Best partition program

separation by disk is just as
good and even better.

---------------

the success for not loosing
the personal data is not
having it comingled with
the system files.

there are many benefits
for the above.

--
db·´¯`·...¸)))º
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
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- @Hotmail.com
- nntp Postologist
~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:51:22 -0600, "db" wrote:

with so much data available
it's a good idea to keep your
music, vids, pics and documents
separately.

and co mingling the above with
the system files is not a good
idea.

Why? (Assuming the separation is on different partitions of the same
drive,
and not different drives).
--ron

On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:31:17 -0600, "db" wrote:

separation by disk is just as
good and even better.


That was not my question.


there are many benefits
for the above.

Exactly what benefits are there for separating data and OS into different
partitions on the some physical hard drive?
--ron

On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:08:50 +1100, Terry Heinz
wrote:

On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:41:55 -0700, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:

On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:08:38 -0600, "bob" wrote:

More details -- I want to partition an existing drive that has the OS on it.
I would like 2 partitions, one with the OS, the other with data.

I'm not against your doing that, but if I may ask, why do you want to
do it that way? Many people separate their data from the operating
system because they think that their data is safer that way.

I'm not quite sure what "bob" was up to.

I install the operating system on C: but install other non Microsoft
programs on D:. So when I format C: and reinstall the OS, Agent & Opera
etc. settings are still current on D:.


Three points:

1. You say "*when* [emphasis added] I format C: and reinstall the OS,"
but in my view, with a modicum of care, you should *never* have to do
that.

2. Just in case you don't understand it, let me mention that if you
reinstall Windows, you will also have to reinstall almost all your
programs. It's only a rare, usually small, program that will survive a
reinstallation of Windows.

3. If settings for any program are important to you, they should be
backed up to external backup devices, just like any other data that is
important to you.


I think that's a very poor reason, since relying on partition
separation is very much inferior to doing regular backups of your data
(or the entire drive) on external media. Be aware that you can easily
lose your entire drive, not just the data, to things like drive
crashes, power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, user
errors, and theft of the computer.

Ken, I appreciate being able to read your posts, but would like to ask:
"Where did you install your Agent 6."?



Sorry, I don't know what you mean by "where." I installed it here in
my home. On my Windows 7 computer. Over the copy of Agent 5 I had, in
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Agent.

Is one of those answers the one you were looking for?

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

bob wrote:
I would be grateful for any advice as to the best partitioning program, free
or otherwise. Thank you.


I am surprised no one mentioned Partition Magic. Is that because of a
bias towards Norton? or Symantec? I have found that it is easy to used
and very effective.

Rick wrote:
bob wrote:
I would be grateful for any advice as to the best partitioning program,
free
or otherwise. Thank you.


I am surprised no one mentioned Partition Magic. Is that because of a
bias towards Norton? or Symantec? I have found that it is easy to used
and very effective.

Same here (but that's the only Norton program I have :-)
Or as a possible alternative, the free Easeus Partition Manager.

Rick wrote:

bob wrote:
I would be grateful for any advice as to the best partitioning program, free
or otherwise. Thank you.

I am surprised no one mentioned Partition Magic. Is that because of a
bias towards Norton? or Symantec? I have found that it is easy to used
and very effective.

More likely because it became a dead product when Symantec bought it from
Powerquest. It has some nasty bugs that weren't fixed by Powerquest when
the latest version was 8 when Symantec acquired the product and it hasn't
been updated afterward (it is still at version 8).

The last version that I got from PowerQuest was 8.01. That's still the same
version being sold by Symantec. Powerquest was acquired by Symantec back in
2003 (http://www.symantec.com/press/2003/n030923.html) and yet there hasn't
been an update or version change in *6 YEARS*. It is a dead product and has
been for a long time. Symantec sold Winfax that they acquired from Delrina
for many years where they only did some maintenance fixes in the first year
and then it became a dead product despite Symantec continuing to sell it.
Symantec is well known as a software publisher for the Norton side of their
business (i.e., they buy a product, rebrand it, and sell it without
expending any further resources on that product - that is, they act as a
software publisher rather than a software developer).

I still use Partition Magic (PM) but I realize that some operations are
probably not going to work, like moving partitions around which will
generate a numeric error message and PM won't perform the requested action.

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Rick wrote:
bob wrote:
I would be grateful for any advice as to the best partitioning program,
free
or otherwise. Thank you.


I am surprised no one mentioned Partition Magic. Is that because of a
bias towards Norton? or Symantec? I have found that it is easy to used
and very effective.

Same here (but that's the only Norton program I have :-)
Or as a possible alternative, the free Easeus Partition Manager.

I suggested Easus in the post he had in m.p.w.general, but shied away from
Partition Manager. It used to be a good program years ago, but I haven't
used it since Norton bought it. I've had troubles with some other Norton
products, and figured this may/may not be trouble, too.

SC Tom

bob wrote:

I would be grateful for any advice as to the best partitioning program, free
or otherwise. Thank you.

Easeus Partition Master
http://www.partition-tool.com/
I have it installed but I haven't had an occasion yet to use it so I cannot
attest to its effectiveness or reliability. EPM has a UI that is very
similar to the one in Partition Magic

Partition Magic (defunct but still semi-usable)
http://www.symantec.com/norton/partitionmagic
I have used Partition Magic for many years but there are problems with it
that never got fixed. Symantec acquired PM from Powerquest but has not
updated in 6 years so the bugs remain, like generating an error when moving
around partitions.

