# Which hard drive and whether to partition? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 12, 2001, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139 "2001-10-12T22:11:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Squee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@Squee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squee)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2001, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/21 "2001-10-14T03:57:03Z")
Personally, I have always kept data and OS separated. But lately I have gone one step further. On drive C: Windows 2000 Drive D: Page file Drive E: Temp files Drives F - J saved for mapping to network shares at work through VPN. Drive K: DVD-rom Drives L - X: data and mp3s I have two Seagate 180GB SCSI Barracuda drives in my system. Can you tell I like to store MP3s? = ) I’m currently building a Linux file server and adding 4- IBM GXP60 60GB drives. I know about the high RMA rate of the 75GXPs, but I have used IBM in the past with no issues. Just a reiteration to what was said above. Keep the data separate from the OS and you will save yourself many headaches when it comes to reinstalling the OS (regardless of operating system). ---
**Author:** ![Squee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@Squee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squee)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2001, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/22 "2001-10-14T04:08:12Z")
Sorry for the double post. My browser was hanging and I didn’t thing it went through. :o Apologies. ---
**Author:** ![aramis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@aramis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aramis)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2001, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/23 "2001-10-14T04:57:13Z")
Myself: > [@](#): > > I second the idea of separate partitions for Windows and data. The idea of separating Windows from other programs is pretty impractical though. KellyM: > [@](#): > > I disagree. Many IT departments do this as a matter of course. Myself: > [@](#): > > The reason is that Windows create s a \Program Files directory on its own host drive and installs a lot of stuff there. KellyM: > [@](#): > > Yes, but only a small number of things actually go in there by default. Virtually all programs (these days) can be told to install to a “Program Files” directory on another drive. The fact that IT departments do it is not an argument for why a home user should. Personally, I see no value in having two PF directories on different drives. Perhaps you can elucidate? Myself: > [@](#): > > There’s a small possibility that a program installed on a drive other than C: will not work properly. In fact, I’ve never personally run into one that did myself. I got this tip from a column in (IIRC) PC Magazine some years ago and have followed it ever since. It seems clear to me that a bug like would be easy to create and could easily slip through testing. Barring real value in doing otherwise, I generally take the default installation path. Myself: > [@](#): > > …and 2) you have to remember to do the change for every single program you install. In general it’s not worth it. KellyM: > [@](#): > > As an IT professional who has to rebuild user machines from time to time, I would say that it is worth it. YMMV. As an IT professional, this is probably second nature for you. I submit that the average home user trying to do likewise will almost certainly end up with a hodgepodge of some programs installed in C:\PF and some in D:\PF. I’ve heard people put forth the idea of doing it to simplify backing up installed program directories but that’s not especially useful except in the case of those programs who insist on putting data files within their own subdirectory structures. Myself: > [@](#): > > My recommendation is three partitions, one for Windows and other installed programs, one for data files, and one small one, less than 1GB for the swap file. KellyM: > [@](#): > > Now that is a particularly bad idea: it will make your system slower unless you have a really smart disk controller (and even then there will still be a penalty as your hard drive disk heads go flying back and forth all over the disk). Point taken. This is another tip I picked up some time ago from a magazine column and have been using since. There is an important aspect of this tip that I neglected to mention in the original post. It involves forcing the cluster size on the swap partition to the maximum size possible to increase the efficiency of I/O operations in that partition. In the end, it may come down to a wash given seek time. Given the price of memory these days, the best swap file solution may be just to add enough memory so swapping is seldom if ever necessary. Myself: > [@](#): > > On another note, there’s a misconception being repeated here that I want to try to nip in the bud. It is not, repeat not, necessary or even particularly desirable to reformat the C: drive to do a clean re-install of Windows. All that is necessary is to rename the \Windows and \Program Files (aka \PROGRA~1) directories to something else at a DOS prompt. The Windows installer will detect an existing Windows installation and ask if you want to upgrade it. Answer No and it will create a new, completely fresh install in a new \Windows directory. The advantages of doing this are many. There’s almost no benefit to re-formatting can’t be had by just running scandisk. KellyM: > [@](#): > > Uh, no. Not only does this leave you with a badly fragmented drive (not to mention FAT rot, which is a general problem with FAT filesystems), but it doesn’t deal with the dozen-odd files that reside in the drive root, the boot loader, or the boot sector. With FAT filesystems, it’s a good idea to completely wipe and restore your drive anyway from time to time, to combat FAT rot and fragmentation. System drives are even more prone to FAT rot and should have this done to them