If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#16
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
"Ed Light" wrote It's good to have an OS partition and a data partition and every now and then image the os partition to DVD. The bootitng floppy can do that. Don't forget to set the OS partition as the boot -- "active" -- partition. -- Ed Light Bring the Troops Home: http://bringthemhomenow.org http://antiwar.com Send spam to the FTC at Thanks, robots. |
Ads |
#17
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
"Ed Light" wrote I run a main OS partition and some clones of it and they all share the mail and favorites. And the internet temp files. In fact, they all share the same My Documents folder. My boot manager is bootitng. I feel so clever! -- Ed Light Bring the Troops Home: http://bringthemhomenow.org http://antiwar.com Send spam to the FTC at Thanks, robots. |
#18
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
randau wrote:
Thank you all for your informative answers to my questions. I'm planning on upgrading to a new machine and operating system and wanted to consider Partitioning of the hard drive. After seeing your replies, I think I'll be very judicious about Partitioning the hard drive (if I do it at all). Maybe just one Partition for the Operating System and everything else (applications and data) in a second Partition (in case I had to reinstall the OS). Please note that if you ever have to reinstall the operating system, having your data in a separate partition may help you (but see below), but having the applications there will do *nothing* for you. The Windows folder contains many references to your installed applications (in the registry and elsewhere) that are needed by the applications. If Windows is reinstalled, all those references vanish and the applications will no longer work. Returning to the issue of having the data in a separate partition, note that if your data is important to you, it always needs to be backed up, and if it is backed up and you ever have to reinstall the operating system, you can simply restore the data from the backup, even if it's not on a separate partition. In fact, I think that many people who do as you suggest get a false sense of security from having data on a second partition and have that kind of separation *instead* of a backup, thinking that it takes away the need for a backup. In fact, that's not at all true of course, since things like a hard drive crash (and other events) can easily destroy everything. In general, my view is that most people's partitioning schemes should be based on their backup scheme. If, for example, you backup by creating a clone or image on the entire drive, then a single partition might be best. If, on the other hand, you backup only your data, then the backup process is facilitated by having all data in a separate partition. -- Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User Please reply to the newsgroup |
#19
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
randau wrote:
Thank you all for your informative answers to my questions. I'm planning on upgrading to a new machine and operating system and wanted to consider Partitioning of the hard drive. After seeing your replies, I think I'll be very judicious about Partitioning the hard drive (if I do it at all). Maybe just one Partition for the Operating System and everything else (applications and data) in a second Partition (in case I had to reinstall the OS). Thanks again for all your helpful replies, I've used BootItNG many times in the past, and it's always been reliable at resizing my partititions. However, whenever I use BING, I'm usually using it to upgrade to a new bigger hard disk, which means that I'm always only using it to resize a partition upwards, never downwards. Going upwards is easy, going downwards could be hairy. Yousuf Khan |
#20
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
Pardon me if this post is repeated. My first attempt at posting it
appeared to have failed. Ken Blake, MVP wrote: Please note that if you ever have to reinstall the operating system, having your data in a separate partition may help you (but see below), but having the applications there will do *nothing* for you. The Windows folder contains many references to your installed applications (in the registry and elsewhere) that are needed by the applications. If Windows is reinstalled, all those references vanish and the applications will no longer work. Thank you, that's a really good point! Though I should know better, I'm still in the habit of thinking about application programs as they were in the good old days when they were totally separate from the operating system. You could delete them by merely deleting their parent directory (with all its sub-directories) and you could restore them along with all their data by merely coping them from a backup disk. Why in the world did they make things so complicated by creating all those application program tentacles into the operating system? Was it really necessary? Returning to the issue of having the data in a separate partition, note that if your data is important to you, it always needs to be backed up, and if it is backed up and you ever have to