Windows 7 What partitions do you have?

[skeldon]

What partitions do you have what size and why???


i have 3 on a 320gb hdd 1 at 50gb (win 7) 1 at 25 (xp) and the rest with all my stuff on there pics films anything to be kept safe.

 

[djwayne]

I have 1 partition on three seperate hard drives each. I don't like partitions, and just use the whole drive as one big partition.
This is because I have had nothing but trouble with them in the past. I go to re-format one partition and it would goof up the other one. So I keep it simple, one big partition for each drive.

I only keep one drive plugged in at a time. This isolates my drives from the possibility of a virus attack or if one drive crashes, I can be back in business in about two minutes.

Doing it this way works well for me. Less headaches.

 

[jimbo45]

In theory you are right -- But 2 exceptions
1) Dual / Triple / Quadruple boot Boot --Each OS needs to be kept in a separate partition.
2) even if you have 1 OS only it's ALWAYS better to separate the OS from User Data, music, multimedia etc.Since even a bloted W7 install won't take much more than 25 - 30 GB then if you have a large hard disk (these days 750GB or even 1TB is not uncommon) then it makes sense to partition the drive into say 50GB for the OS and leave the rest for data etc.

If you have to restore / re-install the OS you don't lose anything else on the other partition.

I'm not sure how formatting one partition if it's done correctly can goof up the other one.
cheers
jimbo

 

[hammydown]

I have a quad boot system on a single 320 GB HDD. I have four seperate partitions on that hard drive. I have never had any problems with quad booting. I agree with jimbo45 on this one. I cant see how anything would affect the other partitions on the hard drive unless you tried to manually make changes to the other hard drive.

 

[djwayne]

I'm not sure how it happened either, but my experience with computers is that sometimes they do unexpected things.
It just seems everytime I try partitions, I have nothing but trouble with them or the disk.

 

[hammydown]

explain a situation where you have had trouble in the past?

 

[djwayne]

Well this goes back years ago, I don't remember the details, and it might have even been with Windows ME, but I would have trouble with the installation if I tried partitions. I was having a lot of problems and it turned out Norton Anti-Virus was conflicting with my music production programs, they would work fine until I'd install Norton, then poof, my OS would become corrupted. So I'd have to re-install everything from scratch. So I'd try installing my OS one one partition, and direct another partition to save my music files. This would work for a short while and then slowly deteriorate. So I'd be back re-installing the OS over again. I'd try to reformat one partition and the whole disk would get erased. This also happened to me while having two hard drives plugged in at the same time. I'd go to reformat one, and both would get erased. I'm sure I was doing something wrong, but I don't know what it was. So since then, I tried everything on one partition, and that worked fine for me, as my music programs could find my saved files much easier. I learned not to depend on a partition for a back up file, because that could become corrupt too.

Doing it this way, I have less headaches, and my programs work just fine.

 

[Radenight]

On my main PC which gets used the most.. I have 1 Seagate 160GB SATA2 HDD, and 1 Seagate 500GB SATA2 HDD.. The 160GB has 2 partitions on it.. 1st: (100GB) Windows 7 Build 7022 32bit 2nd: (50GB) Games Partition (ALL my games are installed here, this one's size gets changed constantly though)... The 500GB has 3 Partitions on it.. 1st (83GB) Windows XP PRO SP3 - 2nd: (362GB) Storage Partition (ALL my personal files are on this partition and are backed up nightly).. 3rd: (20GB) Windows 7 PageFile...

I did have Vista on the 500GB also but i recently deleted all partitions on both drives and started completely fresh on this PC. I still use Vista on my secondary PC.. I also constantly shrink partitions and make some bigger than they started out as but this is the most current setup I have on my main PC.. As for why it's setup this way? Well I guess just because it works the best for my particulair needs/uses on this PC... Having a seperate partition for games has always been a good idea to me, it just makes sense.. and having the Windows 7 PageFile (or Vista if applicable) on a seperate partition/drive is also just a good idea.. it increases performance drastically in my opinion... The personal files being on their own partition is a no brainer.. And that just leaves the 2 OS's on seperate partitions.. which I really don't think I need to explain why..

