System disk partitioning question

[Guest]

My Vista Home Premium machine has a 320 GB Sata Hard Disk.

I'd like to cut it in two partitions :

- Can I do this from within Vista ?
- What comfortable size should I give to Vista itself (20 - 50 - 100 GB) ?

My idea is to move all my user files to that new partition :

- Is that a good idea ? It would allow me to keep my "system" and "Users"
independant from one another when it comes to backups, disk-images, etc.
- Will my "System" remember that the user files have been moved to aother
disk or partition ?

Thanks on beforehand for your help.
Geo

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Geo,

Provided it's not already fully allotted to the system partition, then you
can use disk manager (diskmgmt.msc) to create a second partition. If it is,
you will have to first shrink it, then create the additional volume. As
programs tend to install to the system volume, I'd leave enough space so
that you have room to expand as needed, and that includes the paging and
hibernate files. No less than 30GB at a minimum, you want lots of room.

User file folders can be migrated over, you will find options in the
properties of them to change the target path. You may find, however, that
the extra time that the drive head uses to seek the files requested as it
jumps back and forth between the system and user volumes can actually cause
performance to diminish. Not that creating a separate data storage volume is
a bad thing, but I would use it mainly to store files and backups, and not
for user profiles and programs.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Ron Sommer]

Vista can shrink the partition that it is installed on.
It is hard to say how much the partition can be shrunk.
From another post:
--
Ronald Sommer

The built-in shrink utility will be able to decrease the partition size till
it bumps against the first unmovable/locked system file.

If you want to decrease the partition further you will need a 3rd party Disk
Management tool. I use Acronis Disk Director suite. The latest posted
version is 100% Vista compatible. After installing the program, create the
emergency CD. Reboot the computer and boot up with this CD. Do your
partition work from there. You will not be hampered with locked files.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User


: My Vista Home Premium machine has a 320 GB Sata Hard Disk.
:
: I'd like to cut it in two partitions :
:
: - Can I do this from within Vista ?
: - What comfortable size should I give to Vista itself (20 - 50 - 100 GB) ?
:
: My idea is to move all my user files to that new partition :
:
: - Is that a good idea ? It would allow me to keep my "system" and "Users"
: independant from one another when it comes to backups, disk-images, etc.
: - Will my "System" remember that the user files have been moved to aother
: disk or partition ?
:
: Thanks on beforehand for your help.
: Geo
:
:

 

[John Barnes]

Good luck making an emergency CD with Acronis TrueImage Workstation. It
doesn't work on my Vista64.

 

[Guest]

OK, thanks for this reply.

I have a total of 3 hard disk drives on my system : 1x320 GB, 1x80 GB and 1x
160GB.
And I use them as follows :
320 GB = C: = Vista + all the user files & documents
160 GB = D: = Images of the other hard disks
80 GB = Setup/Install files of programs, applications etc

And I would like to cut the C: drive in 2, as follows :
80 GB For the Vista OS
240 GB for the folder C:\ which is now part of the Vista system disk.
That would allow me to make images of my system-drive with Vista +programs
only, without having to take care of my actual user documents and files.

Suppose that I want to shrink my Vista partition to the above mentioned 80 GB:
- How do I do this please ?
- How do I get to the built-in shrink-utility ?

Does the above seem to be a good idea or is it total rubish ?

I am using Acronis True Image Home for making drive/partition images.

I don't know if I have been able to make clear what I am looking for
(English is not my mother tongue), please ask if you need more info.

Thanks
Geo

 

[John Barnes]

Your best bet is to first defrag the drive, delete the hibernation file and
turn off System Restore if you don't need them (after you make one of your
system backups). Reboot. This will eliminate many of the unmovable file
fragments. Start\Administrative Tools\Computer Management\Disk Management
then right click on the drive you want to shrink and select shrink and
follow the instructions. You will be told what the smallest size that Vista
will let you make and then you can decide if you want to purchase a
partition manager (or use one of the free ones - BootItNg has a 30 day trial
which would allow you to do your one activity free). As to whether you want
to do it is up to you. Rick pointed out a consideration you should think
about.

 

[Guest]

Hi Geo,

Provided it's not already fully allotted to the system partition, then you
can use disk manager (diskmgmt.msc) to create a second partition. If it is,
you will have to first shrink it, then create the additional volume. As
programs tend to install to the system volume, I'd leave enough space so
that you have room to expand as needed, and that includes the paging and
hibernate files. No less than 30GB at a minimum, you want lots of room.

User file folders can be migrated over, you will find options in the
properties of them to change the target path. You may find, however, that
the extra time that the drive head uses to seek the files requested as it
jumps back and forth between the system and user volumes can actually cause
performance to diminish. Not that creating a separate data storage volume is
a bad thing, but I would use it mainly to store files and backups, and not
for user profiles and programs.

It's not going to slow anything down or jump around any more than a single
partition. It's still one drive and they are still just files that could be
splatted all over the place anyways. Even if there is a slow down it would be
so small you would NEVER notice it and would be caused be fragmentation which
would also accure on a single partition system.

I do what you are thinking of also for backup reason. I can backup the
system partition without all the other junk I could re install if I needed
to. It keeps the system backup smaller and the system disk clean. I also like
to keep word and productivity software on the system disk (mine is faster
than my other drives) so that if I have to restore I at least have a good
working system. Games and crap apps and misc. stuff goes on one of my
other drives or partition and the backup goes on a different drive than the
system drive.

