Partitioning

[XR4TI]

I am wiping my drive clean right now and was wondering if there is a better way of partitioning my 1TB hard drive? I was planning on just leaving it as a single partition.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello again.

We're now seeing serious issues with some trying to install to such large partitions as 1 - 2TB, it's much better to create a 100GB partition to do the install to and you can always extend the Windows partition to include the remaining unallocated space on the Hard Disk Drive or create additional partitions after the installation completes if you choose.

• Then if you do not want to create the new Windows 7 "System Reserved" partition use the outline in Step Two #2 to create, format and mark Active a single 100GB partition to do the installation to.
• If you do want to create the "System Reserved" partition use the outline in Step Two #3 to create, format and mark Active the System Reserved partition and then create and format the 100GB partition to do the installation to.

From this tutorial at the link below.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation


You may care to have a look at this one also for use after the install completes.

Partition / Extended : Logical Drives

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Better is a matter of opinion. Most people in the general population probably have just one.

On this forum, I'd guess most people have 2 or more.

Most commonly, something like 50 to 100 for Windows and the rest for data.

 

[mjf]

Apart from the possibility of installation problems for a 1 TB partition, your ability to effectively image your HDD stands out.

I would go for a partition with OS and installed programs on a 100GB partition but not greater than 200GB (you have 1TB to play with). In my opinion this is the most vulnerable part of your computer system likely to fall over due to malware, OS/installed application bugs etc. You need to be able to image it on a regular basis (taking say ~ 30 min).

The rest is about how you manage and backup your data. I personally would go for another 2 to 3 partitions. You can do surface scans (for bad blocks) and partition data recovery on a more manageable partition size.

Edit: The inbuilt disk management tool should be sufficient for most of your basic partitioning needs. I regularly use the more flexible Partition Wizard but suggest you only the use the bootable version. The mini tool has let me down.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

I would not use Easeus S/W at all, we just had to help someone that used that product and it destroyed the file system and a lot of data was lost and everything had to be reinstalled.


The most trusted program with Windows 7 is Partition Wizard, at the link below.

Partition Wizard Free Home Edition

 

[theog]

If using the Gateway Recovery Disks, recovery will have a partitioning tool.