even more often than data drives. (Which is why you should use NTFS if at all possible. NTFS is a much more robust file system.) So, yes, you can install Windows the way you suggest. It’s just not a good idea. Fragmentation is a problem with any file system, even NTFS, but reformatting is not the solution. If you re-install Windows, all of the important system files in the root directory will be replaced and backed up if necessary. Yes, you might end up with an extra copy of some old configuration file stuck in the root directory but I consider that a small price. The big advantage of not wiping the drive is that you can keep a copy of both the old \Windows and \PF directories around for a while. You never know when it’d be handy to have a copy of that old INI file for some application to get back some old settings, or maybe some file that got stuck in the TEMP directory a while back, or maybe an old BOOKMARK.HTM file, and so on. In a pinch, you can even get back your entire old installation if you just did a re-installation of the same version. I’ve needed all of these on at least one occasion and they would have been impossible if simply I’d wiped the disk. If everything’s running fine after a few weeks, then you can confidently delete the old directories. If you have proper backups, and an IT department behind you, wiping may be a reasonable option. Most personal users I know don’t have anything resembling a proper backup. BTW, I don’t recommend NTFS for home users because if there is a major system failure there’s no good way to recover files on the drive. With a FAT partition, you can always boot to DOS and get your data back. I’ve personally had this happen twice. A Windows 2000 system had an unknown error and completely refused to recognize a particular FAT32 drive. I pulled the drive and put it in a Win98 machine and it too failed to see it. Finally I booted to a Win98 command prompt and hallelujah, there were my files. I lost all the LFNs but my data was still retrievable. Would this have happened if the drive was using NTFS? Maybe, maybe not, I’ll likely never know, but in the absence of a strict backup regimen, I’ll always recommend FAT. Myself: > [@](#): > > KellyM, I’ve never heard the term FAT Rot. Can you explain? KellyM: > [@](#): > > It refers to the general recognition by most of the people that work with Windows systems on a regular basis that FAT filesystems “rot” over time (mainly because FAT was never designed for anything larger than a floppy) and get progressively worse and worse. The regular use of defragmenters and chkdsk/scandisk helps to stave it off, but you’re better off using a real filesystem. I did a google search and couldn’t find a single reference to FAT rot, at least not in regard to disk drives. I’ve been using PCs for 15 years now and have never come across it so your explanation _“the general recognition by most of the people that work with Windows systems on a regular basis”_ sounds a little provincial. Granted FAT has many shortcomings but rotting is not one of them. Its scale, whether on a floppy or on a multi-gigabyte is irrelevant. In principle it works the same way on both. Files that are being modified when there is a system crash can indeed be truncated, as can happen on any file system, but a file that has been closed will not suddenly disappear or be truncated for no reason. Nor will the OS arbitrarily move clusters around and lose them in the process. Maybe you’re referring to the cluster slack problem, which is real but likewise is common to all file systems though to a lesser degree than FAT. On a 60GB drive, that’s probably a pretty minor issue. ---
**Author:** ![Ariadne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/71c47a/32.png) [@Ariadne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ariadne)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2001, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/24 "2001-10-14T17:12:24Z")
I did the opposite of double posting. I thought I’d posted a reply here last night, but I guess it never showed up. Thank you all for your advice. From everything I’ve read here so far, it sounds like I should repartition the 3 gig into one drive, and use it for mp3s or replaceable files like that. On the 60 gig drive, maybe a 30 gig partition for Windows and program files (and the swap file I guess, I only have 32 megs of ram, so the swap file is important)? I compulsively keep backup copies of installation programs, so restoring them isn’t a big deal if I have to format C. I really like the idea of a separate drive for data such as email, documents, and photos so that could be the other 30 gigs of the new drive. I bought the retail version of the hard drive, so it will have what the webpage calls a “software install utility,” which I hope will be useful in partitioning. If not, I’m not afraid of FDisk, since my data will be safely stored on another computer. I don’t think I can use NTFS; I only have a Windows 98 cd. However, I’m looking forward to moving up to Fat32, because I have so many small files. How can I tell how big a drive the Bios can handle? I read that Windows 98 can’t handle anything bigger than a 60 gig drive, which is why I chose that size. It hadn’t occurred to me that the bios might have limits. I restarted and found out that my bios is a 1992 (I bought the computer in '96 though) Amibios from American Megatrends, but their webpage didn’t have any useful info or upgrades. Thanks again for helping me 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![heresiarch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@heresiarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heresiarch)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/25 "2001-10-15T00:08:42Z")
I’ve got a question for **KellyM** and **Artemis** : You both seem to agree that it’s a bad idea to create a separate, small partition exclusively for the swap file. Are you talking about a partition on the same (60 Gig) drive? Wouldn’t it be smart for Ariadne to create a small partition on the 3 Gig drive for a swap file? It seems to me like the best use for the old drive. ---
