Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

What does it involve? Is it worth doing? Pros and cons? Is it easy for a numptie (me) to do or should I leave it for a pro? (<----offers of help to my email addy please... )

This is a brand new pc and having just seen my sister lose everything on her hard drive I wondered whether I should take steps to avoid a similar situation.

Cheers

Sal

Dracoro

It may not solve the problem your sister had. How did she lose all her data? If the hard-disk goes terminally **** up then you lose your data whether there's one partition or 20!.

Best thing to do is take regular backups onto CD or guy a 2nd hard-drive and backup to that.

You can make things a 'bit' safer by partitioning but it's no substitute to physically having a copy of the data somewhere else.

Partitioning isn't *really* difficult (but it's not a 2/3 click type task either!) to do but it is handy to have some appreciation of the technical side of things. If you're really new to doing this sort of thing then do your research (which is what I assume you are doing with this thread ) and make sure you know all the steps.

lightning101

Partitioning is very simple even without specialist software.


Just right click on MYCOMPUTER, then MANAGE, then right click on the harddrive you want to partition and type in the amount e.g. 65,000mb for 65 gb.

If you use Partition Magic software its even easier and can be used LIVE with multiple operating systems etc.

lightning101

Sorry dracoro, same time post.


Would think if its just data you worried about, use a DVD writer and Norton Ghost to backup the entire partition, that way if it goes **** up you can resore as everthing back to you settings and with all your files. WOuld advise you to do this after installing, as windows gets pretty big when you add in Office, Utilities and data, but multiple DVD images can be used.

Dracoro

I see from lightning101's post that it's easier nowadays!
(I really must keep up ) I'm used to doing the fdisk route for setting up a partition for linux etc.

lighning101 - I think you've missed a step. mycomputer/manage then what? click on Disk Management? I've selected a disk via this route but no option to put in a partition amount. What do you right click on?

lightning101

Yep got to disk management, then right click on the new Hard drive and set active partition then format to NTFS or FAT32.

This is only for an unformatted unpartioned/part partitioned drive.

Like I said Partition magic does it live even with a single full size partition.

Dream Weaver

It can also make things easier - I have mine partitioned into three drives:

C: Windows
D: Programs
E: Documents

Just keeps everything separate

I also have an external backup drive and CD backups for data. Goind to get a DVD writer now for larger file backups as well.

Matt_555

The only way you can partition a drive without using software is to create it when you set up windows. Then format your main drive (C and you can format your partition(s) in windows, if its XP. You can only use disk management to make a partition active and to format it, not to actually create one.

As to make things safer on your PC i would recommend what Dracoro said and slave a harddrive to your main one to back things up. But be careful with the jumpers in the back cos they can be a pain if you dont put them accross the right pins.

Nick

Sal

For backup purposes, the drive & or the media must be removable. For instance, if it's an internal hard drive, your psu blows & you could zap both hard drives. What if it's stolen, or a kiddie throws a glass of squash down the back? A virus will also happily zap both disks on your pc.

Best bet is a tape streamer. This has the capacity to back up large amounts of data quickly, you then just take the tape with you & keep it off site, or at least in another room. Otherwise look at a Zip drive, or maybe just use a CD Writer. Both of these have far less capacity than tape, but you could still backup docments, photos, accounts data etc. I use a tape drive for my own system & backup everything apart from games.

To protect your system in the first place, make sure you use a firewall, a good anti virus package like McAfee or Panda & keep it up to date. Also use Windows Update & download every critical update regularly.

Regards
Nick

Smiler

You meant to say 66,560MB for 65GB didn't you??....

lightning101

no - i round down because i'm human. It helps not having to do multiples of 1024 and I feel a bit of an **** asking for it in those multiples especially in PCWORLD (all they stock is blank looks - try asking for one, its always in stock).

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

Cheers for all the help folks, much appreciated although I confess that I don't understand all of it

I regularly make back up cd's but just want to keep everything separate, exactly as Dream Weaver has said he does, in fact I like his idea so much i'm going to copy it

As for pc security I'm running auto updates on my av and firewall. I also run Adaware, Spybot and Spywareblaster for peace of mind

Redkop is kindly sending me a programme that makes the partitioning process easy for numpties - apparently

Sal

Redkop

It's winging it's way to you now Sal