Ranish Partition Manager
http://www.ranish.com/part/

Cute Partition Manager
http://www.cutepm.com/

All of the partition managers mentioned here are free except for Symantec
charging for a stagnant version of Partition Magic (all development ceased
once Symantec bought it from Powerquest). Whenever you commit surgery on
your host, make damn sure to make backups (image backups are best) so you
have an unburned bridge for recovery.

By having a separate partition or hard drive for user data, you would
not have the added task of restoring your data when upgrading from WinXP
to Win7 for example. Another example, I like to play music when I'm
using the PC and I have over 3,000 MP3's in my music library that are on
a separate hard drive. If I had them in the My Music folder, when I
upgrade to Win7 I'd have to copy them off to a separate drive, then copy
them back after the upgrade. The same goes for all of my photos and
videos that I've taken.

Just because I have these files on a separate drive doesn't mean that I
don't back them up either. A hard drive can die at any given moment...

On 11/25/2009 1:01 PM, Ron Rosenfeld wrote:
On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:31:17 -0600, "db" wrote:

separation by disk is just as
good and even better.


That was not my question.


there are many benefits
for the above.

Exactly what benefits are there for separating data and OS into different
partitions on the some physical hard drive?
--ron

--

Roy Smith
Windows XP Pro SP3

On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:37:49 -0600, Roy Smith
wrote:


Just because I have these files on a separate drive doesn't mean that I
don't back them up either. A hard drive can die at any given moment...


As long as you understand that, I have no problem with you (or anyone
else) keeping your data on a separate partition form Windows.

The point I made earlier in this thread is that the enormous majority
of people who keep their data on a separate partition from Windows do
it without understanding what you do, and do it because they
erroneously think that it protects their data.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:37:49 -0600, Roy Smith wrote:

By having a separate partition or hard drive for user data, you would
not have the added task of restoring your data when upgrading from WinXP
to Win7 for example. Another example, I like to play music when I'm
using the PC and I have over 3,000 MP3's in my music library that are on
a separate hard drive. If I had them in the My Music folder, when I
upgrade to Win7 I'd have to copy them off to a separate drive, then copy
them back after the upgrade. The same goes for all of my photos and
videos that I've taken.

Just because I have these files on a separate drive doesn't mean that I
don't back them up either. A hard drive can die at any given moment...

I agree with you about backups.

And I would agree that having programs / data on separate drives might result
in a bit faster access.

But the statement I was responding to had to do with separate partitions, not
separate drives.

The Windows XP -- Windows 7 upgrade issue being made marginally simpler by
having separate partitions seems to me to be an advantage with fairly limited
applicability. After all, it's likely to be only a one time event, and
applicable only to those making the switch without also changing to a new
computer.

Any other advantages that would apply to regular usage?

--ron

SC Tom wrote:
"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
Rick wrote:
bob wrote:
I would be grateful for any advice as to the best partitioning program,
free
or otherwise. Thank you.


I am surprised no one mentioned Partition Magic. Is that because of a
bias towards Norton? or Symantec? I have found that it is easy to used
and very effective.

Same here (but that's the only Norton program I have :-)
Or as a possible alternative, the free Easeus Partition Manager.

I suggested Easus in the post he had in m.p.w.general, but shied away from
Partition Manager. It used to be a good program years ago, but I haven't
used it since Norton bought it. I've had troubles with some other Norton
products, and figured this may/may not be trouble, too.

SC Tom

I have Norton PM version 8, which I think is the last version, and it's been
fine for me.

But it's the only Norton program I've allowed on here, for the reasons so
many others have already attested to. Back in the DOS days, Norton was
really great. But sometime after Win9x came out, it seems the Norton
products really started going downhill (around the time it was sold to
Symantec).

VanguardLH wrote:
bob wrote:

I would be grateful for any advice as to the best partitioning program,
free
or otherwise. Thank you.

Easeus Partition Master
http://www.partition-tool.com/
I have it installed but I haven't had an occasion yet to use it so I
cannot
attest to its effectiveness or reliability. EPM has a UI that is very
similar to the one in Partition Magic

Partition Magic (defunct but still semi-usable)
http://www.symantec.com/norton/partitionmagic
I have used Partition Magic for many years but there are problems with it
that never got fixed. Symantec acquired PM from Powerquest but has not
updated in 6 years so the bugs remain, like generating an error when
moving
around partitions.

Haven't come across that problem with Partition Magic yet, but maybe I've
been lucky and haven't done enough "partition movements" to run into it yet.
I have done some resizing of partitions, however, but it was awhile ago.

Hi Ron,

.......marginally simpler by having separate partitions.......
.......Any other advantages that would apply to regular usage?

I have three partitiona on a single drive, Windows, my stuff, and
installed programs. The partition where I keep my things is cloned much
more often to an external drive than the other two partitions. Probably
doesn't make a lot of difference, but it is a little faster to clone one
partition than all three.

---==X={}=X==---

Jim Self

AVIATION ANIMATION, the internet's largest depository.
http://avanimation.avsupport.com

Your only internet source for spiral staircase plans.
http://jself.com/stair/Stair.htm

Experimental Aircraft Association #140897
EAA Technical Counselor #4562

PA20Pilot wrote:
Hi Ron,

......marginally simpler by having separate partitions.......
......Any other advantages that would apply to regular usage?

I have three partitiona on a single drive, Windows, my stuff, and
installed programs. The partition where I keep my things is cloned much
more often to an external drive than the other two partitions. Probably
doesn't make a lot of difference, but it is a little faster to clone one
partition than all three.

It's a LOT faster, and if you partition things correctly, backs up only what
you need, and not the peripheral stuff, like video and audio files.

That is, you can just back up the C: partition (user programs, windows, and
data), and not the other partitions reserved for large video and audio
files, for example.