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fmueller
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fmueller
223 Posts
14 Jul 2006, 4:03pm

Drive Partitioning

I hope this is in the right forum. Sorry if it's not, and moderators please feel free to move it to a more appropriate place.

OK, some years back when I set up my current machine (a Pentium III with 256MB RAM) my brother, who is the computer expert in the family, recommended for me to partition my 30GB hard drive into 3 parts:

C: only for system files, 2GB
D: can't even remember the purpose, 8GB
E: for all of my programs and documents, 20GB

At the time he claimed that software was available to change the size of these partitions at a later stage without any trouble. However, when I eventually realized that the C: drive was a little small, my brother advised that he had by now actually tried out this software on his own system, with the result of a total data loss on all partitions of his drive

I have been battling on for some years, and gradually moved everything away from C: that's no absolutley necessary to be on that drive, but now have reached a point were I am stuck with a C: drive that is 94% full, and I can't even defragment it. Any advice what I can do?

I still have plenty of free space on D: and E:. I am running Windows 2000 Professional, and just cleaned up the system from a nasty virus infection with the help of the associated forum here - many thanks! Most of you guys probably think my system should be in a museum by now, but it is still running great for me, and I am reluctant to change anything (eg update to Windows XP) for fear of compatibility problems with some of my ancient hardware - I am running 2 scanners (flatbed and film) as well as two printers (laser and photo ink jet). Also, I have moved with this computer from Australia to the US, and have lost many of the CDs with drivers and installation versions of the software. So I now have the stuff just on the computer, and could not easily re-install it.

One possible solution I have been thinking about would be to buy a new harddrive and install Windows ME, but keep the old harddrive as well with all my old programs and documents. Is there a way that I could I use the programs on the E: partition of the old drive while I am running the machine on Windows ME, ie booted from the new drive, or would I have to re-boot every time I want to use this software?

Many thanks in advance.

Frank
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Armo
Graf Orlok has nothing on me
Armo
2,162 Posts
15 Jul 2006, 5:24pm
installing WinME is a terrible idea, its a watered down verwsion of windows 98. Ive actually seen it blue screen just SITTING there. They way taht programs are "installed" on a machine is they make entries in the systems registries. when you launch a program the computer reads the registry and says "oh firefox is founhd here and it launches with these evrioment variables".

if you install windows again on another driv its not going to have the registry entries for your software which wil make it really difficult to get anything running. you would probably have to reinstall all of the software again to get the entries. now granted there are programs that dont use the registry ata ll and would be immune ot this, but its pretty rare that happens

if you need more partition space on your C:\ i suggest partition magic. it can take free space from other partitions and add it to a different one. so if you have 4 gigs on your D:\ open you can add 2 gigs to the C:\

partition magic is realitivly safe. i have however seen it explode and take out all of the information on a partition, but that was my fault.
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profdlp
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profdlp
21,407 Posts
15 Jul 2006, 5:51pm
Armo said it for me, including in particular his comments regarding WinME (which must have been a practical joke), and Partition Magic (an excellent program).

Anytime you clone a drive or alter partitions on one you should have all your important data backed up on CD/DVD first. My advice would be to buy a bigger HD (new ones are faster, bigger, and far cheaper per GB than they were even a few years ago), then use Partition Magic to clone all your existing partition over to the new drive. Once that is done you can resize each of them in order to take full advantage of the larger available space.

My only word of caution (other than the backups being a must) is that you make sure your motherboard can handle a drive the size of the new one you buy. Some older boards have BIOS limitations and there's no use paying for a 400GB drive if you can only use a fraction of that. If you're really gung ho to get a humongous drive you can always add a relatively inexpensive IDE Controller (some drives come with one) which should take care of things. if you go that route you will want to make sure that the controller card works with Win2K (most do) and that you have a free PCI slot on the MB.
__________________ ---Prof

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Nosferatu
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Nosferatu
510 Posts
15 Jul 2006, 6:00pm
You could also use GParted (free, http://gparted.sourceforge.net) to resize your partitions. To do this you burn a LiveCD and insert it into your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM and reboot.
__________________ E-Bay: n_o_s_f_e_r_a_t_u / Heat: n0sferatu

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Armo
Graf Orlok has nothing on me
Armo
2,162 Posts
15 Jul 2006, 6:04pm
theres also a DOS command called DISKPART which i dont recomend, Partition Magic is awesome, and i havent tried GParted

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d....mspx?mfr=true
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fmueller
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fmueller
223 Posts
15 Jul 2006, 7:53pm
Many thanks for your responses. That last para was meant to say XP - sorry about the confusion. Not sure what I was smoking when I typed ME, since I have never heard anybody say a good word about it.

