Partitioning Your Hard Drive - Comments Page 2

I agree that having only one partition is a good idea for casual or beginner users, unless it is a laptop and the need to use Bitlocker Drive Encryption. (No need to use Bitlocker on a desktop, unless it is serve need of security). I see many who disagree here are not beginners or casual users. I answer a lot of questions at another forum, and some here may be deeply surprised at the level of inexperience many people have. Working with just one partition is far better for them. I don't think many, if any, Terabyte hard disks are sold on prebuilt systems today. Anyone who likes multiple partitions should use them, but this article is about regular folks, not experts and Power Users.

I admit, I am a 2 partition fan when running windows. one for the operating system and one for data/source files. I have found that systems require less service and provide a better user experience this way. Placing a full copy of every program installation fileset in a "source" directory on the "data" partition allows for faster system configuration times and establishes an external pointer for programs so that new features can be found and loaded on an as needed basis. Having only OS and programs loaded onto the primary partition minimizes head travel during operation. Sure, the head has to travel to the data partition to read or write files, but the impact is low as most files are small enough to be loaded into RAM.
One partition is ok, but fragmentation is definately more of an issue when user and system generated files are sharing the same partition.

Power users seem to appreciate the difference, general surf and mail users seem to be fine with one partition.

I have a question with my new Hard Disk. I bought it yesterday and I tried it yesterday. It was a SATA HDD. So I connected it to the appropriate HDD slots and booted my PC. But the computer doesnt show up my new HDD in the Computer Management dialog box. It just displays a device named VIA Seriel ATA RAID Controller ( and a uestion mark) in the Device Manager Dialog Box. What should I do to make my HDD work normal? HELP ME PLEASE.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Does it show up in the BIOS messages during boot up? I'd go into the BIOS Setup and see if the device is listed. There may be an option to enable SATA.

Partition according to your needs!
Me: photo enthusiast (65 years), music lover (converting dozens of LP's to CD).
HD: Seagate 350GB. Partitions: C=100GB, Windows,ALL programs, swap, My Documents.
D=100GB, pictures only. E=150GB, music, video editing.
Backup=External HD (Trekstor 650GB, USB). Backing up: C-weekly, D+E every 2-3 weeks.
My conclusion: define your aims and needs first.
Happy partitioning.

I disagree only a little bit. Suppose I have C: for Windows, and D: for Data. When I want to do a clean install for Windows I just delete C: and re-install Windows or ghost the partition there. D is untouched so I don't need to backup my music/data, then copy them back again later. Well, I tend to re-install once a year for speed.

I'm a DJ with (approx) 475k(+) song-files on 6 diff twrs each with 3-250gb & 1-500gb drvs. Two or 3 times per year I need to re-format & re-load MicWins' curse on several of my p.c.'s & now, I want to partition to save massive amounts of copying time. I am bldg another twr with 2-750gb Seagate SATA drvs (32mb cache). I have partitioned & installed OS's on literally hundreds of IDE drvs, yet, not one SATA drv (I need to keep moving forward). Any advise??

EDITOR'S NOTE: Partitioning a SATA drive should be no different than on an IDE drive.

Also disagreeing here, Bob. My system is running as good as when it was installed 3,5 years ago. No reformat necessary, just a decent partitioning schema together with decent defrag software and a tool 'eRunNT' (makes a backup of your registry).

Regular registry backups saved my bacon once or twice, I have to admit but putting such a backup back and all problems were gone. My harddisk is divided up into 4 partitions (C=Windows, D=Programs, E=MyData, F=Temporary files and Swap).

It never takes more than 15 minutes to defrag C and D partition (with the most extensive defrag options enabled), because not a lot of files are moved/created/deleted there. I am a software junkie and (de-)install a lot, but as I said earlier...my system runs already for 3,5 years.

When I'm reading my mail in the morning my C and D partitions are defragged in the background and once a month I do a defrag from E and F (after a cleanup ofcourse) at night. This way I don't have to keep my machine running all day and all night, which saves in the power bill, I might add!).

Great article as usual Bob. I used to be into partitions. But these days prefer to use separate HDD. All the advantages, with better crash protection. Can even have an OS for each one if you like, as long as they can read each others file systems, no worries. Just about bullet proof! (: Keep up the good work m8.

Disagree w Bob. I create ~20 GB partition for the system.
Then a separate d: partition for data and documents, as well as an E: and possibly others for random crap.

The C drive is reserved for what I deem my normal and "essential" programs and utilities. All my data is on D:; all documents, Outlook psts, downloads, etc. I install non-essential stuff, like iTunes, VMware, test stuff, etc, on the E: partition.

This works great for me. I admit, however, that for my family I usually just install them into one partition.

I partitioned one of my hard disks into C and D drives respectively. C drive (30GB) holds Windows and installed programs whereas D (470GB) has all my data. Thus it's a piece of cake to do fast automated nightly backups of C drive to a different physical disk.