Should I Partition My Hard Drive

chops018

Hi,

My dad bought a new laptop and it has a 500 gb hard drive, when I was setting it up it gave me the option to partition the hard drive but I went ahead and just chose one drive.

This is because my laptop which I got a year ago which is 320gb has drives c and d and one of them is a recovery drive which only contains about 12 gb. I assumed that the laptop would automatically have a backup drive however this laptop only created drive c, should I get download partition wizard and make a 15 or 20 gb partition myself??

My dad has no need for a partition with regard files as he only uses the laptop for some internet browsing and watching some tv shows and films. But I heard there should be some sort of partition as it is better for a system restore, is this true?? of something happened with the laptop just having a "c" drive would it not be able to have a restore point if something went wrong??

I know he doesn't need all that space haha, but his last laptop was nearly 5 years old and windows xp with a 60gb hard drive, it's some step up. Anyways ay help on whether I should go ahead and make a partition incase of system restore or would it be fine to do a system restore if needed just leaving the c drive??

yoyo

chops018 wrote: »

Hi,

My dad bought a new laptop and it has a 500 gb hard drive, when I was setting it up it gave me the option to partition the hard drive but I went ahead and just chose one drive.

This is because my laptop which I got a year ago which is 320gb has drives c and d and one of them is a recovery drive which only contains about 12 gb. I assumed that the laptop would automatically have a backup drive however this laptop only created drive c, should I get download partition wizard and make a 15 or 20 gb partition myself??

My dad has no need for a partition with regard files as he only uses the laptop for some internet browsing and watching some tv shows and films. But I heard there should be some sort of partition as it is better for a system restore, is this true?? of something happened with the laptop just having a "c" drive would it not be able to have a restore point if something went wrong??

I know he doesn't need all that space haha, but his last laptop was nearly 5 years old and windows xp with a 60gb hard drive, it's some step up. Anyways ay help on whether I should go ahead and make a partition incase of system restore or would it be fine to do a system restore if needed just leaving the c drive??

Your best off not partitioning it, as people tend to use the C:\ drive all the time and it can confuse people telling how to install onto another drive. The reason machines come with two partitions is due to backup software they employ, which duplicates files from the C:\ drive so they can be restored later, it wont protect against a hard drive fail so its pritty useless, system restore that is built in to windows will still work regardless

Nick

chops018

yoyo wrote: »

Your best off not partitioning it, as people tend to use the C:\ drive all the time and it can confuse people telling how to install onto another drive. The reason machines come with two partitions is due to backup software they employ, which duplicates files from the C:\ drive so they can be restored later, it wont protect against a hard drive fail so its pritty useless, system restore that is built in to windows will still work regardless

Nick

Thanks Nick, my dad doesn't do too much damage, but the last laptop he had I restored 3 or 4 times over malware and other viruses that the anti-virus software couln't deal with getting into the laptop.

Was just making sure that you could still do a system restore if anything like this happened as all the laptops I've had and the last laptop my dad had all had C:\ drive with a recovery \ drive. These drives were never used but I thought that they were important if you ever had to restore the computer over something that happened.

yoyo

chops018 wrote: »

Thanks Nick, my dad doesn't do too much damage, but the last laptop he had I restored 3 or 4 times over malware and other viruses that the anti-virus software couln't deal with getting into the laptop.

Was just making sure that you could still do a system restore if anything like this happened as all the laptops I've had and the last laptop my dad had all had C:\ drive with a recovery \ drive. These drives were never used but I thought that they were important if you ever had to restore the computer over something that happened.

You can still do system restore, the partitioning thing is a third party backup application OEMs use, just make sure system restore is turned on

Nick

chops018

yoyo wrote: »

You can still do system restore, the partitioning thing is a third party backup application OEMs use, just make sure system restore is turned on

Nick

Thanks again for the info Nick.. Ill have a look at it later and make sure system restore is on, might not be a bad idea to create a restore point now, he wont have any important files being added so it would be fine to have a restore point now.

johnnybmac

Creating a partition (for your data) is generally a good idea.

However, most people I know usually have a d: drive but don't use it properly (or at all). The partition option is there so you can save your data (usually pictures, music etc.) to a non windows drive in the event that you may have to re-install your operating system. If you do save all of your stuff to the c: drive, a re-install will most likely result in a loss of all of your data...

If you create a partition, there are many tutorials online that can show you how to change the default documents, music, video etc. locations to the new (usually d: ) drive.

As somebody has already said, in the event of HDD failure, a partition will make no difference as you will lose everything regardless...

spider guardian

Partitions can be very useful if you like to reformat your OS partition now and again, but if you have no intention of doing this then isn't really much point in partitioning the drive. It's never a replacement for a good backup policy.

chops018

spider guardian wrote: »

Partitions can be very useful if you like to reformat your OS partition now and again, but if you have no intention of doing this then isn't really much point in partitioning the drive. It's never a replacement for a good backup policy.

johnnybmac wrote: »

Creating a partition (for your data) is generally a good idea.

However, most people I know usually have a d: drive but don't use it properly (or at all). The partition option is there so you can save your data (usually pictures, music etc.) to a non windows drive in the event that you may have to re-install your operating system. If you do save all of your stuff to the c: drive, a re-install will most likely result in a loss of all of your data...

If you create a partition, there are many tutorials online that can show you how to change the default documents, music, video etc. locations to the new (usually d: ) drive.

As somebody has already said, in the event of HDD failure, a partition will make no difference as you will lose everything regardless...

Well to be honest my dad wont be using it to store music or images, just some web surfing and watching films. The specs are probably too good for what he's using it for but laptops for this kind of usage are very cheap.

Also I have already backed up the laptop on an external hard drive and created a restore point for him, so from what ye are saying I see no point in making my own partition for him.

Thanks again for all the input.