Looking for advice on partitions

[stevieray]

I'm looking for some opinions about C:/ and D:/ drives. What do you recommend should be kept on the C:/ partition with the OS? Can I move everything to the D:/ partition? Or should I keep things like Firefox and Thunderbird on C:/?

I've never had to deal with this question before... my old desktop pc only had a 20 Gb hd, so everything was kept together.

I'd like to keep reinstallations to a minimum when the time to leave rc1 behind rolls around.

Thanks!

 

[tw33k]

i found it best to keep programs on the c: drive but have documents, music etc on a separate partition. once i have loaded my programs i make an image of c: and store it on a separate drive/partition. I use Acronis True Image 2009. If my pc goes belly up, i boot to Acronis then re-install my backed up image.
There's a how-to-guide in the tutorials section for other methods

 

[Captain Zero]

Do you have 1 physical drive? And is there data on it already?

 

[stevieray]

Do you have 1 physical drive? And is there data on it already?

Yes and yes.

I have already created the second partition, and moved a few things into it, like music and documents.

 

[Captain Zero]

Depending on how you use your system, you might only need a 30-40GB partition for your system. Once you've dropped all the files you want to keep on your extended partition, boot with your CD and you can create/modify/format new partitions from the installation process.

 

[Avien]

Is this for backup purposes?

Everything i have read says that partition your hard drive can actually make it slower, but i am not sure about that. I would say leave everything on your C driver, then use Windows Backup and make that go to D partition, or any other partition for that matter. Or leave everything on your C drive(one whole partition) and get yourself an external HDD for your backup. Having backups on the same HDD could be bad for mechanic problems as those different partitions are still on the same drive.

Any chance you can move your old 20gb to a newer bigger HDD?

 

[tw33k]

Yes and yes.

I have already created the second partition, and moved a few things into it, like music and documents.

having music, documents etc on a second partition won't hurt. i have found that loading some programs on a different partition to the os can be problematic

 

[davehc]

Maybe that is not the best solution.Tw33k's solution is one, but I don't think that is what you are looking for. (I have several Acronis images saved to another partition/hd. A very good safeguard)

What I have done is install a guaranteed working OS on C: This has all of my programs and data in situu and is used daily, with needed updates to personal files, favorites etc. On D: or any other available partition, I install any new releases. I take time out daily to mess with customisation or installation bugs with these.

I always ensure, after a new installation over this latter, that my original OS remains the default startup.
The "experimental" OS , whether I have had the time to install my standard programs or not, is then easily wiped without fear of losing any essential data.

When , in the case of Windows 7, the final version is installed, then I will do as you have already started - begin to move libraries or whatever, over to my spare space

 

[tw33k]

Maybe that is not the best solution.Tw33k's solution is one, but I don't think that is what you are looking for. (I have several Acronis images saved to another partition/hd. A very good safeguard)

What I have done is install a guaranteed working OS on C: This has all of my programs and data in situu and is used daily, with needed updates to personal files, favorites etc. On D: or any other available partition, I install any new releases. I take time out daily to mess with customisation or installation bugs with these.

I always ensure, after a new installation over this latter, that my original OS remains the default startup.
The "experimental" OS , whether I have had the time to install my standard programs or not, is then easily wiped without fear of losing any essential data.

When , in the case of Windows 7, the final version is installed, then I will do as you have already started - begin to move libraries or whatever, over to my spare space

it reads to me as tho he wants only the os on his c: drive and everything else on a separate partition. i would advise against loading programs on a different partition to the os.

 

[Dzomlija]

I like to keep all my programs and other system files on the C: partition.

But of course, hard drives are very cheap these days and partitioning a drive doesn't really make too much sense at all. I find it far more flexible to rather install another drive, and then move all important personal files (documents, pictures, music, etc) to a completely seperate physical drive.

Just have a look at my system specs. One of the 80GB drive is my system boot drive, with all the other containing my documents and other stuff.

 

[stevieray]

Is this for backup purposes?

No. I have Acronis and an external HD like Tw33k. This is mainly for doing a clean install of Win7... I'd like to keep the all-day app-disk shuffle blues to a minimum.

Any chance you can move your old 20gb to a newer bigger HDD?

The old 20 Gb HD is in my old desktop; I only mentioned it as an excuse for my noobness on this subject. I'm gonna move a few more files from it, and then install some version of Linux on it. I want to see what it is like. I wanna be inept in as many OS's as possible!

 

[tw33k]

the question i have is: do you want just the os on c: and everything else on d:?

 

[Avien]

You could just install Windows 7 on a C partition, then everything you install from there on out do a custom install and point it to the d driver instead. Only way i can think of doing it, and that is how i used to do it, until i realized it wasn't worth it.

 

[stevieray]

I like to keep all my programs and other system files on the C: partition.

But of course, hard drives are very cheap these days and partitioning a drive doesn't really make too much sense at all. I find it far more flexible to rather install another drive, and then move all important personal files (documents, pictures, music, etc) to a completely seperate physical drive.

Just have a look at my system specs. One of the 80GB drive is my system boot drive, with all the other containing my documents and other stuff.

Eventually I'm going in that direction too... but not for a few months. I'd love to get one of those velociraptors for the OS, but a few other expenses are more pressing right now. Soon, though... soon...

 

[stevieray]

the question i have is: do you want just the os on c: and everything else on d:?

If that is possible, and it'll function w/o a big loss in speed, that might be the way I'll go.

There's so many different options... so many different opinions and reasons...

 

[stevieray]

You could just install Windows 7 on a C partition, then everything you install from there on out do a custom install and point it to the d driver instead. Only way i can think of doing it, and that is how i used to do it, until i realized it wasn't worth it.

Does that make a clean install of the official Win7 harder?

 

[Avien]

Not at all. It just requires you to make sure when you install any third party applications, like firefox, thunderbird, quicktime, itunes, etc... to change the directory of the installation to D:\Program Files\....... from C:\Program Files\....

 

[tw33k]

Does that make a clean install of the official Win7 harder?

no...the install won't change. what it means tho is that each program you run you have to point it to install onto your d: drive. again, i don't recommend doing this as i have found it slows things down. it's ok to have documents, music etc on a seperate drive/partition but i'd leave the programs on c:

 

[stevieray]

OK... so to sum up, I won't gain anything by moving third party programs to the D partition, and when I do the clean install of Win7 on C the other programs on C will be OK?

I ask because I have a few paid-for programs that limit me to three machines, and I've already installed them on two. I've been holding off on installing them on my Win7 machine because I don't want to use up the final activation of their keys, and then be up the creek when Win7 comes out.

 

[tw33k]

OK... so to sum up, I won't gain anything by moving third party programs to the D partition, and when I do the clean install of Win7 on C the other programs on C will be OK?

I ask because I have a few paid-for programs that limit me to three machines, and I've already installed them on two. I've been holding off on installing them on my Win7 machine because I don't want to use up the final activation of their keys, and then be up the creek when Win7 comes out.

that's right. you won't get any benefit by installing software on a separate partition. in fact it may slow ur system down a bit