 

[davehc]

I,m wasteful. Through repeated installations, I found that, even with my software installed, my average hard disk use, with Vista or 7, was less than 20GBs.
To allow for contingencies, I gave myself Four partitions of 40Gbs each. I have Vista 64, Windows 7:64 and 32, and, For my grand chldrens visits! XPPro 32bit. On two hard disks I have 320 gbs. Well, not my choice, it came with my main computer.
When my grandchildren visit, they downoad (innocent, I hope!) games. They are, after all computer wise with a top age of 9yrs - lol. These are easily accomodated on all that extra space, where they have another partition for that purpose.
I would be happy to ease out on the space, but I am very image concious, and smaller partitions make for faster backup and restore..
Fwiw. I have never had crossover problems, with partitioning.problems

 

[Joe S]

I've used partitions for a long time. This computer has a 750 gig HD. I've got VMware workstation on c so I used about 136 gig there and the rest for data. When I installed Win 7 I made a 40 gig partition from the data partition. I've reformatted and reinstalled on XP with no problems.
Joe

 

[semper]

just a quick clarification;
as long as i dont install an OS on a partition (say i keep it for data -pics etc) then i can access it from ANY OS thats installed on other partitions?

and what about programs that compatible with multiple OSes, with the ones that are compatible with them be able to run them if they are stored on a different partition?

thanks

 

[Radenight]

Yes Semper, you will be able to access the data partition from ANY OS.. and to run apps you'll have to install them on each OS.. you can store the setup files on any partition and install them from it but you have to install the app on each OS..

 

[semper]

correct me if i didnt understand the last part of your answer correctly;
so if install microsoft word on vista and win7 then i will have to install it twice no matter what in order to run it on both OSes?

 

[ickymay]

personally for compatibilities sake i tend to only run a program from the same partition as whichever operating system I am using, so outlook in office would exist on the same partition as the OS

my setup has been the same now for about 6 years since I gave up backups to cd/dvd and although I have moved up from 3 different hard drives the partitions have remained the same but are now larger

I have four partitions all primary on a 500gb drive :

partition C is where my boot ini lives and my latest stable system currently Vista 64 bit. (currently 146gb)
partition D is where ALL my data lives and executables to my favourite programs with files that go back 6 years (currently 146gb)
partition E is where my ISOs live (currently 105gb)
partition H is my test partition where my latest test OS lives which is windows 7 atm (currently 66gb)

unless my hard drive fails I have never had a non recoverable situation , and the only time using partitions has become an issue was when I foolishly made them all dynamic and formatting one managed to destroy the others

I recovered by installing xp on an old drive then used power data recovery to get back all my data and ISOs

 

[Radenight]

correct me if i didnt understand the last part of your answer correctly;
so if install microsoft word on vista and win7 then i will have to install it twice no matter what in order to run it on both OSes?

Yes you will have to reinstall whatever app on each OS for it to work, you can't just install an app to a partition and expect it to work in each OS.. the only way that works is if the app only has an .exe file and no installation is needed.. like cpu-z for example, that app you can put on a partition and run it from any OS without having to install it... But for Office, yes you have to physically install it on each OS.. and as ickymay said, having the app on the same partition as the OS is a good way to have things setup..

 

[jefins]

3 hard drives. 20GB+80GB+320GB. 20GB - XP, (80GB) 30 GB - vista/30GB - win 7/rest - data, 320 GB - data.
Also one 15GB drive with ubuntu, but it's unplugged at this moment.

 

[semper]

cool thanks for that info

 

[jefins]

Yes you will have to reinstall whatever app on each OS for it to work, you can't just install an app to a partition and expect it to work in each OS.. the only way that works is if the app only has an .exe file and no installation is needed.. like cpu-z for example, that app you can put on a partition and run it from any OS without having to install it... But for Office, yes you have to physically install it on each OS.. and as ickymay said, having the app on the same partition as the OS is a good way to have things setup..

I don't agree. I have a "programs" folder on my Local Disk( E: ) where are M$ office, opera, skype, winpatrol, and much more applications that works on both vista( C: ) and win 7( I: ). I don't have to reinstall them every time, they saves all data on different folders and everything works fine. I think that's because hardware are the same, only OS's are different.

 

[ickymay]

I don't agree. I have a "programs" folder on my Local Disk( E: ) where are M$ office, opera, skype, winpatrol, and much more applications that works on both vista( C: ) and win 7( I: ). I don't have to reinstall them every time, they saves all data on different folders and everything works fine. I think that's because hardware are the same, only OS's are different.

do you mean folders , or do you actually mean partitions

 

[jefins]

Partitions.
I have 5 partitions right now.
C: Win Vista
D: Win XP ( i don't know why it shows as D not C)
E: Data
I: Win 7
H: Data

That folder - programs is on E:. I installed M$ office on XP long time ago and then moved that installation to that folder on E:. When i first time opened M$ office on vista/win 7, it installed all settings, all data folders and everything works great. i don't have to wait for configuration every time, it just opens with all settings that i have on current os.