**Author:** ![inertia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@inertia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inertia)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/26 "2001-10-15T05:37:30Z")
If you absolutely have to install Windoze, you’ll want separate partitions for the OS and data/MP3’s. You may want many smaller partitions because it’s a pain in the behind to do the proper maintenance if it’s one huge freakin drive. AND when you install SETI@HOME you will not be able to SCANDISK and DEFRAG without uninstalling SETI@HOME because the stupid thing will access the HDD about 5 minutes into the scan. The scan will then start over - ad infinitum. Now, if you wanna to the right thing, you’ll install Linux. The installatin should partition your hard drive for optimum performance. Easy. ---
**Author:** ![aramis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@aramis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aramis)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/27 "2001-10-15T08:11:17Z")
heresiarch: > [@](#): > > Wouldn’t it be smart for Ariadne to create a small partition on the 3 Gig drive for a swap file? In principle, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea, especially if the other drive were put on the 2nd IDE controller to reduce contention between the two. In Ariadne’s case however, I suspect that the age of the smaller drive means that it’s probably slower than the new one so any gains would be offset by that. Ariadne, I doubt that a BIOS from 1992 will be able to handle a 60GB drive. In 1992, a 1GB drive was pretty impressive. Just for comparison on what was available then, I checked back in my own records. I see that I bought a 80_ **M** _B drive in the summer for '91 for $350, giving me a total 120MB disk space, which was pretty impressive. I’ve never used those software installation utilities that come with a new drive. That _may_ be be able to overcome a BIOS limitation, check the docs that come with it. If not, you may be able to get a BIOS upgrade chip that you can install yourself. Bear this in mind though. The ROI on upgrades to a machine that old (I’m guessing about Pentium 100) is pretty low when you can get a brand new machine that is far superior to what you have now for about $400 not including monitor. If your budget allows, I’d return the drive and apply the price toward a new machine with a drive that’s 20GB or so. That much space should last quite a while unless you’re doing serious digital video editing. Regarding partition size, 6-8GB should be more than enough for the the OS & programs partition. Keep the rest for data. ---
**Author:** ![Amazing\_Tiki\_God](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@Amazing\_Tiki\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazing_Tiki_God)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/28 "2001-10-15T10:00:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by inertia \* > **AND when you install SETI@HOME you will not be able to SCANDISK and DEFRAG without uninstalling SETI@HOME because the stupid thing will access the HDD about 5 minutes into the scan. The scan will then start over - ad infinitum.** [hi-jack] Nuh-uh! I’ve got SETI@HOME on my PC and I’ve never experienced that. Although it could be because I kill all unneccessary programs before doing Scandisk and Defrag[/hi-jack] ---
**Author:** ![KellyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/29 "2001-10-15T12:20:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by heresiarch \* > \*\*I’ve got a question for **KellyM** and **Artemis** : You both seem to agree that it’s a bad idea to create a separate, small partition exclusively for the swap file. Are you talking about a partition on the same (60 Gig) drive? Wouldn’t it be smart for Ariadne to create a small partition on the 3 Gig drive for a swap file? It seems to me like the best use for the old drive. \*\* If the old drive is not particularly slow, that might not be a bad use. At least this way you won’t interleave data I/O with swap I/O on the same drive and you won’t be flinging heads all over the place, which is what will happen if you put a separate swap partition on the large drive. The worst case scenario, by the way, is to put a small swap partition after a large data partition. When allocating space, FAT always selects the free cluster with the lowest cluster number, which means FAT always fills the disk from the low end toward the high end. This means that there is going to be a large gap between the data on a FAT partition and the start of the next partition unless the FAT partition is nearly entirely full. If you have a partition after a large FAT partition, getting to that partition will require a large seek. If this partition is heavily used (such as a swap partition), you will see a diminution of performance due to a high proportion of time being spent seeking the drive heads. NTFS does not suffer from this problem; NTFS seeks to balance block allocation across the entire partition in order to minimize average seek times. (NTFS is also designed to avoid fragmentation, which is why it is not as necessary to run defragmenters on a regular basis on NTFS systems. Another reason to use NTFS.) I would theoretically advise also insuring that the second drive is on the other I/O channel, but that’s not really important as very few IDE controllers actually have independent channels (to save money, the controllers serialize the channels, so even though the IDE specification permits simultaneous operations on both channels, the card is not actually capable of doing so). ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/30 "2001-10-15T13:52:25Z")
Ariadne, wehn you get a HD it should come with software to get around your bios limitations. You can also download that software from the manf web site for free. Thats the place to look for info on what to do, the web site that is. ---
