Resolved Hard Drive Partitioning

Yes it was, I was also recommending for you to merge your various data partitions into your larger one, each smaller partition becoming a folder on the larger partition. (except the recovery partition of course)

You could also move your pagefile.sys to that partition and install [new] program files (from now on that is) to that partition as well. All this helps reducing the size of the system. My Vista Home Premium is less than 20Gb.

I realize we're kinda veering off, but the thread is title "hard drive partitioning "

 

To nikixmina,

If the drive you are posting about is the 80GB maxtor shown in your system details then you can download Seatools from here and run diagnostics on it. Be aware some of the options are destructive (overwrites your data). Make sure you choose non destructive tests unless you have a full backup (which you really should have anyway)

If it's a different drive or you require further help please post back.

 

I would expect if a USB drive is connected (possibly with boot files included), it may be seen as the C: drive, if USB drives are set before SATA or IDE in the BIOS.

[Check the Startup list in the BIOS.]

This thread is "heating up" without much response from the questioner. Remember nikixmina is a beginner.

Matt

 

My bad. I hijacked.
I apologise nikixmina.

 

Well for the reason my partition was so small is I only had that much space of unpartitioned space, and due to my lack of knowledge I didn't want to delete the main one since it said it would delete System files needed to boot up Operating systems and such. Hope that helps a bit and far as computer knowledge I know only about compatibility, how to build my own computer, and basic specs on most common parts. Not much for the technical parts but I'm aspiring to be in the technical field (sorry if this is off topic).

-Robert

 

Dear Robert,

I thought we could get back on track, I sumarized your questions and added some input:

I always install software (programs) to a different partition than system (Windows), you can change the location within the installer.

I have always installed Windows in the first [active, primary] partition on the drive (each of my 3 drives has a operating system in the 1st partition).

To help clarify things, could you please post a view of your disk management console (including your USB drive). (Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK. In the console tree, click Disk Management.)

Before you go and spend your money on anything let's work on fixing what you've got. OK?

I am willing to spend the time it takes to help you get your box running smoothly.

JC

 

Thanks. Also thanks to all those who helped me dealing with this problem as for the computer management thing I don't understand that. I should also remind you I don't have multiple partitions on my hard Drive anymore. That asides my hard drive problems seem to have ceased and I'm not getting that cycle redundancy check error anymore thanks to the error check uh utility? It worked out alot better then when I tried chkdsk in the command prompt. I will still buy a hard drive but it can now be delayed since the one I'm going for is a raptor one. was going to go for a 1tb 7200 rpm with a 16mb cache beforehand but thats not needed either now. Thanks for the input as well.

Is this the information you meant?
Volume - Layout - Type - File System - Status - Capacity - Free Space -%Free-Fault Tolerance - Overhead
( c: ) - Partition- Basic- NTFS -Healthy (system) - 70.63GB - 53.50GB - 75% - No - 0%

Disk 0 ( C: )
Basic 70.63GB
74.53GB Healthy System
Online

Unallocated 3.90GB



-Robert

 

USB yes is last when OS is installed, but if you have an USB stick inserted while installing your OS you will find that your USB stick will end up as C. and your system drive most likely as D.

 

Not really, but it doesn't matter now. The main thing here is your system is working. I realize that the partition and system layout I recommend is not for the faint of heart... and might be difficult to achieve without proper tutoring... How big is your USB drive? and where is your data?

 

oh it's a 16GB stick Cruiser but it wasn't plugged in at the moment and all my data is in the (C: ) drive/partition I've never had any serious problems before that needed me to back up files and I've never backed up anything before except for files I didn't want to download again, Those just get thrown into my Flash drive.

 

Ok, if that works for you, that's what counts. Good luck!

 

Now that you know what problems can occur, I'd suggest a good backup routine and get into the habit of doing it.

All kinds of people here can direct you to good backup strategies.

 

Yeah and btw. How do you do the backup your talking about cause I'm sure backing up choice files is different then backing up my system.

 

I wouldn't think of operating without a disk imaging program to create backup images of the entire system drive in case of failure or corruption.

A good free one is Drive Image-XML.

A good buy version is Acronis True Image. (free trial version available) It can do incrementals which is important if you want to keep an in depth date range to choose from. It also allows for browsing the stored images and retrieving any file you choose.

I have used both of these softwares and recommend either one highly. Once I got Acronis, I quit using XML since I liked the extra features of Acronis.

Shop around - you can usually get it for about $30. +-

With either of these softwares, you'll need to have some separate media to send the images to, such as a second hard drive or a usb flash drive of sufficient size.

To give you an example of how nice these image backups are, if my system gets out of sorts, I can deploy an earlier version image in less than 10 minutes. The old days of reinstalling Windows, getting the updates, reinstalling all my other software, and all that full days work are gone forever, thank God for images!

ps. Acronis has a plug-in for the BartPE boot disk.

 

To add to surferdude's recommendations is XXClone (also free) is a straight forward Down-'N-Dirty utility that copies everything (including files in use) from head 1, track 1, cylinder 1 to the end.

And, as surferdude said, if you backup regularly, you'll be up and running in 10 minutes or less instead of wasting a day getting everything back.

My backup plan is that I've got a separate HD I plug in, clone, disconnect, and store off site (meaning my closet ). Plus, if you should suffer a catastrophic failure (Mother board catching fire, PSU deciding to spike, or lightning strike) and you have to "get a new 'puter" your OS and programs are safe. Just strip the drivers, install new ones and within less than 30 minutes you're back to surfing the web.

 

Ah thanks for the information I'll make a back up asap on our us. I'll also look into buying a hard drive for back up purposes that JC Suggested.
As for some things of what you said about

That part made little sense to me. However I'll probably find out but I do have a rough idea of what it means.

 

That's the same plan I have, except I don't have anything fancy or off site.
Very impressive Chris!
Being a student my face is typically buried in a book, so though I have the external enclosure,
I've still yet to mount the drive.