Windows Vista Partitioning Vista

I just cracked open my new Dell Inspirion today and need to start installing my stuff....

BUT I like to have Windows on one, Programs on one partition, Music on one and Documents/photos on another.

Is this do-able with Vista? And what would be the best route?

I'm noticing it has a 10GB reserve drive there and not sure why... I have never backed anything up before, is that what it is for?

How can I get the most out of my 160GB drive?

Can't wait to get home and play with it, hee hee!!

Thanks in advance!

 

Ok, My partitions are as follows

63mg / d: recovery: 10GB / C: OS 136.49 / 2.5 GB

I tried the system Disk Management but it won't allow me to shrink C: any further than around 70GB.... It doesn't NEED to be that big does it?

Said something about if snapshots and pagefiles are enabled, that shrink size may be limited.

Any suggestions?

 

Hi Chloe,
The 10GB reserve drive is the Dell recovery partition and can not be changed. With a third party tool like Disk Director, or possibly a free one, you could use parts of the 'C' partition for smaller partitions, or the unused bits of your disk for others. Vista is a bit limited for disk management.

Roger

 

Look in Vista's help files for information on its built-in partitioning abilities. I haven't tried re-sizing partitions it so I can't tell you how comprehensive the information there is.

 

I'm with Pete, no point in installing programs outside of Windows.
I also don't see the need for separate partitions for Music, Docs etc. You just want to have them outside of Windows and you only need one data partition for that, just have separate folders.

But before you start Chloe you need to be sure of the consequences of partitioning your drive. There is not a lot of info around yet about Dells with Vista pre-installed, so it's unknown how exactly the recovery utility works. If you want to retain the ability to roll the laptop back to factory installed condition then you will have to know what you are doing. It may not be possible to change the partitions at all, or you might be able to create a data partition ok, but on recovery the original partition layout might be restored, which will remove the data partition.

What is the 63mg you report as being at the start of the drive? Is this an individual partition? If so then you already have 4 partitions, which is most likely 3 primaries and one extended, which means you can't create any more partitions without major rearranging or deleting. www.goodells.net/dellrestore/vista.htm

www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.htm
www.goodells.net/dellutility/index.htm
www.goodells.net/dellrestore/index.htm
www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html

 

Have found that if you accept that size, reboot, you can repartition further. Vista seems to only divide the partition approx. in half each time. I got one down to 30Gigs that way, which I think is small enough.

 

Ok, I'll try that... I just partitioned it and tried to name the drive etc and it says it can't be done.

right click>new simple volume>57782 max>assign letter>to NTFS, allocation size DEFAULT and I get this:

There is not enough space on this drive to complete this operation

HUH?

I've rebooted and tried again but no go...any suggestions?

 

You already have 4 primary partitions on the drive and so you can’t make another.

 

Shrinking the c: drive makes free space, not a new partition. That's probably why you can't name it (you can only name prtitions). First free up (by deleting it) the 2.5Gb and you can combine all that space to make a new partition. Suggest you make it "extended" so you can divide it further if you wish.

BTW, the attached screen shot shows a disk with more than 4 partitions.

 

Hi Sparrow,

Supprised you put all the OSes on one drive.

 

Another side of the story.

I disagree. Yes it may be a bit of a slowdown and you will need to re-install. ( which you will need to do in any case ) But you will have much better idea of what you had. Overall I believe well worth it in the long run to keep programs and their data and the OS separated.
Experience has taught me well. Did you ever hear the age old saying. "Don't keep all your eggs in one basket." If you do you had best hope AND PRAY that you do not drop the basket.

I just checked and my HD is divided C: thru H: If I messup C: I may/will be sunk BIG time. But if I mess up D: or one of the other drives all I lose is what in on it.

Also I have very few. if ANY backups on the HD. CDROMS are too convienent.

BillyBob

 

Hi charlesvar,

Why? Just habit, I suppose.

Have another (HDD) drive (not shown), so I'm not short of space.

 

I just came up with an idea. Wild or otherwise

When we buy a house we do ( or should do anyway ) our best to make sure that there is room enough to do the job we wish it too at the time. And if we are sensible enough also do a bit of PLANNING ( added kids/programs) for the future. We also usually check to see if there are rooms enough to separate things the way we wish to.
IE: Kitchen, Bath(s) Living room. Dining room. Bed room(s). Maybe a separate family room.
Now. If we do a a bad incident in say the living room and are lucky enough to keep it there we still have the other rooms.
NOW !! WHY NOT do the same with a Hard drive. Lose one partition(room ) but still have the others.

Coffee and morning paper are ready.
See Ya'll later

BillyBob

 

Just another thought: Have a 40GB partition on the other drive that contains programs and data for all the OSes, so one copy of each program is adaquate for all. Ones, like MSOffice, that require installation in each OS are installed "over the top" in the same directory - without duplication and everythimg runs just fine. Even point each My Documents to a shared folder on this drive. Of course, this doesn't apply to IE, which is installed by MS wirh it's OSes.

 

In my years of bad language making, ( started with DOS and Win3.1 )experience that is not a good thought. Either that or someomne did not get the point of my last post.

That being. You had better have some darn good backups because if that one Partition takes a trip South and you LOOSE EVERYTIHNG for ALL OSes.

Also my DAD and my many years of farming experience taught me to NOT keep all the milk in one pail and/or all the eggs in one basket. I did not listen ONCE.

Coffee and morning paper are ready again. Except that he morning paper is not usable. I found it on the ground SOAKING wet. Gotta make a phone call. Then see if I did the coffe right.

And now that I have woken my own mind I had best make sure that my CDROM backups are up to date. I have made changes on the HD but am not sure that I made the backups.

OOPS !! First things first. My Wife is up so I need to help her with her bad shoulder and fixe her coffee..

Y'all have a nice day.

BillyBob