reinstall the operating system, you can simply restore the data from the backup, even if it's not on a separate partition. In general, my view is that most people's partitioning schemes should be based on their backup scheme. If, for example, you backup by creating a clone or image on the entire drive, then a single partition might be best. If, on the other hand, you backup only your data, then the backup process is facilitated by having all data in a separate partition. I do backup all my data daily using the FileBack application program. It lets you specify which folders and/or files you want backed up and automatically backs up any that are new or have changed. So, there's probably no need even for a data partition. I think I'll forget about partitioning altogether. Thanks again for the heads-up reply. -- randau |
#21
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
"Yousuf Khan" wrote I've used BootItNG many times in the past, and it's always been reliable at resizing my partititions. However, whenever I use BING, I'm usually using it to upgrade to a new bigger hard disk, which means that I'm always only using it to resize a partition upwards, never downwards. Going upwards is easy, going downwards could be hairy. I've sized NTFS partitions downwards (and also slid them [moved them in or out]) with BING many times and it's been fine so far. I always make it easier on old BING by defragmenting first. -- Ed Light Bring the Troops Home: http://bringthemhomenow.org http://antiwar.com Send spam to the FTC at Thanks, robots. |
#22
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
randau wrote:
Pardon me if this post is repeated. My first attempt at posting it appeared to have failed. Yeah, didnt see it here either. Ken Blake, MVP wrote: Please note that if you ever have to reinstall the operating system, having your data in a separate partition may help you (but see below), but having the applications there will do *nothing* for you. The Windows folder contains many references to your installed applications (in the registry and elsewhere) that are needed by the applications. If Windows is reinstalled, all those references vanish and the applications will no longer work. Thank you, that's a really good point! Though I should know better, I'm still in the habit of thinking about application programs as they were in the good old days when they were totally separate from the operating system. You could delete them by merely deleting their parent directory (with all its sub-directories) and you could restore them along with all their data by merely coping them from a backup disk. Why in the world did they make things so complicated by creating all those application program tentacles into the operating system? Was it really necessary? The main advantage with using dlls is that that common code is in the dlls and doesnt get repeated in all the apps etc. And you can fix a bug in the code by replacing the dll and fix it for everything too. Returning to the issue of having the data in a separate partition, note that if your data is important to you, it always needs to be backed up, and if it is backed up and you ever have to reinstall the operating system, you can simply restore the data from the backup, even if it's not on a separate partition. In general, my view is that most people's partitioning schemes should be based on their backup scheme. If, for example, you backup by creating a clone or image on the entire drive, then a single partition might be best. If, on the other hand, you backup only your data, then the backup process is facilitated by having all data in a separate partition. I do backup all my data daily using the FileBack application program. It lets you specify which folders and/or files you want backed up and automatically backs up any that are new or have changed. So, there's probably no need even for a data partition. I think I'll forget about partitioning altogether. Thanks again for the heads-up reply. |
#23
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
Rod Speed wrote:
The main advantage with using dlls is that that common code is in the dlls and doesnt get repeated in all the apps etc. My email client (Eudora 5.2) includes and maintains all its own .dll files within its own file folders. Thus, separating it from the operating system making it able to be totally backed up and restored by merely copying all its file folders. It also avoids the risk of having to deal with conflicting changes in "shared" .dll files. I wish all my applications were that straight foreword. |
#24
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
randau wrote
Rod Speed wrote The main advantage with using dlls is that that common code is in the dlls and doesnt get repeated in all the apps etc. My email client (Eudora 5.2) includes and maintains all its own .dll files within its own file folders. Dinosaur approach. Thus, separating it from the operating system making it able to be totally backed up and restored by merely copying all its file folders. Most dont want to backup the code, its trivially replaceable from the installable, what matters is the data files that arent. If you do want a very quick restore on hard drive failure etc, its much better to just image the entire drive and restore that. It also avoids the risk of having to deal with conflicting changes in "shared" .dll files. Yes, it certainly does that. I wish all my applications were that straight foreword. The world's moved on. For good reasons. |
