Can anyone explain please win 8 hdd factory settings

[arranskye]

Hi the laptop is a Fujitsu Lifebook. It came pre-installed with win 8 and theses are the 500GB, HDD factory default settings

WINDOWS (C) 29.2GB FREE OF 74.9GB DRIVERS (D) 373GB FREE OF 373GB



Never seen this before. Please could you explain: Why was only 75GB partition allocated to the OS

Why was 373Gb left unused. Why is the (D) drive called Drivers

Really worried now as there does not appear to be a recovery partition either. No CD came with the laptop so have nothing to reinstall system if anything goes wrong.

I have partitioned disks on XP win 7 and vista but I have not experienced anything like this before. Usually factory default settings allocate the entire disk to the OS apart from the space required for the recovery partition and bootloader.

Please can you tell me if this is now normal procedure or specific to Fujitsu. Thank you.


Im really worried about this so have also posted in Win 8 forums and other forums.

 

[BisVal]

Don't worry - this is the way it should be. On C there is the OS and the program files. D is for Your private stuff - music , films etc. By this way if there is a problem with the OS and pre-install is needed only the C drive will be formated and Your files will be untouched . As for recovery partition I never needed one. The time for recovery is almost the same as the time for new install of the OS and drivers. You should burn a recovery disc if You don't have a disc with the OS and drivers.

 

[arranskye]

Thanks Bisval, Wow what a relief, but annoyed at myself. Should have figured it out using common sense. Yes.?
A bit more help please. This is my daughter's laptop and i am new to windows 8 Please could you explain how to burn a recovery disk and also as this (D) drive is all free space the music, photos etc are obviously not being automatically being saved there so how do i ensure that all photos etc are saved to the (D) drive. Thanks. margaret

 

[strollin]

I don't like to use recovery disks that come from the mfr anyway as they restore the system back to where it was the day you brought it home, complete with the bloatware and missing your essential software and system updates.

On a new computer, I remove any installed bloatware, install my essential software, get current system updates, setup any preferences, etc... and when I have things setup the way I like, I make a system image that will allow me to restore the system back to that point. If I do need to restore, I'll have a working system instead of one the same as the day I bought it. I periodically take system images to capture newly installed software and system updates in order to keep the image as close to my current working system as possible.

You can use free software such as Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download to do the system imaging. The system image only needs to include the C: partition, you can use Macrium Reflect do backups of the data on your D: partition as well.

Windows 8 has a built-in facility to refresh your system but you will lose any software you installed from discs or downloaded from the web so you're better off using Macrium Reflect or similar software to create a system image.

SevenForums has a sister site that is devoted to Windows 8 (http://www.eightforums.com/) so you may want to ask further questions pertaining to Windows 8 in that forum.

 

[Mark Phelps]

As for recovery partition I never needed one. The time for recovery is almost the same as the time for new install of the OS and drivers.

But ... restoring a working system to a usable state is a LOT more than just installing the OS and a few drivers.

I use Macrium Reflect to do image backups. I can do a complete image restore in under 10 minutes. I can assure you that (1) reinstalling Win8, (2) updating all the drivers to be current, (3) reinstalling all my apps, (4) updating the apps to be the current versions -- takes a LOT longer than 10 minutes.