Best partition program

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

On Nov 24, 7:21*am, "bob" wrote:
I would be grateful for any advice as to the best partitioning program, free
or otherwise. *Thank you.

What are you trying to accomplish?

Partition a hard drive.


"Jose" wrote in message
...
On Nov 24, 7:21 am, "bob" wrote:
I would be grateful for any advice as to the best partitioning program,
free
or otherwise. Thank you.

What are you trying to accomplish?

On Nov 24, 12:21*pm, "bob" wrote:
I would be grateful for any advice as to the best partitioning program, free
or otherwise. *Thank you.

When you want to use this software?

If you use it at the time you first install a hard drive: use the
built-in Disk Management.

If you want to resize partition: Look at the software offerings from
Acronis.

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

What makes a partitioning program "best" in your eyes?

Maybe what's best for me is terrible for you.
---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

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

I use acronis disk director.

it really is reliable and makes
resizing partitions as easy as
re organizing filing cabinet.

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

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.

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

incidentally, you don't want to
shrink your boot partition to
small because you will have
issues with defragging, virtual
memory and installing third
party programs.

lastly, keep in mind that if you
use a free partition manager,

you can't be sure with what you
getting.

so be sure to back up your personal
files in the event the system crashes
from a freeware that may not be up
to date with the current operating
system.


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

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



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

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
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.

Also, Imagine that you have a 1Tb disk, and partition it into two 500Gb
partitions. You put Windows into the first partition (which will take up
about 30Gb) and your data in the second partition. You now have a
470Gb empty hole between the windows files and your data, so anything
switching between the two will cause the disk to seek across that huge
gap all of the time. OK, this is an extreme case to emphasise the
problem, but it is there however you partition a single disk.

You can use a defragmenter such as JKDefrag to defragment the first
partition towards the top, and the second partition towards the bottom,
but it's still far from ideal.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

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 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:44:38 +0000, Swifty
wrote:

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
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.

Also, Imagine that you have a 1Tb disk, and partition it into two 500Gb
partitions. You put Windows into the first partition (which will take up
about 30Gb) and your data in the second partition. You now have a
470Gb empty hole between the windows files and your data, so anything
switching between the two will cause the disk to seek across that huge
gap all of the time. OK, this is an extreme case to emphasise the
problem, but it is there however you partition a single disk.

You can use a defragmenter such as JKDefrag to defragment the first
partition towards the top, and the second partition towards the bottom,
but it's still far from ideal.


Yep, I agree. having multiple partitions generally hurts performance
because it increases the distance heads have to travel and therefore
takes longer. Generally having a single partition is best for many
people, but it depends on circumstances. The best reason for multiple
partitions is usually multi-booting.

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

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.


BootItNG (BING) it's free.

Yousuf Khan

How does it increase the distance heads have to travel?
"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:44:38 +0000, Swifty
wrote:

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
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.

Also, Imagine that you have a 1Tb disk, and partition it into two 500Gb
partitions. You put Windows into the first partition (which will take up
about 30Gb) and your data in the second partition. You now have a
470Gb empty hole between the windows files and your data, so anything
switching between the two will cause the disk to seek across that huge
gap all of the time. OK, this is an extreme case to emphasise the
problem, but it is there however you partition a single disk.

You can use a defragmenter such as JKDefrag to defragment the first
partition towards the top, and the second partition towards the bottom,
but it's still far from ideal.


Yep, I agree. having multiple partitions generally hurts performance
because it increases the distance heads have to travel and therefore
takes longer. Generally having a single partition is best for many
people, but it depends on circumstances. The best reason for multiple
partitions is usually multi-booting.

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

On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:07:41 -0500, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

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.


BootItNG (BING) it's free.


It is *not* free. It's shareware and it sells for $34.95. However it
comes with a free trial period of (I think) 30 days.

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

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:.

Well, I don't use these particular programs but if what you say is true
then:

1- The programs that you use write nothing to the registry. Plausible
but doubtful, almost all but the smallest programs write to the
registry. That would also mean that none of your programs have private
dll's or other components that need to be registered, again doubtful.

2- You're programs are not Windows certified, or at least they are not
following the "best practices" for Windows applications, again plausible
but doubtful. Applications store user settings in the user's profile
folder, that is the way modern applications do it, imagine the mess on a
multi-user system when applications begin to store the settings for
multiple users in the programs folders! Only the oldest and most out of
date applications would still do things this way, that is especially so
for applications written for NT systems, NT certified applications have
not been doing this kind of thing since about 1995.

Having programs on a separate partition is really of little use when you
reinstall the operating system, if it makes one happy to have them
separated fine, but there is little to no benefits in doing so.

John

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

I have had good luck with GParted which ironically is a Linux partition
editor. You can download it he

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/

The .iso file when used with a CD burning software will create a
bootable CD. This is the one that I've used.

--

Roy Smith
Windows XP Pro SP3