run
under Windows.

I know Ken doesn't like images and BU's to other partitions but I
believe his reason is that it's false security as he already noted what
can happen to the system due to lightening or some other catastrophe.
The fact is, however, that images made to other partitions are created
very quickly and they can be copied very fast too. Most problems are not
do to lightening but more due to bad installs, bad updates, an
occasional virus, etc. I know this as I fix them all the time.

My setup is good for me. It offers me all the protection that Ken speaks
of, and again, I share his views for the most part but access to all of
these files from other partitions and other HDD in DOS using Fat32 makes
access very easy and no big deal with all the safety there is.

One more thing, the reason I left the second HDD with the hidden
partition was to restore an image of the OS and the Data in case the
first HDD dies for whatever reason. I can restore from the BU partition
on that drive, or from my external - bottom line is I'm back up and
running within 15 minutes.

I've only had to restore this way once when my first HDD did in fact
die, just flat out passed away. Restored to the second one and up and
running again after a cable swap and 15 minutes of time.

We all agree, I think, that you need to have data and your OS partitions
on an external, also be sure to use a data BU program to make backups of
file data - don't rely on your image files for that.

Hope this helps, just another point of view.

Fred S

 

[Dapper Dan]

Glad you dropped in Fred, it's always good to be exposed to another point of
view. I appreciate the time you took to describe your setup and the reasons
for it.

Actually I just finished repartitioning and did format NTFS, although I
believe this can be changed easily enough. We're on opposite end of the
totem pole on this one, although I'm leaning towards the middle. I have
never backed up anything until getting this new computer but I would like to
get into a regular routine in the future. So I appreciate your description
and rationale for doing it your way. I'll keep a copy for future reference.

Thanks again.

Dan

 

[Fred S *****]

Dan,

You're welcome and congratulations on moving forward with steps to
preserve your data - it truly is important if your data is important.

As for strategy, there are many ways to go and at least you've set a
direction - good for you.

Take care, Fred

 

[coal_brona]

Hi,

It is sometimes possible to restore erased files with data recovery
tools. Among them I can pose out Active@ Undelete and Uneraser(for
DOS). These are imho the most powerful ones, possesing truly awesome
restore algorithm. They never failed me before and were always able to
bring data back.

http://www.active-undelete.com/

http://www.uneraser.com/