First Time Using Two Drives

Hello, I've been lurking until recently joining the Forum. It's the best I lurked at so far. Thanks for being here and with your help maybe I avert another disaster. Here's what I got after reading the forum: FDISR, TI, Geniesoft Backup, 2 SeagateHDD's 160gb and 400gb.At the moment my 160 is the boot drive divided into three partitions with the C: being only 15g (I know but the expert I let help did it) and the other two equal. The 400 gb is set for additional storage, no boot. From reading posts here, particular thanks to Erik and Peter though many others have added to my knowledge, I'm thinking the 160 should stay my boot drive ( Why wouldn't I want the 400 bootable?) in one 160gb partition for FDISR snapshots and put the archives on the 400gb drive. Erik mentions leaving only system files on C: and certain apps or programs. Are there some apps or prorams that need to stay on C:? Lastly, how do I repartition C: to 160 without losing my data?
Sorry for the length of my first post but thanks again.

 

You can check out this thread if you need something to help you re-partition your drive.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=183475&highlight=paragon

 

Hello, Thanks to you Peter farmerlee and for your responses I will set about doing this and let you know how it goes.

 

Hi Laramie and also a hearty WELCOME to the forums.

I'm one of those who keep a stack of hard drives on the table and go about experimenting with all sorts of fun configurations.

Not making any recommendations for you but i usually use ONLY 2 hard drives at a time in one box, but boy do i move others in and out all the time.

One nice config i use is my work drive is partitioned x2 and the other drive usually the same, no more than 2 partitions at a time.

You can actually boot to 2 XP systems on the same drive (like i do) by altering the boot.ini lines to include, well here is mine at present.....

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Now if i decide to also add and boot to another drive (dual-drive) the changes made are at the rdisk(0) item which indicates theres another bootable (we hope ) drive.

Everyone has their own take as to what they like to see with their system, my happy choice is to make every partition i create BOOTABLE except my reserved data partition which of course serves as a useful & space saving storage facility.

Just something to kick around for you.

Greets EASTER