Hard Drive Partitions... WHY?

[maverickr62]

ive heard from various people that partitioning a hard drive is a good idea.... but i havent a clue why. can anyone shed some light on this for me please.

thanx  ;)

[JBaymore]

HI. In case no one has said it yet....... welcome to SimV.

My understanding of it is that first of all.... the seek time is reduced because the drive is "smaller".

[4_Series_Scania]

If you need to ask how to partition, then I'd steer well clear of attempting it yourself (using F-Disk etc)

Instead, buy Partition Magic 8 by Powerquest.

I use it to divide my 80GB HD into 4 drives, one just for CFS1,2,3 & FS 02 & 09.

Edit, it seems powerquest are no more, the product you now want, is "Symantec

[Skittles]

ive heard from various people that partitioning a hard drive is a good idea.... but i havent a clue why. can anyone shed some light on this for me please.

JBaymore is correct. In addition to what he mentioned, I partition my drives so I can conduct a complete format/re-install of Windows without loosing anything else. Partitioning also helps with avoiding huge disaster. If one part of my drive's disk is scratched, I only loose what's in that partition.

Partitioning is not required to get good performance. I have several HDDs in my machine. On disk #0 (my best drive), I have the operating system. On disk #1 I have my swap file. This is the virtual memory Windows insists on having. On drive #2 I have my Flight Sim. My first two drives are double partitioned, only meaning I have two parts. on the drives.

That's about it for the benefits of partitioning.

[maverickr6]

ok, so on a clean install and format.... how much should i alloctae to run fs9 and cfs3???? will be on a 80gb hdd

[congo]

Partitioning tricks the PC into thinking a single hard drive is multiple drives.

The operating system is placed on C: drive as normal. (C: drive being the Boot Partition)

C: partition needs to be large enough for the operating system (Windows) and any programs or additional files you intend on storing there.

Other partition/partitions can be used to install programs to as well, and they are useful for the orderly storing of anything you want to keep safe, isolating your precious data from a corrupt C: drive / operating system, which may have been caused by a virus or buggy program, or user error.

Here is an example of how partitioning can be an absolute must..........

I mostly fly 3 different flight simulators. Each simulator has addons and patches that I have painstakingly collected over the years, some of it is not replaceable. I also have contacts, communication programs, IP addresses etc. for use with those programs.

I have re-installed my system a ridiculous amount of times due mostly to extensive experimentation.......
but I am still using my original 3 year old installation of Combat Flight Simulator - 2 for instance with it's myriad of complex addons. (many of these addons were modified and are not replaceable)

I also have a lot of diagnostic software, spyproofing software and other system drivers and utils that I want to keep safe and sound.

All my Music is on a seperate partition as are all the photos picture etc one collects over the years.

The list goes on....... My favorites, collected over years, programs individual settings are all saved and safe on my extended partitions.

Partitioning is not fail safe, a hard drive can malfunction and you can lose everything at any stage, but , thats nowhere near as likely as losing your system partition.

I actually have 2 large hard drives and periodically back up my entire system to the second drive for failsafe data storage.

[congo]

Depending on how many addons you intend on having, I found 20gb was a bit lacking for FS9, as the addons are quite large and numerous, CFS3 shouldn't need to be that large, but hey, you don't need a seperate partition for them all.

A C: drive of 30gb is plenty large enough to hold windows, office, and a few other mainstream programs as well as having a few gb left over for large transfer operations.

[maverickr62]

thanx for the info so far....... seems as though im goona put a 120gb in.....how does this sound....

c: 30gb for windows etc
d: 30gb for fs9 & cfs3 (i dont use many add ons just fly for fun)
e: 60gb for rest of my stuff like music and photos

so when i do my clean install and format i just set the harddrive values and haey presto.

a for instance, i use roxio for my music and photo editor...... i would load this onto the 'e' drive???

[congo]

Sounds ok, You could load your Roxio and photo editor to C:/program files as normal, they aren't huge programs.

I actually just copy my entire program files folder to my safe drive. If I re-format and re-install, I can grab the majority and copy them back to my new C: drive where they will happily run just fine, without actually running the installation programs again. You could just leave them anywhere and make shortcuts to them if you wanted.

It's just a matter of personal preference how you set it all up.

Remember, If you boot from the WinXP disc, it will give you all your formatting and partitioning options, it's not difficult, it's fast and can be done again easily if you make a mistake or change your mind about partition sizes.

The WinXP setup options for disk management are a huge imrovement over past methods, and no other software is required.

I can't remember the exact details, but I had some trouble creating FAT32 partitions instead of NTFS partitions using the WinXP setup. I overcame that somehow.

[Skittles]

That sounds good. One thing I would like to add in case anybody else does this type of thing.

I have an external HDD connected via USB. When I use my partition software, it detects the USB drive and assigns it to "C". I lost five years worth of files by not knowing this. IF YOU ARE UNSURE, BE SURE TO DISCONNECT ANY USB HDDs BEFORE PARTITIONING!!! After formatting etc. Windows then assigns the USB HDDs letters after the installed HDDs and CD-ROMs etc.

For further info, the drive assignments. When adding partitions, some people get confused about which partition becomes which drive.

Depending on how many HDDs you have installed, the primary partitions are assigned first. HDD#0=C, HDD#1=D etc. Then the extended partitions are assigned in order of HDD#.


For example: Three HDDs with three partitions each...
HDD#0=C (Primary partition)
ExtPart1=F (extended Partition)
ExtPart1=G (extended Partition)

HDD#1=D (Primary partition)
ExtPart1=H (extended Partition)
ExtPart1=I (extended Partition)

HDD#2=E (Primary partition)
ExtPart1=J (extended Partition)
ExtPart1=K (extended Partition)

Personnaly, I discourage installing programs to the PROGRAM FILES directory. The Windows Partition will have enough on it's plate. I install all "programs" to a partition outside of the Windows HDD.

[maverickr62]

thanx guys..... that is wicked. i have one lst question though..... it is mentioned about FAT32 & NTFS.... whats that about then??

[maverickr62]

i just had a thought....... i have a 20gb hdd already in the machine that iw as re-placing with a 120gb one. can i have two and just have the second for my sims???? would i simply just adjust the sizes on the first one and the second will be ok.

ie.
HDD#0=C  (Primary partition)   30gb
ExtPart1=F (extended Partition) 90gb


HDD#1=D (Primary partition) 20gb

then all i gotta remember is 'D' = Sim drive!!

[congo]

It's a different data format, or rather, the way data is stored on the drive. NTFS theoretically will store more data on a given drive than a FAT32, and NTFS is supposed to be more secure against hackers. Sometimes there can be compatibility issues between the two, where an operating system or otherwise may not read or recognise an NTFS partition. This problem usually creeps up unexpectedly while mixing hardware from different machines during diagnostics or file interchange.

[congo]

Why not just leave the 20gig drive as C: and add the second drive?

[maverickr62]

yeah, i could do that... save pissing about!

then just split the second drive formy sims and my other work.

thanx again.