Is it a better idea to have media files on a different drive?

[sam9953]

I have created a few extended partition on my current C drive. Now what if incase my OS gets corrupt then will it affect the whole of my C drive or just the partition in which I have the OS? I am asking this because currently all my data is stored on the OS drive but I will create a new extended partition and store data on it incase you say that the extended drive does not get affected if my OS drive gets corrupt.

Like in the above picture, if incase my system gets affected by a virus and my OS is affected then in that case will this damage both F and C drive or just my C drive, plus also what will be useful when I make a dual OS system, should I keep my data in C only or put my data in F.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'd keep my data in a separate partition, regardless of what OS setup I had.

Even if partition issues or viruses are confined to C only, the entire drive can of course fail at any time.

I hope you have your F partition backed up to some other drive.

 

[sam9953]

Yes I have backed up my data on an external drive, but what I am trying to say is that I will be soon creating another extended partition, lets say G, and I will install Windows 8 on it. So now when this case happens then I will have two OS' , so in that case will it be a better idea to have my data on F drive or on the other two drives containing the OS, i.e C or G.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

As I said in my first post, I see no reason to have data on an OS drive.



As it is now, your data appears to be on F, NOT on an OS partition. Why change that?

 

[sam9953]

Yes, I believe you are right. Thanks for the help.

 

[alphanumeric]

I originally had this setup on my one internal hard drive. Data is where all my Documents, Pictures, Music etc is.
[System Reserved 200meg] [Windows 7 214 gig] [Data 250 gig]
I then split the windows 7 partition to dual boot with windows 8
[System Reserved 200meg] [Windows 7 107 gig] [Windows 8 107 gig] [Data 250 gig]
It hasn't caused me any problems that I know of. I don't expect any problems removing Windows 8 to go back to the original setup either. The only problem you may run into is if the drive letter of your media partition changes you may have to adjust your library locations to match.

 

[sam9953]

I am very very new to all this partitioning stuff and I have just learned some of it, so can you tell me when you say this "The only problem you may run into is if the drive letter of your media partition changes you may have to adjust your library locations to match." what do you mean by that? I mean how can the drive letter get changed untill and unless I don't do it using the disk management.

 

[alphanumeric]

Windows determines the drive letters. For instance, I'm booted up into Windows 8 right now. Disk management shows Windows 8 as C and the Windows 7 partition as G. If I boot up into Windows 7 disk management shows the Windows 7 partition as C and Windows 8 as G. They get reversed when I switch from Windows 8 to Windows 7. I had to change some drive letters around so that my Data partition was D for both 7 & 8 and my DVD was E for both. After that I moved my user folders to D. Windows 7 and Windows 8 both show the Location for my Documents folder as D:\Documents. If the drive letter of my Data partition gets changed Windows won't be able to find my Documents, Pictures, and Music,etc.

 

[AddRAM]

Of course it`s a good idea.

 

[sam9953]

Windows determines the drive letters. For instance, I'm booted up into Windows 8 right now. Disk management shows Windows 8 as C and the Windows 7 partition as G. If I boot up into Windows 7 disk management shows the Windows 7 partition as C and Windows 8 as G. They get reversed when I switch from Windows 8 to Windows 7. I had to change some drive letters around so that my Data partition was D for both 7 & 8 and my DVD was E for both. After that I moved my user folders to D. Windows 7 and Windows 8 both show the Location for my Documents folder as D:\Documents. If the drive letter of my Data partition gets changed Windows won't be able to find my Documents, Pictures, and Music,etc.

Oh I get it now, can you tell me as well, how can I make such a setting so that I don't my F drive which currently has all my data has the same letter in both the OS. Though I have not installed windows 8 right now, but still for the future.

 

[Zepher]

I prefer to keep my media on different drives,

 

[alphanumeric]

Windows determines the drive letters. For instance, I'm booted up into Windows 8 right now. Disk management shows Windows 8 as C and the Windows 7 partition as G. If I boot up into Windows 7 disk management shows the Windows 7 partition as C and Windows 8 as G. They get reversed when I switch from Windows 8 to Windows 7. I had to change some drive letters around so that my Data partition was D for both 7 & 8 and my DVD was E for both. After that I moved my user folders to D. Windows 7 and Windows 8 both show the Location for my Documents folder as D:\Documents. If the drive letter of my Data partition gets changed Windows won't be able to find my Documents, Pictures, and Music,etc.

Oh I get it now, can you tell me as well, how can I make such a setting so that I don't my F drive which currently has all my data has the same letter in both the OS. Though I have not installed windows 8 right now, but still for the future.

You can change the drive letters in disk management.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/82994-drive-letter-add-change-remove-windows-7-a.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/77899-hard-drives-lock-drive-letter.html

 

[sam9953]

Thanks a lot for this guys, now I am facing another problem, I have my hard disk with total space of 445 GB after excluding 20GB for the Recovery. Now I have made F drive which is 200 GB and C drive as 245 GB as you can see in my first post, but now when I try to make a partition of the 245 GB drive then it is allowing me to shrink it just by 100 Gb not more, even though I have nearly 180 GB free. Please tell me how can I shrink to at least 180 GB?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Download Partition Wizard bootable disk from the bottom of this page:

Free download Magic Partition Manager Software, partition magic alternative, free partition magic, partition magic Windows 7 and server partition software - Partition Wizard Online

It is more flexible than Disk Management.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93322-partition-wizard-use-bootable-cd.html

 

[wildpig1234]

If you can spare $50 or maybe less, best thing is get an SSD for boot only and use yr hd only for storage. even a small old recent hd (not too old as then it will be too slow) for o/s only is still better than having boot and data storage on one physical hd IMHO

 

[boogieboy]

Well it's always a good idea to have media on the other drives than having them in the OS drive.. When i say media im talking about setups, songs, movies, images etc. not talking about Installed softwares on OS drive.

 

[sam9953]

Thanks for all the advice guys.

 

[sam9953]

Okay guys I have now made the changes with the help of partition wizard, you can see my photo to see how my disk partitions currently look like.

I have a few questions, after using these three softwares I found the following:

Disk management: Allows merging of partitions, but gives restrictions when extending the partition
Partition Wizard home edition: Allows extending to the full extent but when trying to merge,it says that this function is not supported by the home edition.
Partition Wizard server edition: As the demo version is available online, and the full version is very expensive, I used the demo one and when trying to merge or extend the partition it says that neither of the functions could be done.

So my question is that how is it possible to able to all the disk management functions without any restrictions.

 

[alphanumeric]

I think some of the restrictions on the built in disk management come from it not being able to move some system files. It may show X amount of free space but it may not be continuous free space. There may be free space, some files or folders and then more free space. It can only shrink back to that file or folder. Running a defrage and doing a disk cleanup may free that space up. When you use a third party tool, especially one that boots to its own environment, those locked system files can be moved. The free version is restricted because they want you to buy the full version. The typical bait and switch.

 

[sam9953]

Okay what you are saying might be true but once I saw that my disk management is giving me less than 17 to shrink although I had like 180GB free, I did defragmentation for my C drive, and guess what, once I tried disk management again after defragmenting my C drive, It showed me even lesser amount to shrink.

So my question is still unanswered, is there any software or any other way to get one tool which allows both merge and extending partitions, without paying huge amount of money like buying pro edition of partition wizard.