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manus111

2 Intern

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225 Posts

6814

March 6th, 2005 20:00

HD Partitioning

Exactly what is hard disc partitioning?

Bill Snyder

266 Posts

March 6th, 2005 21:00

One splits a disk into several separate partitions, i.e., drives which function independently of one another (for the most part).  E.g., I have split my "80" megabyte hard disk into three partitions, the first (C:) containing the XP system and closely related programs; the second (D:) containing the rest of my programs; the third (E:) containing archives of various kinds.  I have a second hard disk (F:) containing the Pagefile and sundry junk that I may some time want to access.  There is no GREAT advantage in doing it this way (with smaller hard drives, none at all).  It does mean to back up your system, you need only to back up C: (though I usually do both C: and D:; there is no need to back up E: everytime, but only when you have added something new). 
 
For me, it actually goes back to 95/98 which did not have the registry to contend with, so that you could re-do the operating system without risking messing with the programs.  Also, I was doing various kinds of beta testing, one of which required a separate partition on which to install the beta operating system.  Now however, if you re-install the operating system, you have to reinstall most programs because of registry entries.  But old habits die hard, so I keep doing it the old way.
 
If you get the impression that I think that there is no great point to doing it with XP/NT/2000, you are right.  Still. old habits die hard.

Denny Denham

2 Intern

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18.8K Posts

March 6th, 2005 21:00

manus111,

Partitioning is dividing a hard disk into several virtual drives. Your XP system came with only a C:\ partition which includes the entire hard drive. Many users find it useful to divide the drive into several partitions, each of which is dedicated to storing certain items. With two partitions many users keep the operating system and applications on one (C:\) and data on another (D:\). If the operating system ever needs to be reinstalled, only the C:\ partition is involved and the data on D:\ does not need to be backed up prior to the reinstallation. Some users subdivide the disk even more, with partitions devoted to games, music files, etc.

manus111

2 Intern

 • 

225 Posts

March 13th, 2005 19:00

In other words if you re-install the OS on XP all of your programs in the other partition are w/o registry entries and therefore will not run.  Is that correct?  If I did want to partition would
I have to start from a clean installation?  

Bill Snyder

266 Posts

March 13th, 2005 20:00

No, you do not HAVE to start from a clean installation.  A program like Partition Magic 8.0 (absorbed by Symantec) will partition a disk for you even if there is data (including programs, etc.) on it.  It will warn you to back up everything BEFORE doing the partitioning.  But I have never had PM go wrong.  Still, BACK UP EVERYTHING.

But, if you are going to do it without a program like PM, then you will have to do a clean installation.  There is no way to partition an established drive from within XP, without deleting it and starting over.

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