Partitions

[Lucy]

When I installed XP (for the first time ever!) two weeks
ago, I didn't create any partitions on the 160GB hard drive
- I just installed onto one big partition.

Was this a mistake? What are the consequences of me leaving
it as it is? If I need to create more partitions, can I do
so without having to buy expensive software?

Simple answers for a computer dummy please :)

TYI

Lucy
x

[Squire]

XP cannot create or delete partitions without losing all the data.
I'm afraid you are going to have to purchase a 3rd party partition manager,
in order to save the programs already installed.
Partition Magic and BootIt NG are both good for creating or deleting on the
fly, and can create a mirror image to another partition, so you can
reinstall Windows in it's bootable condition in case of failure.

"Lucy" > wrote in message
...
> When I installed XP (for the first time ever!) two weeks
> ago, I didn't create any partitions on the 160GB hard drive
> - I just installed onto one big partition.
>
> Was this a mistake? What are the consequences of me leaving
> it as it is? If I need to create more partitions, can I do
> so without having to buy expensive software?
>
> Simple answers for a computer dummy please :)
>
> TYI
>
> Lucy
> x

[Jerry]

Lucy,

Installing XP in one partition was not a mistake; you did nothing wrong.

Leaving it as is will result in NO consequences other than everything will
work as advertised.

You do not have to redo things and creat more partitions. Period.

Becuase it is a 160Gb hard drive you MAY have been limited because your
motherboard's BIOS may not support drives larger than 137Gb and you would
have to have installed XP's SP1 and turned on 48-bit LBA to have your system
'see' the whole 160Gb.

Jerry

"Lucy" > wrote in message
...
> When I installed XP (for the first time ever!) two weeks
> ago, I didn't create any partitions on the 160GB hard drive
> - I just installed onto one big partition.
>
> Was this a mistake? What are the consequences of me leaving
> it as it is? If I need to create more partitions, can I do
> so without having to buy expensive software?
>
> Simple answers for a computer dummy please :)
>
> TYI
>
> Lucy
> x

[Gener]

I just bought Partition Magic 8.0 and you can do just about
anything you want with it. Add, delete resize and move.
Even change from fat32 to ntfs. Haven't tried the reverse.
Gene www.photoprojects.net



Lucy wrote:

> When I installed XP (for the first time ever!) two weeks
> ago, I didn't create any partitions on the 160GB hard drive
> - I just installed onto one big partition.
>
> Was this a mistake? What are the consequences of me leaving
> it as it is? If I need to create more partitions, can I do
> so without having to buy expensive software?
>
> Simple answers for a computer dummy please :)
>
> TYI
>
> Lucy
> x