Solve : Hard Drive Partition - Questions?

1.	Solve : Hard Drive Partition - Questions?
Answer» I need help on hard drive partition under windows 7. I have a desktop PC running home PREMIUM with a 500GB HDD installed but like most PCs this is partitioned for recovery purposes leaving only half the specified disc space available to use. On the machine in question i have all but used this space up, despite having 2 external HDDs to store and backup to. Space is mostly taken up with videos and photos that i do not want to remove or delete. What i want to know is does my PC need half its HDD for recovery purposes, if not how do i change the partition (ideally without reinstalling windows or formatting the drive) and if i change the partition what would be the minimum size needed for recovery? If i cant change the partition without reinstalling windows or formatting the drive (i.e. loosing all my data), what would happen if i just put files and folders into the 'empty' drive partition to make space in the main one? Any advice appreciated.Update Just had a look at the Disk Management pag and it shows i have 3 partitions. the main C drive where i have all my data (around 225GB), a 17GB recovery partition and D drive of about 225 GB, which i thought was the recovery drive and has nothing in it. The disk manager will allow me to either shrink or delete this 'drive'. cant decide what to do about it. Still confused. Why would a PC be set up this way? How would i go about using this D drive? How easy would it be to ACCESS data stored on it. Could i install a second OS onto it and in effect create 2 PCs in one. Please help.It's bizarre how some manufacturers do this. The D drive is a "data" drive - it's empty, you can use it as you wish without affecting anything. You could install another OS on it if you wanted to, and dual boot, or you could just use it for storage.I think manufacturers set up partitions that way so they can tell users to move all their files to that partition before using the included recovery options that may format the C:\ drive and wipe out data. Quote from: Eg0Death on July 03, 2013, 11:16:29 AM I think manufacturers set up partitions that way so they can tell users to move all their files to that partition before using the included recovery options that may format the C:\ drive and wipe out data. That's the ostensible reason, sure, but how many people actually do this? In my experience, less than 10%. It just confuses the other 90%.Quote from: Calum on July 03, 2013, 02:08:17 PM That's the ostensible reason, sure, but how many people actually do this? In my experience, less than 10%. It just confuses the other 90%. I never said it was a good idea. You learn something new everyday. Never knew any of this before today and I have had my machine for a couple of years. Have been plodding along using just the C drive as it gradually ran lower on space, wondering what to do when it ran out. Never knew about the disk management app either. Strange. Thanks for the help. On many computers, the recovery partition is D drive. An additional partition (besides C and D) would be E, etc. The recovery partition must be assigned a drive letter, just like other partitions/drives. Apparently, the manufacturer of your system used a letter other than D for the recovery partition. Regardless of the drive letter ASSIGNMENTS, the more important point is that you now know you have MUCH more available drive space. Is it posible to link or tie in data or folders on the data drive to user accounts and/or libraries (Documents pictures video etc) so that it is easy to access specific folders on the d drive and in effect pulls together folders /data of specific types on both drives. I have created directories and moved files over to the data drive but at present are separate from the remaining data on the c drive and are less easy to find! I still want to keep everyday data folders on the c drive and use the d drive to archive less often used files and folders. Hope this makes sense.You could add folders on D to your Libraries. Here's a reference: Organizing with Windows 7 LibrariesThanks soybean. Could have used short cuts but libraries are better. Have to date moved over 100gb to the d drive. Any way to link/tie in particular directories on the drive to specific user accounts so that only that user can access certain data?Quote from: richardf77 on July 08, 2013, 12:01:17 PM Any way to link/tie in particular directories on the drive to specific user accounts so that only that user can access certain data? Have a look here: Setting Access Permissions on Folders and Files Note: My search phrase to find that was limiting access to files and folders by limited users in windows 7. Thanks for replies. Most helpfull On a slighly seperate note i hav just replaced the HDD on a laptop and reinstalled win7 onto it. I wanted the drive partitioned like its predecessor and my desktop PC IE 50/50 OS and data drives. I thougth there might be an option to do this when i installed windows but i either missed it or it wasnt provided. I waas wondering if i could still add a partition and if so how would i do it without reinstaling windows again. I thought the Disk Management app might do it but i cant see anything about new partitions only modifying existing ones. ThanksWhen installing Windows 7, you get an option right after you pick whether to do an upgrade or custom install to partition the drive. It'll show all the drives in the machine, and give you options for "next" which just installs on the selected partition, "new" to create partitions, "delete" to remove them, etc. You can however shrink the partition within Disk Management, you'll need to shrink the existing partition before creating a new one from the blank space.Shrank the c drive and created a second (E) drive in the empty space. Easier to do than i thought. Now i have an OS drive and a data drive on my new disc. Just like a new computer from a store! Thanks

Answer»

I need help on hard drive partition under windows 7. I have a desktop PC running home PREMIUM with a 500GB HDD installed but like most PCs this is partitioned for recovery purposes leaving only half the specified disc space available to use. On the machine in question i have all but used this space up, despite having 2 external HDDs to store and backup to. Space is mostly taken up with videos and photos that i do not want to remove or delete.