<-- Windows ME

So you guys reckon Partition Magic is relatively safe? If so, I might give it a try - after a thorough backup of course.

I have however seen it explode and take out all of the information on a partition, but that was my fault.
Armo, would you mind letting us know what you did wrong? I am always keen to learn from other's mistakes rather than making my own
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profdlp
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profdlp
21,407 Posts
15 Jul 2006, 8:14pm
I'm curious about the program Nosferatu mentioned - free is good, in my book.

I've downloaded the files and the iso image. What next?
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fmueller
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fmueller
223 Posts
19 Jul 2006, 11:33pm
Quoting profdlp
I'm curious about the program Nosferatu mentioned - free is good, in my book.
Same here, but that program seems to be designed for users that are a lot nerdier than I am - I can't make heads or tails out of what it says on that site!

On the other hand, I am reluctant to shell out $60 for a program that I will use exactly one time in my life. On eBay Partition Magic seems to sell for as little as $18.95 - see eg item number: 300009246101. I am fairly experienced with eBay (feedback record of 169), but have never used it for software. Do you think the copies of Partition Magic sold there would be alright or is there a catch?

Frank
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profdlp
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profdlp
21,407 Posts
19 Jul 2006, 11:58pm
With eBay there always is the chance of there being a catch. I wouldn't want to discourage you from trying, though.

I'm PM'ing Nosferatu to see if he can come to our assistance.
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Nosferatu
Self-Referentialist
Nosferatu
510 Posts
20 Jul 2006, 12:25am
You need to use a CD burning program to burn the ISO. The ISO is basically a disc-image that creates a linux LiveCD. It is a linux distribution that runs off a CD or DVD and GParted runs inside that.

You can burn ISO's using a number of CD-Burning programs. I use Nero Burning Rom (File > Burn Image or Recorder > Burn Image). Check out this page http://iso.snoekonline.com/iso.htm it has links to a number of free burning programs and instructions on how to burn the ISO. After you've burn the ISO to a CD or DVD, simply stick it in your optical drive and reboot. It should run automatically if your optical drive is before your hard-drive in the boot order in the BIOS.
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profdlp
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profdlp
21,407 Posts
20 Jul 2006, 12:27am
Gotcha on that part, Nosferatu. How do you slipstream the program itself into the ISO image? Since they are two separate downloads I assumed that it wasn't included in the disc image. Am I wrong?

Thanks for the help.
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Nosferatu
Self-Referentialist
Nosferatu
510 Posts
20 Jul 2006, 1:10am
The program itself is contained within the ISO image. You just need to download the ISO image and burn it to a CD. When you reboot with the CD in, everything will start automatically. You just need to download and burn the ISO from http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/g...3.iso?download
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profdlp
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profdlp
21,407 Posts
20 Jul 2006, 7:14pm
Excellent! I'm going to test it out later today.
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fmueller
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fmueller
223 Posts
29 Jul 2006, 1:11am
Just thought I'd report back on the cheap eBay versions of Partition Magic. I bought version 8.0 for $18.95 including shipping. The CD came in a paper sleeve with the serial number printed on it, and the whole thing was shipped in a generic cardboard envelop (no retail box) - to save on shipping charges, according to the auction description.

By now I have installed it, and have re-sized the partitions on my drive. I went from C: 2GB, D: 8GB, E: 20GB to C: 10GB, no more D:, E: 20GB. The process worked flawlessly without any data loss, and has worked wonders for my system!

When I was about to write a rave review about the seller here and on eBay, I received the following official email from eBay (italics inserted by me to blank out my contact detail):

Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 20:50:39 PDT

-----------------------------------------------------------------
eBay sent this message to my name (my eBay name).
Your registered name is included to show this message originated from eBay.
Learn more: http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidenc...id-emails.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------
eBay Listing Removed: (=IB &12480 JM13522646)


-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dear my name (my email address),

Thank you for your bid on the following listing:

Item number: xyz
Title: Norton PartitionMagic 8.0 Partition Magic Free Ship!

Unfortunately, eBay removed this listing because it violated eBay policy. We
hope you understand that, due to privacy concerns, we're unable to discuss the details of this violation.

All bids or offers on this listing have been canceled. Because the listing was
ended, you no longer have any obligation to purchase this item. If the seller
chooses to relist the item, you're welcome to bid on it again.

To learn how you can protect yourself and help ensure a positive buying
experience in the future, please visit:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/buyer_checklist.html

We're sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.


