[RootbeaR]

I want to try to partition my harddrive. I have Paragon Partition Manager 2005. I am not concerned if it doesn't work and have to reinstall OS as I have just recently finished doing so and do not have all programs and files reloaded yet.

My question is as to whether it is possible to damage my harddrive trying to partition it?

I only have the one (160Gb). It will be months before I have the money to replace it.

 

[Old Rich]

Easiest way to partition is using XP when you are installing . . . Have not used Paragon, but the worst case is you would have to reinstall, then you could partition the drive.

Partitioning should not harm the drive.

 

[sk8stlpunk]

Easiest way to partition is using XP when you are installing .........
Partitioning should not harm the drive.

I Agree do it when you install XP it will ask you what drive to install on, press L (i believe) to remove the partition. then you have all un partitioned space and you can tell it to format a set partition for the OS.
Once you install the OS go to dev man and partition the rest as you want.

Just out of curisoity how much space do others use for the OS partition?? I have mine set to 10GB ????

 

[johnpost]

I want to try to partition my harddrive. I have Paragon Partition Manager 2005. I am not concerned if it doesn't work and have to reinstall OS as I have just recently finished doing so and do not have all programs and files reloaded yet.

My question is as to whether it is possible to damage my harddrive trying to partition it?

I only have the one (160Gb). It will be months before I have the money to replace it.

it won't harm your hard drive.

it will put some miles on your hard drive but with a new system and
mostly blank space it won't be much.

to do a fresh install with a different partition will also put some
miles on

partiton may be shorter but really a toss up for time and effort

 

[johnpost]

Just out of curisoity how much space do others use for the OS partition?? I have mine set to 10GB ????

HA!

that's what i thought would be big enough. i've kicked it up twice.

using windows and office and what i've come to want as
applications it has turned out to not be enough.

i used to place applications in other partitions but i find
so many want to be on the OS partition (or behave better)
or demand lots of hoop jumping to be elsewhere.

 

[RootbeaR]

I have a Compaq with with recovery CDs' and oodles of things I uninstall immediately. It has two options, recover or destructive recovery. It automatically reformats and creates a recovery partition. I have never seen an option to create additional partitions other than by using the Tools CD, after install is complete, which only allows for the creation of one partition. I want more. If I try to fdisk from another OS's tools, then I will not have the recovery partition which is usefull to reinstall a program I have uninstalled instead of trying to get it off of 1 of the 9 install discs(Application recovery, select it, done).

 

[Old Rich]

You can usually get a reinstallation disc from Compaq if you ask nice and are persistant . . the rational is "what if the hard drive goes out . . how do I reinstall then?"

 

[saikee]

My question is as to whether it is possible to damage my harddrive trying to partition it?

As a matter of fact partitioning in itself is just the alteration of the entries in the partition table which has only 64 bytes located between the 447th and 510th byte of the hard disk.

One can destroy the partition completely without affecting the information stored inside the partitions. All the information can be accessed again if the partition table is rebuilt to the original setting. This is based on the experience of having re-rebuilt partition table with over 60 partitions inside about a dozen times.

I can't really see what partitioning can possiblly damage a hard disk. Having said that one does need a correct partition table for the operating system to locate the data.

 

[RootbeaR]

You can usually get a reinstallation disc from Compaq if you ask nice and are persistant . . the rational is "what if the hard drive goes out . . how do I reinstall then?"

Thats how I got these discs. I also insisted on just XP discs, keep your other software, but they were adamant, insisting I could only get discs consistent with system I bought, which has evrything on it ready to go. Takes an hour to uninstall all the extras. This package is how they sell it cheaply. NOrtON and others would be furious if they found out. Says Compaq, but it is HP you call and deal with.

 

[johnpost]

I have a Compaq with with recovery CDs' and oodles of things I uninstall immediately. It has two options, recover or destructive recovery. It automatically reformats and creates a recovery partition. I have never seen an option to create additional partitions other than by using the Tools CD, after install is complete, which only allows for the creation of one partition. I want more. If I try to fdisk from another OS's tools, then I will not have the recovery partition which is usefull to reinstall a program I have uninstalled instead of trying to get it off of 1 of the 9 install discs(Application recovery, select it, done).

when you do a recover from there disc then you get what they give
you. with a third party partition application you can alter it later.

if you use their recovery tools later then it will hose your customization.

either need to resort to a second drive to have as you want or use
a single drive with their sturcture and recovery abilities or a
single drive customized the way you want it and accept that
you may loose it someday (maybe at a later point you would
have backed up your second partition on first drive to a
later purchased second drive).

 

[Old Rich]

Thats how I got these discs. I also insisted on just XP discs, keep your other software, but they were adamant, insisting I could only get discs consistent with system I bought, which has evrything on it ready to go. Takes an hour to uninstall all the extras. This package is how they sell it cheaply. NOrtON and others would be furious if they found out. Says Compaq, but it is HP you call and deal with.

Bummer . . some of the OEM's will supply an install disc, but apparently those guys don't . . I keep a set of OEM install discs around for circumstances like this. Any way you could borrow an unbranded OEM disc you could use to install using your Product Code?

 

[saikee]

Or clone a bootable copy onto an external drive for safe keeping

 

[griffinspc]

i used to place applications in other partitions but i find so many want to be on the OS partition (or behave better) or demand lots of hoop jumping to be elsewhere.

In my opine 10GBs is fine for the OS and nothing else if the page file is on that partition with a couple system based apps like your anti-virus. Once you begin to add applications/programs like office and others 10GBs goes real quick. I disagree that it effects performance to have all apps on another partition with today's drives. I have all apps except my AV and firewall on "D". It's easy to change the install path on almost all programs now and if you want it's easy to make D:\Program Files the default for Windows either in the registry or with 3rd party utilities so when they start to install that's where they'll go.

If you have 2 drives the page file should go to the 1st partition on that 2nd drive too (by itself). In short with 160 GBs or more on today's drives 10 GB is great for the XP install even if a little space is wasted. Lots of head room.

 

[RootbeaR]

Ok. So it won't hurt my drive. Thank-you evryone. Read somewhere someone was blaming partition manager for destroying their hard drive, I was skeptical but wanted to check.

 

[Old Rich]

It won't destroy your hard drive, but be double dog sure to back up any data you cherish . . ti can reneder a drive unusable . . many posts here about losing data after using a third-party partition program