This ones for the techies among you. I've just purchased a new 500GB internal SATA drive to update my PC.

I've currently got a 30GB Hard Drive (I know, I know) that is getting very low on space. It is unpartitioned, has Windows XP installed, and not that many program files applications installed. Document/File storage-wise it is used mainly for mine and my missus' default local iTunes/iPod folders in our respective My Music folders. We've both got 8GB models so I think this is what has recently taken up all the remaining space.

All my other music, photo and office files are stored on a Freecom 80GB USB external drive which I originally purchased as a backup drive but has of course become the primary storage device. I'm pretty sure this drive still has about half or maybe a third of its space left.

I'm thinking I'll install the new 500GB drive, use Acronis True Image or similar to clone my existing C: drive. What should I do then. I'm thinking I might parition the new drive (can you do this after a disk cloning?) into maybe 100GB for Program Files (allowing for future applications) 200GB for Music storage , 200GB for Photos storage, and 100GB for Office Document storage. Should these all be NTFS partitions

Then I may use the 80GB hard drive for a proper back up device (divided into 3 matching areas) until such time as my files in the above partitions go over the 80GB mark.

Does this sound OK? Never done partitions before so am I thinking about it the right way? Any pitfalls to look out for?

Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

KeithyT said:

One of the main reasons why you'd want to partition would be to separate operating systems, or to "spread around" drive use.

If you wanted, you could just use the entire 500GB as one partition. However, if you're installing XP or XP SP1, you get limited to 130GB partitions. So in this case, where you created a 100G C:, you'd be safe. You upgrade to SP2, then you can create and format a 400G partition.

If I have that HD on my box, I would setup:

an 60G system C:
a Pagefile partition that is sized to be 1.5 x Amount of RAM (if you have 2048MB of RAM, then a 3.5GB Partition)
half the remaining space for Data1 (possibly pictures and documents)
the other half for Data2 (possibly music and such)

Also, if you have the software, do one of those clone/image backups of your C drive when everything is all setup and up to date. Then, do it again every time change. That way, if you have any problems where it would help, you can get your system imaged onto a new hard drive in no time.

Use your 80G drive as an extra backup for files you can't live without. Also, of course, that should be the tool you use if you need to take a bunch of files (pictures) and share it with another machine (sibling's, etc).

Just remember that no disk drive is forever. Be it a Hard Drive, Flash Drive, Floppy Drive, or Compact Disc (DVD too) drive.

User Partition Magic for Windows. It'll do everything for you.


My recommendation is that you not get rid of the 30 gig.

Instead, use it as your OS drive. And store everything else (including installed programs) on your new drive.



This would require copying all data to your new drive though.



Here's ultimately what I would do (and you can do it all easily with Partition magic)



1. Partition your new drive into two parts. One partition for programs. One for data.
2. Copy all data from your original drive (pictures, documents, Outlook files, etc.) to your new drive's data partition.
3. Now remove all programs and data from your old drive. Then partition your new drives (using partition magic--it'll require a reboot and it will do the partitioning on the next boot) into two partitions, 15 gig each.
4. Change your virtual memory to reside on your other partition on the original drive. That way it will not thrash or compete with files on your primary partition and it will reduce the amount of fragmentation that takes place.


You don't have to do any of the above of course, but whatever you chose to do would be made much easier by using partition magic.

Thanks both of you. Will have a think. One further question, I want to avoid reinstalling OS/software if at all possible (and I do actually have the original software! ) so how does one of the new partitions become the place where programs are installed if I do a straight image. (this is referring to The Void's option)

What I mean is, won't it mess up all existing shortcuts to exe's etc? which at the moment all installed by default to C:\Program Files or in the case of my itunes Library C:\My Documents\My Music\itunes. Or does the Partition Magic software take care of all that?

KeithyT said:

If you decide to use PMagic or Ghost, you can grab an image from 30GB and blow it onto the 500GB. You can even "resize" when you put the image on the 500GB.

Once you choose which software you're going to use for the job, check the manual and they usually give pretty explicit directions on how to get what you need done.

Thanks Dauphin. Your option seems the easiest (transfer everything onto the 500GB SATA drive, re-size and partition as necessary) then either do away with the 30GB IDE drive or just use it for extra storage BUT I really like the sound of TheVoid's option of using my 30GB drive for the OS only and the 500GB for Program Files, and Data. I just can't quite get my head around how I would do it and have everything working properly.

Right. I've just installed the drive (connected to Motherboard and PSU). Windows XP detected it on start up and it does appear in my Hardware Device Manager under disk drives. it also appears in my BIOS. but it does not appear in My Computer yet .

Is that correct. What do I do now? Just about to download some disk imaging software. Is it this software that will allow me to select the new SATA drive as my destination for the image and new partitions? I feel like I have fallen at the first hurdle here

KeithyT said:

Right. I've just installed the drive (connected to Motherboard and PSU). Windows XP detected it on start up and it does appear in my Hardware Device Manager under disk drives. it also appears in my BIOS. but it does not appear in My Computer yet .

Is that correct. What do I do now? Just about to download some disk imaging software. Is it this software that will allow me to select the new SATA drive as my destination for the image and new partitions? I feel like I have fallen at the first hurdle here

Your BIOS sees it, but Windows XP doesn't recognize it?

Are you using the windows Explorer to look for it or the Disk Aministrator? (control panel, admin programs, etc.).

It's all OK. I downloaded Acronis True Image (Western Digital have a free version available if you have purchased one of their drives).

It's now cloned my old 30GB drive to the new 500 GB one. It wouldn't let me partition as the software wanted to do a straight clone but at least I've got a new hard drive with loads of space. One C:\drive of 500GB.

Thanks for your help but I still don't really understand how I can now partition in the way you and Dauphin advised. I would love to be able to separate out my new C drive into logical partitions but It seems that would only work if i was setting up a brand new system from scratch and installing everything anew, but not in my case where I was just getting concerned about an existing hard drive getting old and very full.

KeithyT said:

It's all OK. I downloaded Acronis True Image (Western Digital have a free version available if you have purchased one of their drives).

It's now cloned my old 30GB drive to the new 500 GB one. It wouldn't let me partition as the software wanted to do a straight clone but at least I've got a new hard drive with loads of space. One C:\drive of 500GB.

Thanks for your help but I still don't really understand how I can now partition in the way you and Dauphin advised. I would love to be able to separate out my new C drive into logical partitions but It seems that would only work if i was setting up a brand new system from scratch and installing everything anew, but not in my case where I was just getting concerned about an existing hard drive getting old and very full.

You would have had to have created the partitions before you moved the image from the 30G to the 500G.

If you had Vista or Windows 7, it's hella easy. XP, however, takes some 3rd party tools:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5124581_shrink-windows-xp-partition.html