garmanma Posted March 10, 2007 Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 I'm installing a 100 gig ATA hard drive on my daughter's computer. They're using XP. All they do is email, websurf, store pictures, and play Sims. It will never be a dual-boot. My question is why partition the drive? If the drive goes bad, it will damage both partitions anyways, Won't it?Mark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Sir_Siddy Posted March 10, 2007 Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 (edited) I like to have two partitions because one when I reformat I dont lose all my data which is one the second drive. Also by using a second partition and using that partition to download things to, your main C partition does not become as fragmented and therefore you can read data from that partition slightly faster.Im not sure exactly about that second one. If anybody else is around to prove me wrong then please go ahead. Edited March 10, 2007 by Sir_Siddy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TheTerrorist_75 Posted March 10, 2007 Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 On a large drive I always partition it. It goes much faster defragging sya a 40GB partition than 100GB. If the OS becomes corrupted you don't have to worry about losing your documents, pictures and etc. if they are on a separate partition. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
garmanma Posted March 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 OK, another simple question. I have her important stuff backed up to CD except for her Sims backup files. That's 3 friggin Gigs. The computer has a 2nd hard drive, 13 gig. It's empty and XP recognizes the drive. How do I put My Documents on that drive? When I right click and select "send to", I'm not offered that option. I also might have to transfer everything related to Simms on that drive because I can't find the product keys to reinstall those games. The file and transfer wizard doesn't seem to be the ticketMark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
martymas Posted March 10, 2007 Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 does the mbr operate the same way in partitioning.for your data ectas partitioning with another sys in a dual boot?it is some thing i always need help with an example i dual booted when i first installed ubuntu i mabe a mistake of not noting the sys password so i had to go to disk management and delete those partitions and as a result i couldnt get back into windowso i had to reset the mbrsent in by some from some one on the boardis there a way round this? does the sys operate like this when youuse the partition for local content/im not thaty good at partitioning is there tutor on partitioning your drive in the stickies ?like marki have troubles with partitioningi think mark and i arnt the only ones many do not know how to do it properlygood luck mark and i will be watching this thread closelymarty Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JSKY Posted March 10, 2007 Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 garmanma.....Moving My Documents Folder:The ‘My Documents’ folder invariably ends up as the default repository of files for most Windows applications. Over a period of time, this folder starts bloating, and this; to a certain extend results in performance degradation. It might be a good idea to move the target location of the ‘My Documents’ folder to some other partition on the hard drive, or to a different drive.To do so, right click on ‘My Documents’, and on the ‘Target’ tab, click on ‘Move’. In the subsequent dialog box, browse to the drive where you want to move the folder. Then click ‘Make New Folder’ to create a new folder, and name it appropriately. Click ‘Apply’ and then ‘Yes’. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
garmanma Posted March 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 Thanks guys, figured it out and it's in the process of transfering now. Would moving the games be the same process?Mark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted March 10, 2007 Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 (edited) OK, another simple question. I have her important stuff backed up to CD except for her Sims backup files. That's 3 friggin Gigs. The computer has a 2nd hard drive, 13 gig. It's empty and XP recognizes the drive. How do I put My Documents on that drive? When I right click and select "send to", I'm not offered that option. I also might have to transfer everything related to Simms on that drive because I can't find the product keys to reinstall those games. The file and transfer wizard doesn't seem to be the ticketMarkIf you goto my computer, the second hardrive should be there. Just goto c:\documents and settings\username, then just copy the "my documents" folder, then paste the folder to your other harddrive.As to copying the sims game, you won't be able to do that. The problem is the sims is not just installed to the programs directory, but also is dependnet on the registy settings the installer made. I suppose in theory, you could tranfere all of the registry setting pertaining to the game, but that is not practical, and would take many hours(days) of research.If the system still boots, run a program like belarc advisor, it may have the sims key saved for you.I have never used this program, so I don't know if it is ridden with spyware, but it listed sims as a program it recovered the key for youhttp://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/11/24/d...eyfinder-thing/ Edited March 10, 2007 by shanenin Quote Link to post Share on other sites
garmanma Posted March 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2007 The key generator at my digital life found 4 of them. My daughter found 3. I got one to go. I tried about 4 different ones. I'll try Belarc in a while. At least I got her to start cleaning up some Mark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
garmanma Posted March 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 One more dumb question. After I install and partition the drive will the computer re-assign all the drive letters or will I have to do that manually?ThanksMark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted March 11, 2007 Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 The computer will do it automatically. JSKY had a good suggestion, make sure you link your "my documents" directoery to the new partition. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
garmanma Posted March 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 The computer will do it automatically. JSKY had a good suggestion, make sure you link your "my documents" directoery to the new partition.Got that done. Getting ready to load XP as we speak. I know I'm answering 1/2 my questions. It's just you read so many horror stories, I need to be reassured that I can't screw it up I'm leaving the 2nd HD disconnected until everything is in place. Hope that's OKMark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted March 11, 2007 Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 good idea about removing the hardrive, no chance of screwing up. You don't need yo link the my documents until after you reinstall. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
garmanma Posted March 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2007 Well it looks like it's going to have to wait awhile. I went to plug the new IDE cable to the motherboard and discovered the heatsink retention base broke with the heatsink flopping on the board. I'm surprised it didn't fry the CPU. That was a waste of a beautiful day Mark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CurlingSteve Posted March 13, 2007 Report Share Posted March 13, 2007 One more thought on partitioning that new drive.If everything they run fits in half (50GB), I'd partition it into 2 50GB hunks.I'd use the second hunk to store backups (I prefer Ghost image backups).Then if they crash the first partition, the second is available for restoration (after booting a recovery CD).The second (image storage) partition can (I think) easily be hidden from "everyday use".My Dell XPS has 3 partitions (Diagnostics, Main, and Recovery) with only the Main visible during normal operation. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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