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/31 "2001-10-15T15:13:00Z")
Here’s what I’d recommend: Set up the old drive as a slave (when you’ve got 60 GB, an additional 3GB isn’t going to mean much, even if you have thousands of MP3s). Create your C partition to be no larger than the old drive (3.2 GB). Use the rest of the drive for your D partition (Win 98 may force the second drive to take the “D” designation; no biggie if it does). For a normal PC user I don’t think that any more than two partitions are justified unless you’re using multiple OS’es, which I assume you’re not. **All software except for the OS should be installed on the D partition**. After you have everything installed to your satisfaction, reformat your old drive and use the **xcopy/s** (or is it xcopy32 with Win98?) command to copy everything from your C partition to your old drive (E?). You may have to boot to a command prompt to do this. Note: this will not work with Win2K or XP, and may not work with ME. To do it with those OSes, you’ll need a partition backup utility like Norton **Ghost** ). Every time you make a major change to your OS (like installing more software), make a habit of doing that copy again (delete all the old files on the old drive before you do this). This will give you a backup if/when your C partition gets trashed; if that happens, boot to a floppy and copy all your files back. ---
**Author:** ![aramis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@aramis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aramis)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/32 "2001-10-15T17:11:39Z")
Frogstein, good idea with the OS backup but but XCOPY is not a good way to do it. Nor is any other routine way of copying files like drag-n-dropping them in explorer. The reason is that even though Win9x programs handle long file names, they don’t always use them internally. When storing path/file names in the registry, some of them use the equivalent DOS 8.3 file names instead. The result is that copying those files with a normal mechanism can put the registry out of sync with the actual file names. Why they do this I have not a clue but it can cause a real nightmare for the person who attempts the perfectly reasonable action of making a backup copy of their system files. As you mentioned, ghost is a good choice if you have access to a copy. ---
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/33 "2001-10-15T17:35:16Z")
I will defer to you. The last time I tried this I was successful, but I don’t recall if it was Win95 or Win98. I got the idea from a Win 95 FAQ from several years back. ---
**Author:** ![KellyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/34 "2001-10-15T17:45:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by frogstein \* > \*\*I will defer to you. The last time I tried this I was successful, but I don’t recall if it was Win95 or Win98. I got the idea from a Win 95 FAQ from several years back. \*\* It will work in most cases for the toy versions of Windows (W95, W98, and Me). It will not for NT4, 2000 (NT5) or XP (NT6) because of the requirement of a unique SID and (possibly also) because XCOPY does not respect NTFS ownership and permissions (use SCOPY for that). There are situations where it won’t work for the toy versions of Windows, but those situations should be uncommon. ---
**Author:** ![aramis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@aramis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aramis)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2001, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/35 "2001-10-16T02:46:48Z")
Here’s an excerpt chosen at random from my own system’s registry. It shows the file that’s used to open CPP (C++) files. This registry entry was created by Microsoft Visual Studio. > [@](#): > > C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\COMMON\MSDEV98\BIN\MSDEV.EXE,-20209 The long filename (LFN) version of this would be > [@](#): > > “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\MSDev98…” The _“MICROS~2”_ portion of the name is caused by the fact that this subdirectory was the second one created that began with the letters _“MICROS”_. The first one that was created uses _“MICROS~1”_ as its short name and so on for others with similar names. The same rules apply to similar file names with a particular directory. If I use XCOPY to make a backup of my _\Program Files_ tree, and then later try to copy that same directory back to the C: drive, those two directores may or may not get copied back in the same order as the order in which they were created originally. If they get copied in the wrong order, the other “Microsoft…” directory will get assigned the short name of MICROS~2. Any programs that use those registry references will be looking in the wrong place for data. In other words, part of the system will be utterly hosed. If someone’s system is set up so that there is not a single instance of this situation in the _\Windows_ or _\Program Files_ trees, then XCOPY or drag-n-drop will work just fine because no number higher than 1 will ever be used. If not, there’s potential for a situation that could cause errors that are extremely difficult to track down. It will please KellyM no end that I did a cursory check in Windows 2000 and it seems to use the long file names exclusively, which is what the other Windows variants _should_ do. ---
**Author:** ![KellyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2001, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139/36 "2001-10-16T04:08:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by aramis \* > **If I use XCOPY to make a backup of my _\Program Files_ tree, and then later try to copy that same directory back to the C: drive, those two directores may or may not get copied back in the same order as the order in which they were created originally.** Indeed, this is the situation in which XCOPY will not work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-hard-drive-and-whether-to-partition/87139.md?page=1)