How do I make 9 Partitions & Install Win 7 ?

[dan99t]

Hi,

This may sound crazy but I have to do it to separate my various kinds of data.

I have a 500 GB Hard Disk.

I want to make 9 partitions of various sizes & Install Windows 7 64 bit ( Ultimate ) in the first partition.

I installed this Hard Disk as slave to my current Hard Disk & tried using disk management but it makes all partitions as Primary & doesn't give me a choice to create an extented partition within which I can make 8 Logical partitions.

I have very limited knowledge of Hardware.

Can you guys please help with a step by step instructions ?

Also do I need to make any partition active & if yes how & what does active do ?

Thank You in advance.

 

[gregrocker]

Use free Partition Wizard bootable CD to choose Logical when creating any but the OS partition which must be Primary - as shown in this video.

If you install first, only the 100mb System Reserved partition created when you install to unpartitioned drive must be Primary. However you might as well leave Win7 partition Primary, too. You can have 3 Primary and unlimited Logical partitions.

PW is the best tool because as long as the partitions are contiguous it doesn't view them as within a container, and treats deleted Unallocated and Free Space the same for all purposes.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Why do you need 9 partitions? I'm asking, because I'd be willing to bet there is a far better way to accomplish your end goal.

 

[dan99t]

Thank You gregrocker

It worked like a charm.

 

[dan99t]

DeaconFrost,

I like to keep my different types of data in a separate partion.

You will probably tell me to keep them in separate folder ?

Some of my Partitions are 40 GB, so is it a good idea to have that large a folder ?

Also I would like to know if there are any disavantages of having 9 Partitions.

 

[Night Hawk]

Here I typically see anywhere from 25-30gb or more stored in one main folder with several sub folders depending on file type or application such as system or utility file. One or two large data partitions is generally the preferred method for a drive layout with few drive letters involved as well as seeing more drive space available for each.

 

[dan99t]

I see the advanyage of having more drive space.

But my files & folders have a very long file names ( Most close to 250 Characters ) so they are easier to remember.

So if drive space is the only disadvantage ? OR having more partitions slows down the system ?

 

[DeaconFrost]

I personally won't go over 2 partitions on any single drive. I feel like separating out the data in partititons serves no purpose, other than to add more driver letters and confusion. There's no advantage to doing so over using folders, but there are disadvantages...such as running out of disk space on any volume much easier. Why confine your data? I'm a firm believer in the K.I.S.S. method. Why add extra steps, configurations, etc when they yield absolutely nothing.

In addition to all of that, you are only using a 500 GB drive...so you are really confining your data. Even with a 2-3TB drive, my above paragraph would be the same, but I can't imagine ever wanting to limit myself that much with over-partitioning on a 500 GB drive.

 

[kado897]

The big problem with using separate partitions is that you need to know in advance how much to allocate to each. Yes it is possible to modify the partition sizes after the fact but it is a lot more difficult than just allowing Windows to grab what it needs.
I don't think the NTFS file system that Windows uses places any practical limits on folder size or suffers any performance issues with large folders. In my own case I have a folder with videos that is over 150GB.
There are however good reasons for separating your OS/Programs from data. The main one which springs to mind is that you will probably wish to image your OS partition(s) and separating data will keep those images relatively small.

 

[Night Hawk]

Resizing partitions on a drive seeing several partitions can easily become a major project! You may end up needing to shrink another and move it just to expand the one before or after. Talk about time consuming!

As far as just how much you can put in one folder. Your mention of video files is one place to start when one folder could easily take up half of a drive! Saw that on the last build running 500gb drives there and kept running out of drive space too quickly due to video captures and running VMs. No way I would seeing several partitions on one drive but took another 500gb out of the external casing it came in and installed it for internal use.

 

[gregrocker]

If you decide to keep this arrangement, please keep us posted as to its pluses and minuses.

 

[Night Hawk]

One other thing I should add here is not only is it time consuming when growing, shrinking, moving partitions but it can be risky at times as well. You can end up throwing the entire Partition Table into a frenzy.

I saw that on one XP build where the 7 RC had been placed on a second primary for a dual boot. Once the 7 primary was removed and the C XP primary re-expanded to fill in the gap out to where it was originally the entire drive became unreadable! The PT lost something!

On that system a second drive was needed and added in for a clean install of XP in order to recover data from the first drive. When splitting a drive up just for separate data partitions one oops! and you can lose everything! This is why having larger partitions and fewer as well as backups to other drives or media is the usual recommendation.

 

[Zepher]

Some of my folders have over a terabyte in them.

Having a set partition size can be pain when you start to run out of space.
In the past 8 years, the only time I partition a drive is when I use a large drive for the os, I'll make a 100-200gb os partition and make another partition for data.

