# Wahoo!! 40 Gigs in 4 Partitions!!.. now what... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 28, 2001, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wahoo-40-gigs-in-4-partitions-now-what/59771 "2001-03-28T02:29:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CnoteChris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/278dde/32.png) [@CnoteChris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CnoteChris)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wahoo-40-gigs-in-4-partitions-now-what/59771/1 "2001-03-28T02:29:51Z")
After a series of devastating crashes and subsequent re-installs of the OS, I decided to install a second hard drive on my pc (Pent III 450, W/256 ram running Win 98) to not only back up data, but also expand the storage space on my pc. I installed a Western Digital 30 gig drive as a primary slave to the WD 10 gig primary master that came with the system (About 2 years old, medium usage). The primary has the current OS and all inter-related files added on after the last crash. In setting up the slave, I decided, for no particular reason, to keep the partitions limited to 10 gigs each on the new 30 gig slave, like the primarys’ limit of 10 gigs. So I have the ‘C’ with everything on it at 10 gigs, along with the new ‘D’ ‘E’ and ‘F’ at 10 gigs and empty. Now what do I do? I made a backup of my music files, IE 5.5 downloaded setup folder, and all other downloaded programs and patches on the ‘D’ drive, but that’s it. It took up about 80 megs all told. What the hell do I do with all the extra room? Should I add another OS? More backups? Backup what? What other OS’s should I consider? Can I dual boot different OS’s at the same time? How? Basically, what the hell should I do with the extra room? \*\* I searched and searched the archive but didn’t find anything in the flood of results that matched this kind of question. Thank ya one and all. Oh, and also, if you don’t mind, give me some ‘I wish I knew then what I know now’ stuff relating to advantages/disadvantages of the secondary HD. ---
**Author:** ![Tyklfe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3e96dc/32.png) [@Tyklfe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyklfe)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wahoo-40-gigs-in-4-partitions-now-what/59771/2 "2001-03-28T02:35:47Z")
I would recomend becoming a server for the SDMBs. (that’s quite a bit of space) ---
**Author:** ![CnoteChris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/278dde/32.png) [@CnoteChris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CnoteChris)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wahoo-40-gigs-in-4-partitions-now-what/59771/3 "2001-03-28T02:37:46Z")
Hmmm… Up there it should have read, or been more clear, that the setup looks like this: Primary Drive ‘C’= 10 gig total. Two years old and containing the current OS. Expanded, partitioned secondary or slave drive, 30 gig total space- ‘D’= 10 gig ‘E’= 10 gig ‘F’= 10 gig ---
**Author:** ![CnoteChris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/278dde/32.png) [@CnoteChris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CnoteChris)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wahoo-40-gigs-in-4-partitions-now-what/59771/4 "2001-03-28T02:44:54Z")
I certainly wouldn’t forbid donations, **Tyklfe**. All donations would go towards a prestine, new, T-1 connection that I’ve been longing for. How much can I chalk you up for? ---
**Author:** ![Gambit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Gambit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gambit)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wahoo-40-gigs-in-4-partitions-now-what/59771/5 "2001-03-28T03:44:18Z")
Just for the hell of it, buy an inexpensive but decent video capture card, install it, run your VCR through it, and burn some VCDs from your old videotapes. You have the room on the drive for it, it will cut down on clutter, and you can play them on your DVD player (or computer if you don’t have one.) ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wahoo-40-gigs-in-4-partitions-now-what/59771/6 "2001-03-28T17:10:08Z")
Why did you make so many partitions? About two years ago here I said that HD’s have gotten far bigger than an average person would have the money for the software to fill them. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wahoo-40-gigs-in-4-partitions-now-what/59771/7 "2001-03-28T23:07:09Z")
Four partitions? 1. Play around with alternative operating systems – Linux, BeOS, Free BSD, QNX. Just don’t delete the partition that has all the stuff you want to keep. Usually, I’ll give alternative operating systems far smaller partitions than that of Windows – 2 to 5 gigs for Linux is plenty. (Remember, you need separate main and swap partitions for Linux.) 2. I actually had more than two other ideas, but they might have pushed the limits of legality (coughnapstercoughcough), and I don’t want to kill the thread.