New Hdd ... help on partition size !!!

bluezz · 27 Jan 2023

hi,

i just bought a new 2 TB hdd as my pc is old cant get ssd ... need help / suggestions on partition sizes ... as i messed up my old 2 tb hdd while converting from dynamic to basic ... is this sizing right ???

0 >> 100 mb (System Reserve) (Primary)
c >> 100 gb (win 7) (Primary)
d >> 200 gb (empty) (Primary)
e >> 1700 gb (data) (Primary) (later converted >> extended >> logical) (500 gb + 500 gb + 700 gb)

samuria · 28 Jan 2023

Very bad if you have logical drives and the host paritions goes so does all the logical drives gpt disk you can have lots of primary paritions. Why cant you get ssd is your drive NOT sata?

bluezz · 29 Jan 2023

@samuria ... my pc is old & i needed more hdd space for data as compared to ssd ... & ssd are kinda expensive ...

if i make hdd gpt, will it install win 7 64-bit & will it read my other mbr hdds/usbs ???

samuria · 29 Jan 2023

Yes is the answer

bluezz · 29 Jan 2023

gpt seems nice ...
bt my work hdd is mbr, so if make my personal hdd gpt, i will have to change bios settings everytime when i switch respective drives ... & thats not good for bios, i guess ...

Alejandro85 · 30 Jan 2023

Why do you even want to make partitions at all? It's much simpler and generally preferable to have a single partition spanning all the disk, so you don't have to bother with size guessing or, much worse, a resize down the line.

Unless you plan to install more than one operating system concurrently it makes little sense to partition nowadays.

bluezz · 30 Jan 2023

@Alejandro85 ... if i make just 1 partition & init install win 7 & also my data along with it ... wont i b risking everything if something goes wrong with os ???

Megahertz07 · 31 Jan 2023

Please edit your profile with ALL your hardware specs. It will help us to help you
System Info - See Your System Specs

You can use a MBR or GPT for data under Windows 32 or 64 its.

A GPT drive can only be set to be boot able on a computer with UEFI BIOS and Windows 64.

Does your computer has UEFI BIOS?

bluezz said:

hi,

i just bought a new 2 TB hdd as my pc is old cant get ssd ... need help / suggestions on partition sizes ... as i messed up my old 2 tb hdd while converting from dynamic to basic ... is this sizing right ???

0 >> 100 mb (System Reserve) (Primary)
c >> 100 gb (win 7) (Primary)
d >> 200 gb (empty) (Primary)
e >> 1700 gb (data) (Primary) (later converted >> extended >> logical) (500 gb + 500 gb + 700 gb)

The (System Reserve) (Primary) is created by Windows during the installation. If you're going to use it as a data drive it is useless. If you're going to install Win 7 on it you should start by deleting all partitions and letting windows create the partitions. The C: windows partition will be the last so you can shrink and create a new partition after installation.

If your old drive (the one that you messed up) doesn't have hardware issues, all you have to do is to clean it and re initialize. That can easily be done under Disk Manager or Diskpart.
Are you going to use the drive to install Win 7?
Does your computer has UEFI BIOS?

bluezz · 01 Feb 2023

@Megahertz07 ... yes my computer has UEFI BIOS ... bt my work hdd is mbr & if i make this new hdd gpt, my bios will go for a toss ... & i cant afford to do this right now ... so keeping both my hdds as mbr ... no more data messing ...

i messed up my old 2 tb hdd while converting from dynamic to basic (https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/428142-hdd-dynamic-basic.html) ... & my 500 gb data is still to be recovered ... so am not doing anything again to that hdd unless my data is back ...

will configure my new 2 tb hdd (mbr) with win 7 & new data ...

thanx ppl for helping me out ... appreciate it a lot ... thanx ...

Megahertz07 · 02 Feb 2023

So you're going to install Win 7 on the new SSD and then try to recover your data from the old drive into the new one.

You can install Win 7 as UEFI - GPT as you won't use the old drive to boot anymore. Even if your BIOS is set to UEFI-GPT, you can read and write to a MBR drive. That's up to you.

1)To make a Win 7 USB boot able drive:

Open a CMD window as administrator and type:

diskpart
list disk (it will list all drives. Identify the USB drive number)
select disk n (replace n by the USB drive number obtained with list disk)
clean
convert mbr
create part primary
select part 1
format fs=fat32 quick
assign
active
exit (to exit diskpart)

If you have a Win 7 installation iso file
On Win 7 use 7Zip to extract all files and folders from the Win 7 iso file to the USB drive.
On Win 10, mount the iso file and copy all files and folders to the USB drive.

If you have a Win 7 installation DVD
On another computer that has ODD, copy all files and folders from the DVD to the USB drive

To make it UEFI boot able you must add the \efi\boot folder

To make it universal (all Win 7 versions), go to \sources on the USB drive and delete \sources\ei.cfg

2) To install Win 7
Reset BIOS or load defaults.
Set Disk mode to AHCI, not RAID
Select OS mode = UEFI or Select OS mode = other + UEFI (depends on BIOS).
Disable fast boot and secure boot.

Windows can be installed in two ways: Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT
To install as Legacy-MBR you must boot the installation drive as Legacy
To install as UEFI-GPT you must boot the installation drive as UEFI.

If you have a UEFI BIOS, you should install as UEFI-GPT
Detach any other drives (SATA or Power cable) from the MB.
During POST, press F12(?) to launch the boot menu. You will see two options for the USB drive. USB UEFI (Name) and USB (Name). Select USB UEFI (Name).
Go to install and delete ALL partitions on the main drive till you have one and only one unallocated space and then proceed.

3) For the Win 7 updates Single file with all updates - Simplix