When and how to partition drives

[Danger_Duck]

Hi,
A few friends of mine have talked about partitioning a hardrive in two so
that the operating system takes one part and all other data takes the other.
They say that this way, if anything ever goes wrong with the operating
system, you can just reformat that partition and reinstall the operating
system without affecting the data.

Is this a true statement (or could someone alert me if I misinterpreted what
they were saying), and if so, how would I do this when I already have an
unpartitioned C:\ drive with half the hard disk space already used up?

I must say that I am also not entirely sure which directories the operating
system occupies.

Thanks in advance!

 

[David Walker]

Hi,
A few friends of mine have talked about partitioning a hardrive in two
so that the operating system takes one part and all other data takes
the other. They say that this way, if anything ever goes wrong with
the operating system, you can just reformat that partition and
reinstall the operating system without affecting the data.

Is this a true statement (or could someone alert me if I
misinterpreted what they were saying), and if so, how would I do this
when I already have an unpartitioned C:\ drive with half the hard disk
space already used up?

I must say that I am also not entirely sure which directories the
operating system occupies.

Thanks in advance!

I think this is a good idea, and I always do this. It takes a little
bit of learning before you jump into it.

The easiest way to do this is to make sure all of your data is backed
up, and then partition your drive into one piece for Windows and the
rest for data. For the Windows partition, 20 GB should be fine; if you
install lots of software, you can use 40 GB or 50 GB for the Windows
partition.

You can partition the disk during the install process. One way to do
this (after you have backed up all of your data to something like an
external USB drive) is to boot your computer from your Windows install
CD, answer the questions that you want a NEW install (not an upgrade or
a reinstall), and eventually you will get to a screen where you can
delete the existing single partition, create a new one that is NOT the
maximum size, but instead, use 20000 MB (which will show up later as 19
GB), or 40000 MB (which is almost 40 GB), or get creative and use some
number like 20480 MB to get exactly 20 GB.

Then install Windows from your CD. Once you have finished this
installation, go to Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer
Management/Disk Management to create a new partition in the rest of the
drive, format it, and give it a drive letter of D (for Data) or whatever
letter you like. (I'm assuming windows XP -- Vista has some slight
differences in where you find things like Disk Management.)

You now have to reinstall all of your other programs. You don't have to
worry about which directories are operating system (and sofware)
directories; they will automatically be installed to the new partition
on the C drive if you use the defaults.

You can move your "My Documents" folder to the D drive by doing this:
Right-click on the My Documents folder on the desktop and you'll get a
menu; select Properties from this menu, and select the Move button.
Move the folder to D:\Documents (or something similar).

If your programs save their "user data" to the My Documents folder, it
will now be on your D Drive. If they save their data elsewhere, you DO
have to learn how to configure each program to save their "data files"
onto your data partition. You can create a folder in D for each
program's data files, if you want.

To get really good, you could also install a second hard drive, format
that and give it a volume label of "backup", and use a free backup
program like SyncBack (or the inexpensive paid version SyncBackSE) to
copy everything from the "data" partition to the "backup" disk nightly
(at 2 AM or whenever), OR back up the D drive nightly to your external
USB hard drive (a $100 investment that is well worth it).

This is not trivial, but it's not as hard as it sounds. Mainly, after
reinstalling everything, you need to look in each program and make sure
you know where that program is storing its "user data files" (whatever
they are called for each program).

THEN, if your operating system ever goes belly-up, you can reformat your
C drive, reinstall Windows, reinstall your programs, then move the My
Documents folder to D again (being careful to tell Windows to merge the
folder with whatever data is already there). Your data will all
magically be present in My Documents after you do this.

You need to make sure that your E-mail data folder gets saved on your D
Drive. By default, if you use Outlook, it will be somewhere deep in "C:
\Documents and Settings\...", so it won't be on the data drive, but it
can be moved to drive D from within Outlook. I don't know about Outlook
Express, or other e-mail programs.

Finally: If your main disk drive actually crashes (physically), you'll
have to buy a replacement disk, install it, reinstall Windows (and
partition the disk during this step), reinstall your programs, reboot,
create a data partition, and restore your data from your backup.

If your operating system dies due to a horrible virus, or an
installation of something that has gone bad, you still have to reinstall
Windows (new "clean" installation) and reinstall your programs, but your
data will still be on the D partition.

That was a high-level overview, but I hope it helps. (I left out how to
save user preferences and settings from each program, which are often
kept in a sub-folder of "Cocuments and Settings", but that is a little
more advanced.)


David Walker

 

[neutrino]

Hi,
A few friends of mine have talked about partitioning a hardrive in two so
that the operating system takes one part and all other data takes the other.
They say that this way, if anything ever goes wrong with the operating
system, you can just reformat that partition and reinstall the operating
system without affecting the data.

