hard disk split

I always use 'Powerquest Partition Magic'. This works great.

Hi,

Partition Magic will easily resolve this for you. There are other partition management programs, but PM is the program of choice.

If the hard disk is split into two parts you may wish to leave things as they are depending on the size of the partitions.

If you primary c: drive partition is large enough for the operating system with all data, music, pictures etc on the second partition. Then if you have to re-install your O/S you would not normally affect or loose this data during the re-install.

Many users consider two separate partitions on a single hard drive essential.

I have no firm views on it,  just backups

Ceri 

I agree with partitioning. Having just reinstalled XP on a second drive, by putting the OS by itself on a smaller partition, it will not degrage over time, due to fragmentation, the way a single partition does. In fact, I created two partitions for the OS, the first for the page file and all temp directories (which get heavy use), the second for the OS. This also speeds up the system by virtue of the fact that data transfer speeds are faster on the first part of the drive (outer cylinders) and partitions are allocated from the outside in. Put the OS where it's faster! I use a 5GB first partition for paging and temp files (probably too big but after adding a second 180GB drive, it doesn't really matter), and a second 15GB partition for the OS. Other partitions can be used for data or other OS's if you want to dual boot. I intend to play with Linux and reserved a 10GB partition for it's evential install. Just work out your sizing carefully as you can't necessarily easily change things later.

And as Ceri said, in the event you have to wipe the OS and reinstall, your data is safe on separate partitions.

Though MS even recommends a single partition for XP, when something corrupts or otherwise wrecks the OS installation (been there, done that), you wipe your data when you do a clean install.

Dave