Will a reformat of drive C: touch drive D:?

[Guest]

Firstly, I have posted this same thread in the XP general discussion. Sorry,
but at the time of posting, I had no idea that there was a discussion
dedicated to this topic. I hope readers here will be better able to answer my
question than in general.

I'm planning on reformatting tonight, but instead of backing up to CD (or any
other non-harddisk media), I would rather just put it on a new partition. Ive
read that you need third party software to create a new partition, so I have
PartitionMagic.

I havent reformatted in a while and i kind of forget the process. Will the
installer want to take all my data, or can I specify to leave my new
partition alone?

Thanks in advance!
-Tim

 

[Rich Barry]

Tim, you should be able to select which partition you want formatted. The
others will be left alone. If you have Partition Magic and have enough room
on your hard drive just create a partition and move your important data
there.

 

[Joseph Hume]

While that will work, the secondary partition will always be labeled as
drive C:\...

 

[Jerry]

The primary partition on the first hard drive is always C:. Where did you
get the info that the secondary becomes C:?

 

[Gerry Hickman]

The primary partition on the first hard drive is always C:.

Not sure about this, especially if it's not marked active...

Where did you
get the info that the secondary becomes C:?

If you have 3 partitions, mark the second as Active, then install
Windows to the third, which partition will be seen as "C" when Windows
loads for the first time?

 

[Gerry Hickman]

I'm planning on reformatting tonight, but instead of backing up to CD (or any
other non-harddisk media), I would rather just put it on a new partition.

Not clear enough. Put _what_ on a new partition?

The way I run shit, is to have data on one partition, and o/s, programs,
and user profiles on the other. If I want to "reformat", I can just back
up the user profile and format without worrying about any data. Even if
you don't have this, it would not be hard to move all data to a separate
partition (assuming you set the computer up properly in the first place
with minimum of two partitions - you did that right?)

Ive
read that you need third party software to create a new partition, so I have
PartitionMagic.

You can create partitions with Windows, but if you've only got ONE
partition, you'd need something like PM. You'd have to shrink the one
big partition to 50%, log back in, create a new drive letter, move all
the data, reinstall to what's left, and bear in mind the MBR,
boot-sector, and boot loader must all point to the right places (usually
automatic, but not guaranteed).

Personally, I'd advise you to back everything up to CD, and re-install
to a newly partitioned and formatted drive, only this time, don't forget
to create two partitions from the start.

(I actually use two physical drives, but the scenario is similar with
partitions).

 

[Robert Moir]

Firstly, I have posted this same thread in the XP general discussion.
Sorry, but at the time of posting, I had no idea that there was a
discussion dedicated to this topic. I hope readers here will be
better able to answer my question than in general.

I'm planning on reformatting tonight, but instead of backing up to CD
(or any other non-harddisk media), I would rather just put it on a
new partition. Ive read that you need third party software to create
a new partition, so I have PartitionMagic.

In answer to the question in your subject line: No.

However: You absolutely should back this data up elsewhere if you don't want
to lose it. I think partition magic's manual actually tells you to... While
the risks are small, they are present.

Also, consider that disks can fail at any time, and then your data would be
lost with or without reformatting and re-partitioning the disk.

--

 

[Guest]

Well, get this. Because I had a linux partition after my C: partition on my
drive, PM couldnt get the job done. I tried both putting the new drive in
between the C: and linux, and after the linux, but to no avail. The thing
kept on complaining about something; the exact error I do not remember.

So back up to another harddrive it is then. I used my dad's, which didnt get
him *too* mad, but all is well now and I have a fresh install of XP Pro that
I am using right now.

Thanks for the suggestions, and I'm sure I could have gotten it done if PM
wasnt so picky. By the way, the Windows setup DID give me the option to only
erase certain partitions, and that was basically the answer I was looking for
in this thread.

Thanks again.

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Well, get this. Because I had a linux partition after my C: partition on my
drive, PM couldnt get the job done.

I don't think it was related to Linux, but it's possible something was
currupt as well. Linux is very well behaved. I'm assuming you were
running PM under real-mode, I hope you didn't try to do it in Windows?

wasnt so picky. By the way, the Windows setup DID give me the option to only
erase certain partitions, and that was basically the answer I was looking for
in this thread.

Yup, as I was saying in my answer, you can work with multiple
partitions, providing you have multiple partitions to work with.

 

[jimbo]

Well, I have used Partition Magic to add, delete, move and resize
Linux, FAT32 and NTFS partitions on a large hard drive with no
problems. So your problem wasn't because Partition Magic was "picky",
more likely because of operator error.

jimbo