Help on Partitioning Hard Drive

[Bmw]

Hey,

 

 

 

Well, I know I should have done it sooner, but I've just now thought of it. I've decided to Partition my hard drive, to keep everything safe and organized in their own drives, just in case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, all my files and programs are installed, so will moving them to a different partition cause them to become inactive? I want to create a partition for my OS, and a partition for my files. So I basically want my OS to be on a separate partition. Along with that, I'm dividing the files into two partitions, one with only My Documents, one with Programs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If I now move all my programs from Local C Disk to my new partition, drive F, will my programs still work? Will everything remain intact/installed?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And how would I go about separating my OS from my files, in the means of a partition, using PartitionMagic?

 

 

 

Thanks a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bmw

[Ixl_Jj_Ixl]

umm, i was installin xp on my comp and i partitioned the drive i think, and u can find the stuff but its inactive. it doesnt show up on ur control panel, such as add/remove programs etc. but u can still access it. and just drag and drop i guess

[____]

ah, shortcuts won't work anymore I don't think.

 

 

 

And registry references to files will have to be updated.

 

 

 

That's possibly the only problems I can see.

[Bmw]

Hmm, will a simple program in Norton System works clean out and properly update the registry?

[Legolover64]

Start from scratch, you'll waste a lot less time if you do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use Symantec Ghost for hard drive stuff...

[Bmw]

Hmm, care to explain a bit? Sorry, thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bmw

[Bmw]

What I meant to say was, that if rick only mentioned shortcuts and registry being altered, why would it be simpler to re do the entire computer?

[Bmw]

:oops: Still not sure then. Should I go ahead and just move files, or backup and redo properly? Ahhh! Help please!

[Chris]

If you create a new partition you'd be best uninstalling any programs that you want moved then reinstalling them to F: or whatever it'll be instead of C:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although I reckon the best idea has already been said, just start from scratch, that would allow you to set up the partition on windows setup and let you have your partitions as C: + D:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a similar set up but it's alot safer as I have two physical drives, I have Windows and all my programs/games on my primary hardrive and I store all My Documents on my secondary hardrive. Benefit of a set up like that allows me to keep it organised and if my primary hardrive fails (most likely as it's used ALL the time) I'll still have My Documents (which have taken me 5+ years to save up). Soon I'll be RAID'ing my secondary drive aswell but I'll not get into that. :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In short I'm saying you should just go out and buy another mid sized HDD like 80 - 120GB and use that for files like Music/Movies/School Work. Continue using your primary hardrive for windows and programs though.

[Looce]

You can resize the C: partition in PartitionMagic and create another one beside it, called D:. Then, move all documents to a folder on D: and update the My Documents shortcut location (on the desktop, right-click on My Documents, select Properties, and change the path from C:\blahblah to D:\the_folder_you_just_created).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This, however, is tricky. You must not move any files whose path is referenced directly by programs. It'd be better to just backup your data, reformat, partition and install your operating system and programs again.

 

 

 

_________

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To resize a partition in PartitionMagic just drag the right edge of the partition, as you would to resize a window in Windows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[_______C]<->

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[_____C]<->[Free]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then create a partition in the free space.