Multiple Partitions

[Arcuivie]

I don't know much about partition's myself, just that it may increase system performance, but this just comes from bits and pieces of things I hear from people. What I plan on doing is making a partition for applications, one for photoshop's scratch disk, and of course one which windows runs off of. I wanted to know if this will benefit me in any way, and I would like to know of any free partition programs, if not free a good cheap one.

[Telexen]

It actually decreases performance slightly. Making a seperate partition for each catagory of files you store on the same hard drive offers no more advantage than a folder for each.

[Arcuivie]

I see, thanks again.

[Shawn711]

IMO, I believe if you have a big enough hard drive to make it worth it, it isn't all a bad idea to partition your drive to keep data seperate from Windows files, as if your Windows files become corrupted and you need to format, you can just format the Windows partition, leaving the data intact.......I have a 100 Gig WD hard drive that has approximately 10 Gig for my Windows/applications partition and the balance for my downloads and saved files (installation files, pics, etc.) and have been able to save my data because of the set up. Also, a lot of times, I just defrag my Windows partition which completes a lot faster because of it's smaller size and do my data partition less frequently. If you do it from a clean install, you can set it up with fdisk. For me, it is easier to keep my system running good like this, but that's just my 2 cents .

Shawn

[Telexen]

Let me clerify what I mean, I left it a little foggy.

I too split my single 40gb hard drive in to TWO partitions, one for Windows, and one to save all my files so I don't have to put them somewhere when I format. HOWEVER, setting multiple partitions as an alternative to using folders is really a waste of time.

[Darthgary]

And its also good to have a second partition to install another OS on which I have done with Linux Mandrake. I dont se much of a reason for partitioning other than that.

[paul9]

patition magic is the king of partition programs, but i know that version 5 does not work on win xp/2000. I need to update!!! if you do have linux, then some of the new installers have a good partition/format tool which makes cfdisk easy. at the very least, read partition magics EXCELLENT help files and refer to the glossary to get a better understanding of the practicalities of repartitioning. if you are at all unsure, then back up all of your important data (it's easy to forget something, though) and do it from scratch or you can install your os on a small cheap spare drive and pactice on that a few times until you feel confident. remember to take out your proper drive BEFORE you plug in the spare, 'coz you can render your os pretty much unbootable if you make a mistak with the jumpers/fdisk etc.