 

[Night Hawk]

That wouldn't work here. Once I had finished up the clean install just seen to and created a system image that was 347gb in size from a 1tb host drive. The previous image made just prior to a full wipe of C was 421gb once temp files like videos and a few VM were backed up elsewhere.

When first running the 7 beta builds on the same two drives I had set up an XP/Vista dual boot I split those drives up for a new primary on each. The XP drive saw the 32bit beta while the Vista HD saw the 64bit. Those were 500gb each and a 3rd drive removed from the factory enclosure was then added in as a storage later but first a spare OS test drive.

The 7 primaries filled right up fast where eventually once the 7 RCs were out XP was gone and the 64bit RC had it's own drive! The Vista primary was then re-expanded to fill in where the 32bit beta had been. By then the testing with EasyBCD and the XP Mode was available.

 

[james98]

<slightly_offtopic>

Folders are nothing more than files telling the filesystem that a certain number chunks of ones and zeros are available at such-and-such a physical location on the hard drive. It's something intended for we humans so we can interact with data.

A partition is only a better choice than a folder in two main situations:

1. Performance
2. Security

A performance example would be placing the system files on a partition at the inside of the physical (round) disc, where the disc can reach multiple files faster than it would be able to on the outside of said circle. A security reason would be placing all personal data on a separate partition so that one (or one's users) can safely botch the operating system without losing movies or music.

On a standard partition table one only uses four partitions, but on a GUID partition table the limits are much less constrictive. In those situations it can give you the ability to multi-boot and address the above two problems with less hassle than logical partitions cause (if they cause any.)

 

[kado897]

Both true but these can both be obtained by two partitions or three if you have a system reserved partition. The key is to separate the data from the OS as far as possible.

 

[Night Hawk]

The bulk of data here is stored on completely separate drives while still having a larger local installation on the main OS drive. Haven't ever seen any performance hit by simply having a single partition OS drive.

As far as working away from the center of ? you have to look at just what goes on an OS drive to start with first. That would be the OS itself. By that time the installer for the OS as well as the followup of all updates, device driver installs, etc. seen in the initial set up of the OS is being managed by the OS as far as where how things will be organized. You can't simply tell a drive you want this here and that way over there.

 

[kado897]

My primary reason for separating the OS from the Data is not performance, although it helps. It is so that you can keep images of the OS relatively small. I don't image data partitions I use Folder synchronization which I think gives a better solution especially if you use versioning.

 

[Night Hawk]

My data partition would be too big to start with unless the OS drive was 2tb or larger. Another thing is not creating a new image each time you add new files but incremental back up to another partition or drive as you go along.

The latest image here was just seen following a fresh install of 7 came in at 355gb once the bulk of the regular programs were back on. I cut some of the less used programs, utilities out completely. That size was what was seen when creating an image with Acronis. The option in 7 saw a larger 406gb image!

The only time I find a need to split a drive up is when going to multiboot like seen when 7 was in beta and RC form then seeing four Windows installations across two separate drives. For another OS like Lunux some will have several distros on one drive with a shared swap partition and even another data partition for the other OS since that platform will allow more as far as parting out a drive.

Of course this is all desktop related for seeing something like that. For those with laptops, notebooks, or even a netbook having a small OS and larger data partition not want or having an external drive to carry around would suggest a split there for backing things up.

Another thought to mention is just how much you run on any Windows install as far as how that will effect a drive being split up. If you plan to install numerous programs over time you can find yourself running out of drive space fast on a small OS primary and nowhere to go except for dumping a data partition in order to expand outward.

I ran into that when loading the 7 builds up with everything while still having plenty on the old XP/Vista dual boot where a drive was pulled out of the external casing for internal use. It's much better to split up a second or third drive rather then the OS drive for various reasons even if only to leave plenty of extra space available to prevent any possible bottleneck.

Less worry about fragmentation of files when splitting it up for multiple data partitions which is another factor that can creep in on you. While 7 here always seemed to stay at 0% I tend to find files stored for long term periods becoming fragmented on the other drives. As you know that can easily effect performance on an OS drive.

 

[kado897]

My data partition would be too big to start with unless the OS drive was 2tb or larger. Another thing is not creating a new image each time you add new files but incremental back up to another partition or drive as you go along.

I don't like incremental imaging myself. The problem is that if any part of the incremental chain gets corrupted then anything following that is trash. For the OS partitions I use differentials and a Grandfather, Father, Son approach to the full images.

As posted above I don't use imaging on data partitions I use a file and folder backup using mirroring with versions. This has all the advantages of incremental backups without the fragile incremental chain. It is a set it and forget it method. The only thing you have to manage is how many versions to keep.