#25
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
"randau" wrote My email client (Eudora 5.2) includes and maintains all its own .dll files within its own file folders. Thus, separating it from the operating system making it able to be totally backed up and restored by merely copying all its file folders. It also avoids the risk of having to deal with conflicting changes in "shared" .dll files. I wish all my applications were that straight foreword. These are like that: http://portableapps.com/apps Watch out, though. Sunbird isn't quite ready for prime time and the Thunderbird version could be the older one that had some data loss problems. -- Ed Light Bring the Troops Home: http://bringthemhomenow.org http://antiwar.com Send spam to the FTC at Thanks, robots. |
#26
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
I guess I am the least skilled person on this forum; so please forgive me in
advance. My problem is related - I think! Norton Ghost wont do more backups because it says the drive is full, having saved 58GB of data. This PC has two 250GB drives. My understanding is that one keeps a backup of the other. My Computer - Properties - shows C drive as having a size of 171GB and D drive 58GB. It is this D drive that has the Norton backup on. Dell have so far been no help. So I am confused! Anyone can help please? Thanks "Ed Light" wrote: "randau" wrote Maybe just one Partition for the Operating System and everything else (applications and data) in a second Partition (in case I had to reinstall the OS). It's good to have an OS partition and a data partition and every now and then image the os partition to DVD. The bootitng floppy can do that. You can move the mail store, favorites, and other things to the data partition, so that they are up to date if you have to restore the OS partition to the last DVD image. The latest version of the freebie tweakui from Microsoft will let you move the favorites, and Outlook Express will let you move the mail store. I run a main OS partition and some clones of it and they all share the mail and favorites. And the internet temp files. In fact, they all share the same My Documents folder. My boot manager is bootitng. -- Ed Light Bring the Troops Home: http://bringthemhomenow.org http://antiwar.com Send spam to the FTC at Thanks, robots. |
#27
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
Ludo wrote:
I guess I am the least skilled person on this forum; so please forgive me in advance. My problem is related - I think! Norton Ghost wont do more backups because it says the drive is full, having saved 58GB of data. This PC has two 250GB drives. My understanding is that one keeps a backup of the other. No, one doesn't "keep" a backup of the other. *One* of the ways you use this second drive (probably a second partition on a single drive) is using it for a backup, and that's apparently what you have been doing using Norton Ghost. (However, see below for a discussion of the wisdom of doing this). My Computer - Properties - shows C drive as having a size of 171GB and D drive 58GB. It is this D drive that has the Norton backup on. Dell have so far been no help. No help with what? Did you have a question? It should be obvious that a 58GB partition is inadequate to backup a 171GB partition. However, I would rethink that backup strategy. I don't recommend backup to a second non-removable hard drive because it leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original and backup to many of the most common dangers: severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer. In your case, if that second drive is actually a second partition, what I say in that paragraph goes double, because you are also susciptible to physical failure of the drive. What you are doing is the weakest possible form of backup. In my view, secure backup needs to be on removable media, and not kept in the computer. For really secure backup (needed, for example, if the life of your business depends on your data) you should have multiple generations of backup, and at least one of those generations should be stored off-site. -- Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User Please reply to the newsgroup So I am confused! Anyone can help please? Thanks "Ed Light" wrote: "randau" wrote Maybe just one Partition for the Operating System and everything else (applications and data) in a second Partition (in case I had to reinstall the OS). It's good to have an OS partition and a data partition and every now and then image the os partition to DVD. The bootitng floppy can do that. You can move the mail store, favorites, and other things to the data partition, so that they are up to date if you have to restore the OS partition to the last DVD image. The latest version of the freebie tweakui from Microsoft will let you move the favorites, and Outlook Express will let you move the mail store. I run a main OS partition and some clones of it and they all share the mail and favorites. And the internet temp files. In fact, they all share the same My Documents folder. My boot manager is bootitng. -- Ed Light Bring the Troops Home: http://bringthemhomenow.org http://antiwar.com Send spam to the FTC at Thanks, robots. |
