About Partitioning again


  1. Posts : 33
    win 7 home premium
       #1

    About Partitioning again


    Setup specs:
    Sager Laptop - cpu i7 820 1.73 ghz quad - 8GB Ram - ATI 5800 (1GB)
    2 500 GB WD SATA HDD

    Sorry to bring disk partitioning up again... I see by searching it has been raised on several of the forums several times.

    The aspects discussed below do not appear to have been addressed.

    From my searches, it appears the popular position is not to partition.

    But what that leaves unanswered is what to do if you rely on disk images for system backup.. I mean backup of the OS, in a way that is re-installable to bare iron should that be needed. I use Norton ghost 16, and it does allow backup using a directory scheme.

    That sort of backup cannot be used to reinstall of course, so where it may be fine for data, it not a good choice for an OS backup plan.

    (Note that when I say `System disk' in places.. I'm not referring to a 200MB NTFS partition that appears to have something basic to do with windows 7 install, but to the main OS installation)

    I want fairly small images for my image based backup system. Something on the order 100 gB or probably even less like 70-80 gb to have enough space not to worry about over running the partition (with the OS installation).

    Of course, I don't follow the windows practice of putting everything in `My Documents'... and normally make sure data goes to a different partition than OS.

    I have two 500 GB disks, so without partitioning, I would nearly have to use a major portion of the system disk for DATA ... otherwise I'd be loosing a hefty portion of my system drive since the OS will never need 500GB.

    The OS and whatever data I put there could easily be up to 350-450 GB sooner or later.... (without partitioning) That is a bit hefty to be creating images of.

    Even with an i7 820 quad cpu and 8 GB ram... that is a going to take a lot of space on the backup media ( a hard drive an a remote (local lan) machine) and a pretty hefty chunk of time.

    If however, I put the OS on its own partition, I can fairly quickly create an installable disk image. And of course backup of data needs to happen to, but for me that is a separate system based on directory hierarchies.

    So with those considerations... what do experienced people recommend?
    My inclination is to partition the System HDD (500GB WD SATA), into
    100 GB (for OS installation)
    200 GB for the projects partition.
    (This `projects' partition, is to allow a disk image based backup of whatever current project
    I'm working on)
    And the remainder on another partition. So 3 partitions for the disk that contains the OS.
    (My 2nd 500 gb drive, I would leave all on one partition)

    If that seems sensible then the next question is, since the OS is already installed, can I (using the system tools) create a 100 GB partition holding the OS?
    Create a 200 GB partition for projects as they occur, and make a partition of the remainder.(another near 200GB)

    I'd keep data off the system partion of course, but even there I find it handy to keep a partition available for a currently under way project (The 200gb partition mentioned above)... that way, I can back up via disk image... in some reasonable size and time.

    I ask that because experimenting with the system partitioning tools, it appears that even though I only have 53 GB on the system disk..., The shrink tool says I have only 218 GB of shrink space. (See the attached screen shot of shrink info)

    Fragmentation is not an issue.. if shows 0% fragmentation.. (and the OS has not hardly been used yet)

    Any one know why the shrink tool shows only 218 GB can be shrunk? Will I really not be able to shrink the partition to say 100GB?
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails About Partitioning again-shrink.png  
    Last edited by HarryPutnam; 28 Jul 2010 at 13:02. Reason: Grammer and forgot the attachment
      My Computer


  2. Arc
    Posts : 35,373
    Microsoft Windows 10 Pro Insider Preview 64-bit
       #2

    Hi Harry !! Welcome to the SF , but you should have posted this problem in Installation & Setup - Windows 7 Forums . I hope mods will move the thread there.

    First of all, download Partition Wizard Bootable CD (about 40 mb, and free) , and burn the downloaded iso in a cd . Then boot from the CD. Select Disk 1, format it clean. Now click on create partition. Give the partition type "primary", and size 102400 kb, clock ok.

    Click on create partition again, give the partition type "logical", and size 204800 kb . Click on ok . Do the same thing again, but accept the residual disk size.

    Apply changes finally, and you have got your required partitions.

    For disk 2, Format it primary using PW (if you try to format it logical, there would be two partitions, one primary and one logical, but you want a single partition there).

    If there is any further query , feel free to ask here .
      My Computer

  3.    #3

    Defrag using Auslogics Disk Defragger to see if System Files are in the way of further shrinkage. If so, you can move them using Perfect DIsk 10 trial version's Offline Defragger (System).

    You can also shrink as much as possible in Disk Mgmt after defragging, then see if Partition Wizard CD will allow you any more. You'll need to back up your files on partitions involved as Resiziing with 3rd party apps can fail, although PW has a data protection function that will simply start over if operation fails and should allow you to cancel during timed countdown before trying again.
      My Computer


 

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