What i want to know is does my PC need half its HDD for recovery purposes, if not how do i change the partition (ideally without reinstalling windows or formatting the drive) and if i change the partition what would be the minimum size needed for recovery? If i cant change the partition without reinstalling windows or formatting the drive (i.e. loosing all my data), what would happen if i just put files and folders into the 'empty' drive partition to make space in the main one?

Any advice appreciated.Update

Just had a look at the Disk Management pag and it shows i have 3 partitions. the main C drive where i have all my data (around 225GB), a 17GB recovery partition and D drive of about 225 GB, which i thought was the recovery drive and has nothing in it. The disk manager will allow me to either shrink or delete this 'drive'. cant decide what to do about it. Still confused. Why would a PC be set up this way? How would i go about using this D drive? How easy would it be to ACCESS data stored on it. Could i install a second OS onto it and in effect create 2 PCs in one. Please help.It's bizarre how some manufacturers do this. The D drive is a "data" drive - it's empty, you can use it as you wish without affecting anything. You could install another OS on it if you wanted to, and dual boot, or you could just use it for storage.I think manufacturers set up partitions that way so they can tell users to move all their files to that partition before using the included recovery options that may format the C:\ drive and wipe out data. Quote from: Eg0Death on July 03, 2013, 11:16:29 AM

I think manufacturers set up partitions that way so they can tell users to move all their files to that partition before using the included recovery options that may format the C:\ drive and wipe out data.

That's the ostensible reason, sure, but how many people actually do this? In my experience, less than 10%. It just confuses the other 90%.Quote from: Calum on July 03, 2013, 02:08:17 PM

That's the ostensible reason, sure, but how many people actually do this? In my experience, less than 10%. It just confuses the other 90%.

I never said it was a good idea. You learn something new everyday. Never knew any of this before today and I have had my machine for a couple of years. Have been plodding along using just the C drive as it gradually ran lower on space, wondering what to do when it ran out.

Never knew about the disk management app either. Strange.

Thanks for the help.
On many computers, the recovery partition is D drive. An additional partition (besides C and D) would be E, etc. The recovery partition must be assigned a drive letter, just like other partitions/drives. Apparently, the manufacturer of your system used a letter other than D for the recovery partition. Regardless of the drive letter ASSIGNMENTS, the more important point is that you now know you have MUCH more available drive space. Is it posible to link or tie in data or folders on the data drive to user accounts and/or libraries (Documents pictures video etc) so that it is easy to access specific folders on the d drive and in effect pulls together folders /data of specific types on both drives. I have created directories and moved files over to the data drive but at present are separate from the remaining data on the c drive and are less easy to find! I still want to keep everyday data folders on the c drive and use the d drive to archive less often used files and folders.

Hope this makes sense.You could add folders on D to your Libraries. Here's a reference: Organizing with Windows 7 LibrariesThanks soybean. Could have used short cuts but libraries are better. Have to date moved over 100gb to the d drive.

Any way to link/tie in particular directories on the drive to specific user accounts so that only that user can access certain data?Quote from: richardf77 on July 08, 2013, 12:01:17 PM

Any way to link/tie in particular directories on the drive to specific user accounts so that only that user can access certain data?

Have a look here: Setting Access Permissions on Folders and Files

Note: My search phrase to find that was limiting access to files and folders by limited users in windows 7. Thanks for replies. Most helpfull

On a slighly seperate note i hav just replaced the HDD on a laptop and reinstalled win7 onto it. I wanted the drive partitioned like its predecessor and my desktop PC IE 50/50 OS and data drives. I thougth there might be an option to do this when i installed windows but i either missed it or it wasnt provided. I waas wondering if i could still add a partition and if so how would i do it without reinstaling windows again. I thought the Disk Management app might do it but i cant see anything about new partitions only modifying existing ones.

ThanksWhen installing Windows 7, you get an option right after you pick whether to do an upgrade or custom install to partition the drive. It'll show all the drives in the machine, and give you options for "next" which just installs on the selected partition, "new" to create partitions, "delete" to remove them, etc. You can however shrink the partition within Disk Management, you'll need to shrink the existing partition before creating a new one from the blank space.Shrank the c drive and created a second (E) drive in the empty space. Easier to do than i thought. Now i have an OS drive and a data drive on my new disc. Just like a new computer from a store!

Thanks

Solve : Hard Drive Partition - Questions?

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