You can backup to the other partition but remember it is the same drive an
might go bad if the disk itself fails.

 

[Guest]

Good luck making an emergency CD with Acronis TrueImage Workstation. It
doesn't work on my Vista64.

works on mine
You may need to use safe mode.
I'm not using RAID though and I believe when I was their emergency disk
didn't work. I had more trouble with RAID and restores than RAID was worth so
that's why I don't use RAID any longer.

 

[John Barnes]

All I get are constant error messages about being busy (none of my cd
writers will work with it) and processing to about 95% then stops. NO CD is
written, not even a byte as the disk is still blank after it gets to 95% and
quits.

 

[Guest]

Many thanks to all of you for the help.
I will give things a serious thoughts and then maybe .... we'll see.

Geo

 

[Isaac Hunt]

My Vista Home Premium machine has a 320 GB Sata Hard Disk.

I'd like to cut it in two partitions :

- Can I do this from within Vista ?
- What comfortable size should I give to Vista itself (20 - 50 - 100 GB) ?

My idea is to move all my user files to that new partition :

- Is that a good idea ? It would allow me to keep my "system" and "Users"
independant from one another when it comes to backups, disk-images, etc.
- Will my "System" remember that the user files have been moved to aother
disk or partition ?

Thanks on beforehand for your help.
Geo

I only ever have one partition on my disks & use folders to seperate data, I
find it much more flexible as they are dynamic.

If you must go down this route, don't get in the habit of only backing up
the operating system. You need to backup the entire disk however it is
partitioned.

 

[Isaac Hunt]

OK, thanks for this reply.

I have a total of 3 hard disk drives on my system : 1x320 GB, 1x80 GB and
1x
160GB.
And I use them as follows :
320 GB = C: = Vista + all the user files & documents
160 GB = D: = Images of the other hard disks
80 GB = Setup/Install files of programs, applications etc

And I would like to cut the C: drive in 2, as follows :
80 GB For the Vista OS
240 GB for the folder C:\ which is now part of the Vista system disk.
That would allow me to make images of my system-drive with Vista +programs
only, without having to take care of my actual user documents and files.

Suppose that I want to shrink my Vista partition to the above mentioned 80
GB:
- How do I do this please ?
- How do I get to the built-in shrink-utility ?

Does the above seem to be a good idea or is it total rubish ?

I am using Acronis True Image Home for making drive/partition images.

I don't know if I have been able to make clear what I am looking for
(English is not my mother tongue), please ask if you need more info.

Thanks
Geo

IMO, your present partitioning makes more sense.

 

[Richard Urban]

If you are using Nero with the InCD module, or Roxio with the Drag-To-Disk
module active this will happen.

Disable, turn off, exit either of these two utilities and then start the CD
creation process again.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[John Barnes]

Exited Drag-To-Disk and reran. Same problem. Used task manager to close
down every task that wasn't required and ran again. Same problem. No
problems writing CD's or DVD's using any other program. Will try writing an
ISO image to the desktop and then burning it with Roxio and see if that
works.

 

[John Barnes]

Could not boot from the burned .iso file. Product works great to restore if
I have an operating system to restore from, but is totally useless if I have
to replace a disk. and load from my backup. For now I am stuck having XP86
on my system so I can use Ghost which I can restore from a bootable disk.

 

[Richard Urban]

You have to exit Drag-To-Disk and restart the Acronis Bootable Rescue Media
Builder. If you don't restart the application it will not be aware that you
shut down Roxio's DTD. It works. I have built the CD's for 5-6 different
versions of TrueImage now, both under Windows XP and Vista. But you really
should be using the latest version of TrueImage HOME 10.0 which is certified
to be used under Vista. If you are using TrueImage Desktop 9.1 there is a
Vista upgrade for that also.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[John Barnes]

I did what you say. I don't have TrueImage HOME, I have TrueImage
Workstation (latest Vista version) and that is the one that doesn't work for
me on Vista64. I stopped everything that would stop including all Acronis
items in processes and then relaunched it. NO GO.

 

[Richard Urban]

Ah! I am using 32 bit Vista and 32 bit XP so that may be the problem. Could
be that that TrueImage has a problem with 64 bit O/S that Roxio does, and is
not releasing DTD properly.

Why not install TrueImage on a 32 bit system and then burn the CD. See if
the CD works with 64 bit Vista. I believe that the same Acronis drivers are
installed no matter what system you burn the CD under. They are part of the
Acronis package and have nothing to do with the host system. Remember, the
Acronis CD is based upon the Linux operating system and uses Linux drivers.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[John Barnes]

Will give it a try. I do have Vista86 which I haven't installed yet on the
wife's machine. She likes the RC1 version and haven't seen the need to go
thru the process to install, especially since I took the DVD burner out of
her machine to move to my machine. It was the only IDE DVD I had and the
Plextor SATA DVD burner and my motherboard are incompatible. I have since
installed a LiteOn SATA burner and it likes my MOBO.
Incidentally, I removed the Drag-to-disk from the start menu for one of my
trials and even that didn't help.
I have recreated the .iso on the desktop and reburned a CD and I can now use
it in 'limited' not 'full' version. At this point it seems that the only
thing I have to do is go get a PS2 mouse and keyboard to install prior to
using it, as USB drivers seem to be the main difference for me, no SCSI
here.

 

[Don]

...Remember, the Acronis CD is based upon the Linux operating
system and uses Linux drivers.

I have no idea what you mean by that. Could you expand a bit?

Thanks!