Is this a true statement (or could someone alert me if I misinterpreted what
they were saying), and if so, how would I do this when I already have an
unpartitioned C:\ drive with half the hard disk space already used up?

I must say that I am also not entirely sure which directories the operating
system occupies.

Thanks in advance!

Not entirely - partitioning is definetely worth doing, for example you
can set you Email store folder on the partition other partition, and
you'll never lose your email, when you reinstall & set th estore
folder to the same location - all your email is safe and restored.
but as far as all the applications/programs are concerned, although
there still present on the partition, there will be very few that will
run without needing to be reinstalled - assuming you do a full
reinstall of XP - that fresh instal won't know anything about the
installed programs on the other partition.
the best way to do all this - in safeguarding against something going
wrong with the operating system - a fowl-up on C drive, would be to
get to a point where XP is fully installed, fully up to date, and all
systems running as you want, and all app's installed - then at that
point you take a backup, suggsest you look at Norton Ghost or Acronis
true image... backup your whole C drive onto the other partition, with
that done - Now your covered! no matter what happens to the operating
system - you have a full backup to roll back to - fowl-up C - restore
from backup and your back to normal, if a few weeks or months has
passed by, all you'd need to is re-update for any updates released
since the backup, and reinstal anything you'd instaled since the
backup. and when you'v done that - then you'd want to take a fresh
backup ~ in sync with the present time. wouldnt hurt to even have a
couple of backups to fal back on ` just in case - I took one prior to
updating to SP3, just-in-case, and retained it, and took another
backup after sp3 installed.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

A few friends of mine have talked about partitioning a hardrive in two so
that the operating system takes one part and all other data takes the other.
They say that this way, if anything ever goes wrong with the operating
system, you can just reformat that partition and reinstall the operating
system without affecting the data.

Is this a true statement

Yes, it's true, but to me it's *not* a good reason for partitioning
that way. Something going wrong with your operating system is only one
(and not even the most likely) of the many things that can happen to
your drive and what's on it. What you suggest still leaves you
susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original and backup to many of
the most common dangers: hard drive crashes, severe power glitches,
nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer.

If your data is important to you, you need to protect it against all
dangers by backup to external media. Separating it in a partition by
itself is not real protection at all.

You can read my thoughts on both partitioning and backup in these two
articles I recently wrote:

http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=326

http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=314

(or could someone alert me if I misinterpreted what
they were saying), and if so, how would I do this when I already have an
unpartitioned C:\ drive with half the hard disk space already used up?

Two points here:

1. You do *not* have an unpartitioned disk. A disk can't be used until
it's partitioned. What you have is a disk with only a single partition
on it.

2. Unfortunately, no version of Windows before Vista 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.

If you do this, 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.

 

[Danger_Duck]

Thanks! Both answers make sense

Yes, it's true, but to me it's *not* a good reason for partitioning
that way. Something going wrong with your operating system is only one
(and not even the most likely) of the many things that can happen to
your drive and what's on it. What you suggest still leaves you
susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original and backup to many of
the most common dangers: hard drive crashes, severe power glitches,
nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer.

If your data is important to you, you need to protect it against all
dangers by backup to external media. Separating it in a partition by
itself is not real protection at all.

You can read my thoughts on both partitioning and backup in these two
articles I recently wrote:

http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=326

http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=314




Two points here:

1. You do *not* have an unpartitioned disk. A disk can't be used until
it's partitioned. What you have is a disk with only a single partition
on it.

2. Unfortunately, no version of Windows before Vista 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.

If you do this, 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.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks! Both answers make sense

You're welcome. Glad to help.

 

[Lil' Dave]

Hi,
A few friends of mine have talked about partitioning a hardrive in two so
that the operating system takes one part and all other data takes the
other.
They say that this way, if anything ever goes wrong with the operating
system, you can just reformat that partition and reinstall the operating
system without affecting the data.

Is this a true statement (or could someone alert me if I misinterpreted
what
they were saying), and if so, how would I do this when I already have an
unpartitioned C:\ drive with half the hard disk space already used up?

I must say that I am also not entirely sure which directories the
operating
system occupies.

Thanks in advance!

If you have one hard drive only in or attached to your PC, it kinda depends
what breaks. Under those conditions, if the hard drive fails, everything
may be unrecoverable. Under those conditions, if the windows partition is
corrupted, your data is still safe in the other partition. Under those
conditions, if the physical area where the master boot record fails to
retain that mbr, you may need special tools to access either partition for
recovery.

Likely, your friends may mean unworkable, unbootable XP. So, if you don't
have your XP, you can't get to your apps to open your data. Under those
conditions, they are correct. A new XP or a repaired XP with apps will
allow full access again.

Irregardless, where you keep your data, always keep the same data on
removable media. AND, when done copying, REMOVE or make unaccessible the
media to XP.