Partition novice needs help

I've bought Disk Director suite and True image. I succesfully imaged my hardrive onto a second disk. (Thanks for your help.)

I'm now planning to partition my drive. I've done a couple of dummy runs in creating a partition and I can see how it works. I've read the relevant bits of the guide and trawled the forum but I'm unclear on some basic points.

My plan is to create partitions for my music, video, pictures and pc games.
I have XP and one partition: 'C' on which the whole of my data resides.

1) Am I right in assuming I should make individual partitions for each category ie Music videos etc?
2) Am I right in thinking the OS will remain on my C drive
3) Should I be considering partitions for anything else?
4) I have numerous other programmes like Adaware, Mcaffee, windows washer, ACRONIS, Fraps etc, too numerous to list. Which partition do I put those type of programmes?
5) Am I right in thinking all these new partitions will be logical? I'm assuming OS stays on C drive.
6) How do I physically transfer this data to the partition once it's been created? Is that done through teh Acronis software
7) What happens to my photos on the kodak software and my music on Musicmatch? Do I transfer Kodak and Music match to a partition?

Thanks for your help again.

 

Hello Baz63,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Partition and Disk Managing Software.

Please be aware that everything you'are asking about depends on your own goals. If you want to sort your data this way then the answer is yes, you are right.

Please note that C: is the partition letter and it is assigned to the partition and not to the hard drive. In case you create several partitions using free space from your C: partition then the content of this partition will not be affected in any way.

Please remember that you can have maximum 4 primary partition or 3 primary partitions and unlimited number of logical partition.

I'm afraid that it will not be possible to transfer applications and programmes separately from from the operating system they are installed under using any Acronis Software.

We recommend you to consult with Kodak on this matter.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko

 

I don't understand any of your answers. Let me rephrase some of my questions.

As I stated in my post, my plan (ie goal) is to create partitions for music, videos, games and music. I would consider more partitions if people recommended I did so. I know how to create the partions but I don't know what to do afterwards. How do I transfer the data? Where do I put stuff? How do I physicaaly do it?

I have a PC full of stuff but I have no idea how to actually sort it.

1) How do I put my data into the partitions? For example, how do physically put my photos, videos, games and music into these partitions?
2) Where should my OS (whatever that may be, I just read about it and know it has to go somewhere) reside and how do I put it here?
3) Would anybody else recommend other partitions for other data apart from music , video etc What sort of partitions do other people make? If I knew what other people did it might give me some ideas.
4) What do I do with my other programmes such as MacAfee and Adaware etc? Where do I put them? Are they treated as part of the OS? Should I make a separate partition for miscellaneous programmes like this
5) Do I put video, photos, games and music into a logical partition?
6) Concerning Kodak and photos. How do other people treat programmes like Kodak ? Threre's no reason for me to consult Kodak when others here will have similar programmes to Kodak and will know what to do.
Can anyone else help?


1)

 

This is not an easy one to answer as your drive is already in use. By that I mean like most things it is easier to decide all this before programs and files are bunged on .

Before you do anything I would suggest you back up all your data as it now stands as you have TI. Make sure you have made the boot CD and that you have a satisfactory image.

Assuming you only have the one hard drive.

Do you have free space on this drive, or is it more or less chockablock? What size is your HD and how much free space?

If when making these extra partitions, you take up part of the existing partition, then the existing data at the 'join' will be lost.

1. After making your partitions, mount your image in Windows and physically drag and drop your photos etc onto their respective partitions. NOTE unless you like delving into registry don't do this with actual programs - unless the program maker specifically says their installation makes no changes to registry - as windows will not be able to find where the program now lies. You will of course have to change the file paths in the shortcuts for desktop items and of course from the 'ALL Programs thingo' this part can't be avoided unfortunately, but will just consist of changing the drive letter.

2. Assuming an drive, you are best off putting this on the first partition of the first drive. Make sure you leave enough free space to take on updates and the like. You will need your OS install CD which if of the MS variety will not only show you a list of partitions it ahs found, but normally defaults to C:

3/4. I have a two HD set up - one drive has 4 partitions on it and this is my OS drive. My partitions are - P_1 = XP; P_2 = XP_test; P_3 = W2K; P_4 = Solaris. As far as each OS is concerned and OSS they are all C: drive

The second drive has my almost all my other programs on it and is itself split into 3 partitions.

F: = All programs and data such as Acronis, Kerio, other utilities.
H: = All Electronics related programs and their files.
I: = All programming software and files.

G: is missing because that is any external backup drive USB stick etc.
D & E are my DVD Roms.

5.Yes - some OS's demand Primary partitions some are quite happy if not. Music programs and files etc, couldn't care less, and as you can have as many logical partitions as your little heart desires, this would eb the way to go.

6. So long as Windows knows where to find the executable program (exe) your Kodak stuff should work - note that some program installers don't offer you the choice of where to install and they will always zonk off to program files in windows. Unless you like dragging programs and running through registry to change the path pointers, you'll just have to accept these programs that insist on doing this.

Remember after making all these partitions, many programs will need to be installed using the 'Custom' option.

Parts of programs that need to install into the System32 folder, will still be able to do that - so there is no worry there.

There may be some people here who prefer to have a separate partition for the page/swap file - but there are pros and cons here. If you use a 'nix based OS you'll see that they always have a separate swap file partition - and often a whole swathe of partitions for things like home, user etc.

The advantage is if part of the drive or a partition gets corrupted it is far less likely to bugger up the rest of the drive.

Colin

 

Use partitioning to separate your system from your personal files.

Partition "C:" = Windows + MS Programs + Third party Programs, like Kodak software.
Partition "D:" = All personal files created with programs on partition C:, separated by folders on partition "D:"

In general partitioning isn't used to replace folders, unless you really want this.
If you really like to do this, then you have to create additional partitions "E:", "F:", ...

In your case, I would store all my personal files on CD's temporarily and group these files per CD.
Prepare the size of each partition in Megabytes (MB) very carefully.

Re-install your harddisk from scratch and use Windows to create and size partitions and use partition "C:" to install Windows and all your other programs.
Format all other partitions "D:", ..., one by one (NTFS).

Each program on partition "C:" normally allows you to define a folder, where created files need to be stored by default. For instance : "D:\My Videos" or simply "D:\" if this partition is dedicated to videos only. Each modern software has settings to define this default folder

Once the folders are created, you can copy/paste one or more files from your CD's to your harddisk.
That's the way, I would do it of course.

 

Thanks for the replies. Very helpful indeed because now I have am overview and can see how it works.

I have one 120GB drive with 60 GB on it so I have plenty of room. It's all on the C drive.

I have a back up image on a second hardrive which I will use only for backing up so effectively I'm only using the one HD

I won't go anywhere near the registry.

I won't reformat (too scary) although it sounds the best thing to do because it sounds as I would maximise the benefits of partitioning if I were to reformat.

So, my plan:
1) I'll keep XP in c drive
2) Drag my music,video, and photo folders from my documents into separate partitions, these being logical partitions
3) Everything else can stay where it is for the moment
4) Create a partition for games although I may reconsider if this means having to mess with the registry.


I'm planning on building my own pC next month which will lead to compatability issues wth my HD on my new system which may force me to reinstall my HD as a solution. In which case I'll partition from scratch.