Sincerely,

eBay Trust & Safety
The seller had built up a 100% positive feedback record of 130 since April 06, but is now no longer a registered user. It seems that his beef was not with his buyers...
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profdlp
Off To The Gym
profdlp
21,407 Posts
29 Jul 2006, 4:19am
Odd about the seller. Was the disc you received of the homemade variety, or did it look like a factory-made CD? If the former, he was probably using a keygen to crank out a lot of pirates. If it was a factory CD it may have been an OEM disc, a version designated for a bundle package, or a gray market import. Of course, his removal from eBay could have been totally unrelated to your purchase.

Either way, it sounds like you got the goods and they did the trick for you.
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fmueller
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fmueller
223 Posts
29 Jul 2006, 5:23pm
Quoting profdlp
Odd about the seller. Was the disc you received of the homemade variety, or did it look like a factory-made CD?
CD looks factory-made, ie printed in yellow and black complete with Symantec logo, trademark blurb, and all the rest of it. If it's homemade, the dude must have a special piece of hardware that allows him to print on the CD.

Quoting profdlp
Of course, his removal from eBay could have been totally unrelated to your purchase.
From what I could see, all his eBay transactions seemed to be software sales.

Quoting profdlp
Either way, it sounds like you got the goods and they did the trick for you.
Yep, that's a nice way of looking at it ;-)
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maxwelltf
Icrontic Duke of Haxor
maxwelltf
144 Posts
21 Jan 2007, 11:20pm
Hi there folks - I am about to format a desktop hardrive and start over with winxp following some system corruption that was unrecoverable. question is: should I create a partition (C for the XP OS and a separate parition (D for docs and data? and if so what size should the C: partition be? what are the thoughts on this? the drive is 250GB and I would like to keep as much space for docs and data as possible. also, when I install programs, where do they end up residing - on C: or on D: ? thanks. -max
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fmueller
visit www.fmueller.com
fmueller
223 Posts
22 Jan 2007, 1:36am
I am usually the one asking questions around here, not answering them, but since you posted in my thread, let me give you my 2c. In my experience there isn't really any advantage of partitioning your HD to have system files in one area and data in the other. If you choose the system partition too large you forever wasted space and if you choose it too small it's a pain in the neck in the long run - as you can see from my experience above.

If you choose to go this route anyhow, it's totally up to you if you want the programs with the system or the data - this will largely determine though how large you have to make the partitions, since obviously the programs can take up lots of space. Keep in mind, that next to every Windows program nowadays defaults to installation in C:/Program Files. If that's were you have your programs, it's very convenient. If you have them anywhere else, you need to figure out how to do things differently every single time you install a program. It can be done - I did it for years - but when I recently upgraded my machine sure as heck I opted for one huge C: drive with programs in C:/Program Files

HTH

Frank
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profdlp
Off To The Gym
profdlp
21,407 Posts
22 Jan 2007, 1:52am
I'm with Frank on this.

The exception would be in a case where you had a lot of mp3's (or whatever) and wanted them to have their own little spot on the drive. That makes things like sharing them across a home network simpler, since all you have to do is share the entire drive letter.

Of course, the same words of caution Frank gave about running into problems should the partition become full still apply.
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Pterocarpous
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Pterocarpous
1,157 Posts
22 Jan 2007, 2:06am
In the old days, I used to install the OS on one partition, the apps on another and then the data on still another partition. I quit installing the apps and OS on seperate partitions years ago because they have become so entangled (apps w/ the OS) that it really serves no purpose or has no benefit any more.

I have, however, continued to keep ALL of my data COMPLETELY isolated away from my primary partition (where the OS and apps reside). This is particularly useful towards protecting my data. It's also convenient when I need to restore a previous hard drive image or make significant changes to my primary partition. I don't have to spend ANY time going through the current build and pulling out my data B4 making the change(s) to the primary partition. IOW, In this way, may data stays intact even though I've made significant changes to or even completely replaced my primary partition. It also means that, even in the event of a system crash () my data is safe and sound on a seperate partition.

In addition, I run multi-boot systems that share the same data. I have ea. build configured to use the same data on the same partition as the other OS build. In this way, my data stays consistant from one build to the next even though the apps. installed and OS may vary significantly.

So, while segregating the OS and apps. my have little or no benefit anymore, isolating your data away from your primary partition where your OS and apps reside can have significant benefits - one of which being protecting your data. (this doesn't in any way replace backing up your data! you still need to backup your data on a regular and frequent basis...)
__________________ Pterocarpous [a.k.a. Fruitwing the Southern Belle Gal Tech "Hey ya'll!!"]

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Pterocarpous edited : 22 Jan 2007 at 2:18am .
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