h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How do i add another partition to my hard drive. Right now i only have the C: disk and the cd drive D: I would like to have at least two partitions...but how do i do that?

It depends on which operating system you're using and whether or not you want to keep or lose your data.

1) Back up all valuable data that might get lost in the process, including any programs or applications you've downloaded and don't have on CD or floppy.

2) Buy Partition Magic. It's an application that guides you through the partitioning process. When the partitions have been created, it automatically 'renames' any existing partitions. So the main partition will still be C, the new ones will be D and E, and the CD drive will be 'renamed' to F.

There are other partitioning programs, but I'm recommending Partition Magic because I know it's good. As Ronseal would say, "It does exactly what it says on the tin!"

Be *very* careful even with Partition Magic though.

I used it on a Packard Bell I bought and it knackered the computer completely.
It had a 'special' back up partition that was invisible normally and was corrupted when partition magic decided to 'repair' it.
I had to do a low level format of the hard drive to get back on track and of course this restored the system to where I started.

This has encouraged me to never buy a branded PC again. Generic PC's are much easier as they have no added on 'handy' stuff that cause more problems than they solve. plus they come with all the manuals you should need.

>>I had to do a low level format of the hard drive to get back on track and of course this restored the system to where I started.<<

After I'd reinstalled the software that came with it of course

I guess that's where I'm lucky. The people who made my PC didn't do anything fancy with it, and when I replaced the hard drive it was completely clean anyway.

What's the use or advantage of having partitions on your harddrive? (assume I know nothing about partitions when you answer )

YOu can have different operating systems on different partitions, not a good idea to have more than one on the same disk as I'm led to believe.

If one partition gets infected with a virus you need only wipe that partition and not lose the data on others.

There are other advantages but you need someone more knowledgeable than me for them. I believe they were of more use when hard disks were less than the massive behemoths they are now. Not sure why though.

The original reason for partitioning a hard drive was limitations of the FAT16 file system. The larger the partition, the more inefficiently it stored data. Also, FAT16 had a limit of a 2GB partition because of 16-bit addressing. With FAT32, this inefficiency doesn't start until 8GB and even then it's small. With FAT16 it started at 512MB; a 1GB partition could have up to a third of its disk space wasted.

Modern reasons for partitioning include:

Keeping things simple. I use my C drive for Windows and for things that *have to* be on the C drive. Everything else goes on other dedicated partitions.
Have a separate partition for your swap file.
Have a separate partition for temporary files.
Crashes and viruses have less impact.
You can have different operating systems on the same PC.

These and other reasons are discussed in detail here: http://aumha.org/a/parts.php

>>YOu can have different operating systems on different partitions, not a good idea to have more than one on the same disk as I'm led to believe.<<

Does that mean that a partition = a disc?


>>>
The original reason for partitioning a hard drive was limitations of the FAT16 file system. The larger the partition, the more inefficiently it stored data. Also, FAT16 had a limit of a 2GB partition because of 16-bit addressing. With FAT32, this inefficiency doesn't start until 8GB and even then it's small. With FAT16 it started at 512MB; a 1GB partition could have up to a third of its disk space wasted.
<<<

I don't really understand any of that. Are you saying that splitting a harddrive into smaller parts means that the information is stored more economicaly?

>>>
Keeping things simple. I use my C drive for Windows and for things that *have to* be on the C drive. Everything else goes on other dedicated partitions.
<<<

I'm on a mac, so don't really know what a C drive is (although I've seen it on Windows computers). Macs have a System Folder which is where all the ...system stuff goes. Is that what the C drive is? And what is the advantage of it being on a separate partition? Is that to protect it from viruses etc? Any other reasons.


<<<
Have a separate partition for your swap file.
<<<

What's a swap file?


>>>
Have a separate partition for temporary files.
<<<

Why?


The link gives a good general definition of what a partitiion is The rest I can't really follow because I'm not familiar enough with windows. I'll go look for something mac specific.

Firstly, a partition is what it says. It's part of a disk. For example, I have a 40Gb hard drive. So far I've split it into 6 2Gb partitions. More will follow as the existing partitions get filled.

"Are you saying that splitting a harddrive into smaller parts means that the information is stored more economicaly?"
In the old days, yes. The limitations of addressing on a FAT16 file system meant that data had to be split into blocks. The maximum 16-bit value is 65535. On a 512Mb hard drive, this makes the blocks 8Kb in size. On a 1Gb hard drive, the blocks would be twice as big. If your files aren't an exact multiple of the block size, whatever's left over is wasted space. For example, let's say you have a lot of 1 Kb text files. Using FAT16 on a 512Mb hard drive, that's 7Kb of wasted space for every file because you can only have one file per block. Using FAT32, the maximum value is 4294967295. Obviously block sizes are smaller.

"I'm on a mac, so don't really know what a C drive is (although I've seen it on Windows computers). Macs have a System Folder which is where all the ...system stuff goes. Is that what the C drive is? And what is the advantage of it being on a separate partition? Is that to protect it from viruses etc? Any other reasons."
In the old days, computers had up to 2 floppy disk drives. These were drives A and B, presumably so named from the days when computers didn't have hard drives. When hard drives became standard on computers, the next letter available was 'C', so that became the letter for the hard drive. Back then, drives weren't partitioned, so any other drives (e.g. CD drives, external drives) took the next letter on. If you were on a network, the network 'drives' (usually just a directory on a server) could take any letter of the alphabet the system manager cared to assign. Even on partitioned hard drives, C is still the place where 'system stuff' goes. The advantage of putting it on a separate system is not to protect it from viruses, as the system files are the ones most frequently targeted by viruses. Putting the system stuff on a separate partition protects everything else from viruses.

Sorry, yes, I meant partition, not disk.

>what's a swap file.

This is what is used for your computer's virtual memory. To get the most benefit out of it, it ideally needs to be in a separate physical drive rather than on a same/separate partition on the same physical drive, it's sliglty more efficient getting a one drive to read and another to write at the same time than it is expecting one to do it all. Also file fragmentation could come into play if it was in the same partition (see below).

>>Have a separate partition for temporary files.
>Why?

Temporary files by their very nature aren't there for very long, and often lead to file fragmentation. Normally files are put in the first empty clusters the computer comes across. If for some reason there's a filled cluster in the way it has to append the remaining clusters at the next free cluster along. Therfore the files get split up and read time is increased. Personally I wouldn't bother with a separate partition for temporary files, I'd just regularly do a disk defrag routine.

Thanks everyone, I think I get it now.

ok, partition magic 8.0 magically appeared next to my bed whilst i slept and i installed it...it gave an error...could i have a hidden recovery partition? and how do i make it visible?

(i know, im a total n00bzor) and i'm running xp sp2

What was the error? Did Partition Magic appear complete with documentation, or was it just the basic CD? If you have the documentation, errors messages and solutions should be listed in the User Guide. If you just have the application, try http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/pmagic/ for help.

If you want it, you can download the manual from http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/pmagic/pmagic_8_info_man.html