Partitioning Drive With PM7.0.

Hi guys,
I know this is going to sound silly, but............

I have been reading as much as I could find on the forum about Partition Magic. I have gleaned from my travels that you should allow PM to make two floppies from which to work from while partitioning. That partitioning can be done without losing any data whatsoever.

My problem is, I know absolutely nothing about doing this sort of thing & I am paranoid.

I have a small drive compared to today's drives. It is 9.54GB. I have 4.17GB used with various things. Many Programs, graphics, MP3's & etc. The only thing I want to do is make one separate partition, I suppose a secondary one, to store things that are meaningful to me. Such as my MP3's, graphics images, family tree stuff, & etc. Of course I do always put all this stuff off on another kind of media as a back-up. The partition is for things I want on my computer, but are not necessary to operation, & so that they are not on the main drive where the OS has to search through them when doing normal operation procedures.

If I just follow directions after installing PM, will I be alright? Or is there other specific things I should take into consideration for the seemingly simple task I want to perform.

Should I back up the meaningful stuff first & then remove it from my hard drive before using PM, since I'm rather a bit unsure of what I am doing?

Or would I be better off to just start fresh with a newly cleaned drive & do the partitioning then, which I've never done before without help & it's been so long ago, I've forgotten how.

 

Have no fear. The program will tell you what it's going to do and won't do it until you say go ahead.
Preparation:
Get rid of temp files, temp internet files, and anything else you don't want to keep. Do a scandisk and defrag, fresh backups on separate media.

General guidelines:
1) resize your C: drive. PM will say how small you can make it.
2)make new partition using the remainder of the drive unless you want another partition. I would make another partition to keep stuff you are storing. Then you have 1 for c: which is OS and Programs, 1 for D: which is for your working files, and 1 for E: drive which is for storing things. The sizes are up to you but storage should be 1G and the rest for your working files.

That is the easy part, Now go into Windows Explorer and make folders on your d: drive to correspond with your working files. For instance, I keep all Family tree files in a folder called Family. Pictures in one called you guessed it pictures. You get the Idea.

Then you go into your program options and change the default folders to the D: drive. You will have to move your files from C to D using drag and drop. Same thing for E: drive.

Don't try to do it too fast...

 

PQM

PQMagic is just awesome. Do a cleanup as suggested, of drive "C ". I would install PQM, then open the program for the "windows" lookalike menus. Resize drive "C ", then choose under actions Create New Partition. You mite want to select the type of partition as "EXTENDED" versus primary, then create again in actions to build "LOGICAL" partition. You can build any number of these Drive partitions & you don't have to worry about "HIDE" or "UNHIDE" these types as you would in primary partitions.
Now you can re-boot & within windows explorer, create folders of your choice on these drives

 

Bmoore1129,

I've already done the Standard Scandisk & Defrag both, & emptied all the folders you mentioned. Now I need to do the back-ups.

Is this the PM program Options, or is it Windows Explorer Program Options?

Will PM rename my existing drives? The Burner (E), CD ROM (D), Floppy (A) & Zip (F), or will I have the option to give the partition the drive letter I want it to have, like maybe B, or G.

I think I understand everything else but those things. I have more than 1GB of stuff to store, so I will probably make just two partitions, instead of three. If my hard drive was bigger, then several partitions would be no problem.

I really need a bigger hard drive, but can't afford one right now.

BTW, can't I just drag the entire main folder, with subfolders over to the new partition, instead of making corresponding folders & then dragging just the files they contain? That sure would be easier if I could.

 

OK,

PM & PQM are the same program, right?

 

Partition Magic will line up your drives automatically. As a side note: I have iomega zip and I can assign my drive letters to my zip (Y) and my burner(Z). There is a definite pattern that is used.

If you have all your files in one place, by all means just drag them down to the new drive. As a matter of fact you can move any folder to the D: drive. (I see you have more experience than I thought.)

After moving them down, I beleive PM (same as PQM) will re-associate the folders to your programs.

Once you have moved all your stuff, you can go back into PM and resize your C: drive to about 2.5 GB and resize your D: to take up the room that you have gained.

Don't forget to do another defrag when you finish....

 

Thanks a bunch Bmoore & Rancher.

No, I'm not a total dummy, I don't guess, but when I'm atempting something new, I suffer a bit of the "I'm getting scared syndrome." Paranoia tries to set in.

I think I am about ready to begin now. I've been re-thinking & I might do three partition's after all, because once I fix a space for the MP3's, I don't want it disturbed after that. Not even for scandisk & defrag, unless it's necessary. If I put graphics stuff on the same partition, I will be constantly defragging & scandisking the drive.

So with that in mind, I need a Primary(C), Extended(?), and Logical (?). Yes I am a tad confused again.

I saved all the junk I wanted to save off onto CD's & then deleted what I could off the hard drive that would not interfere with the operations of any programs. I can easily put them back on wherever I want them to live. That way I can more determine how much space I will need for any additional programs I might want to install later on.

I didn't get this question answered, but I guess I can stumble around & find out.

Will let ya know how everything goes.

Thanks again.

 

partitions

I would consider creating an "Extended" partition in the remaining free space AFTER resizeing C drive down to an exceptable size. Then create "Logical" drives on the "Extended" partition for the simple reason explained prior. Goodluck

 

Partition Magic. Ummmmmmmmmmm! Magnifico!

Rancher,

That was, as far as I could see, the default choice of PM to create an extended drive on C. So I went with that. I created two logical drives on the extended partition, the sizes I wanted.
It was so much easier to do than I expected. Of course I used the wizards, since I was unsure of myself, or what to expect. Nothing crashed. I then did thorough Scandisks & Defrags on the two logical partitions, and am in the process of putting files back on where I want them to live.

Everything went great as far as I can tell.

Thanks so much to you & Bmoore both for your support. I really do appreciate you all aleviating some of my paranoia about it.

 

pqm

Hey that's great! Glad we were of help to ya