#28
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
Ludo wrote: I guess I am the least skilled person on this forum; so please forgive me in advance. My problem is related - I think! Norton Ghost wont do more backups because it says the drive is full, having saved 58GB of data. This PC has two 250GB drives. My understanding is that one keeps a backup of the other. No, one doesn't "keep" a backup of the other. *One* of the ways you use this second drive (probably a second partition on a single drive) is using it for a backup, and that's apparently what you have been doing using Norton Ghost. (However, see below for a discussion of the wisdom of doing this). My Computer - Properties - shows C drive as having a size of 171GB and D drive 58GB. It is this D drive that has the Norton backup on. Dell have so far been no help. No help with what? Did you have a question? It should be obvious that a 58GB partition is inadequate to backup a 171GB partition. Sorry, I just noticed your subject line. In the future, please ask your question in the body of the message, not just in the subject line. It's very easy to miss it there, as I did. Unfortunately, no version of Windows before Vista provides any way of changing the existing partition structure of the drive nondestructively. The only way to do what you want is with third-party software. Partition Magic is the best-known such program, but there are freeware/shareware alternatives. One such program is BootIt Next Generation. It's shareware, but comes with a free 30-day trial, so you should be able to do what you want within that 30 days. I haven't used it myself (because I've never needed to use *any* such program), but it comes highly recommended by several other MVPs here. Whatever software you use, make sure you have a good backup before beginning. Although there's no reason to expect a problem, things *can* go wrong. -- Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User Please reply to the newsgroup |
#29
|
|||
|
|||
Changing Hard Disk Partition Size
Norton said the volume was full after 58GB? Is the volume you are backing up
to big enough? You may need a bigger volume to create the backup to. You can also try the highest compression in ghost which usually saves quite a bit of space, but it slows the process down and there is no guarantee that it will fit even with the compression set to high if your backup destination is too small. Consider slaving a blank disk at least as big as the total data size to the system, format it as FAT32, boot to ghost, backup the disk to the slave disk, verify the backup, delete the existing partitions, and then let Norton ghost recreate the largest partition it can. If you are really paranoid... like me... don't touch the original disk, get another disk that isn't being used of the size you want, and restore the norton image to that disk. This way you always have the original disk as a fall back incase something has gone horribly wrong. :-) If it stopped at 4GB, I'd say that you have to use the split=512 switch as you must break the files apart before they 4GB on a FAT32 volume. You can't create a file bigger than 4GB on a FAT32 volume, so almost all programs interpret this as a disk full error and stop processing. the split=512 switch breakes the ghost image into multiple 512MB files. You could also use split=1024 for 1GB files or spllit=650 to fit the files onto CD-ROM Disks. -- Best Wishes, Jeffery Smith "Ludo" wrote: I guess I am the least skilled person on this forum; so please forgive me in advance. My problem is related - I think! Norton Ghost wont do more backups because it says the drive is full, having saved 58GB of data. This PC has two 250GB drives. My understanding is that one keeps a backup of the other. My Computer - Properties - shows C drive as having a size of 171GB and D drive 58GB. It is this D drive that has the Norton backup on. Dell have so far been no help. So I am confused! Anyone can help please? Thanks "Ed Light" wrote: "randau" wrote Maybe just one Partition for the Operating System and everything else (applications and data) in a second Partition (in case I had to reinstall the OS). It's good to have an OS partition and a data partition and every now and then image the os partition to DVD. The bootitng floppy can do that. You can move the mail store, favorites, and other things to the data partition, so that they are up to date if you have to restore the OS partition to the last DVD image. The latest version of the freebie tweakui from Microsoft will let you move the favorites, and Outlook Express will let you move the mail store. I run a main OS partition and some clones of it and they all share the mail and favorites. And the internet temp files. In fact, they all share the same My Documents folder. My boot manager is bootitng. -- Ed Light Bring the Troops Home: http://bringthemhomenow.org http://antiwar.com Send spam to the FTC at Thanks, robots. |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|