How do I partition my hard drive?

[Michael1980]

Hi,

I want to create a new partition on my hard drive for data (that will be 60 out 80gb). What is the best way to do that? Don't want to risk it with Partition Magic, is there anything safer?

Thanks

[pipspeak]

I use Partition Magic and it's a pretty well-regarded piece of software. Not sure what your experience is. I've partitioned Two T-series HDDs with it and had no problems at all.

Don't know of anything else off the top of my head.

[Kyocera]

I have heard great things about Partition Majic like pipspeak said, I just happend to pick up Partition Commander at Staples and have used it on all my laptops and desktops, it has wizards, and has an "undo" option for many operations. If you have an old machine around to practice on that might be a start. But if you follow the manual, creating a partition on your drive is not that complex.(':roll:')

[gunston]

partition magic is a common tool for HD partitioning, user friendly as well.
No doubt using it.
recommended!

[MadeInJapan]

If you haven't installed a O.S. on it yet, you can just boot up with a Win98 disc and use FDISK and make your own partitions. Then install your O.S. You will end up with FAT32 on the non-OS partition however.

[Sleepy]

I never partitioned HD before I bought my Thinkpad. Partition Magic was extremely easy to use. Everything is self-explanatory, no need for special skills.

[Michael1980]

Ok thanks. It is just PM failed on me once out of 3 times I have used it. Meant I had to reinstall the whole OS. Anyway, I will try it and see what happens.

One question though, how do I restore files using IBM software (be it factory install or your backup using the supplied program) onto the C partition without touching the D partition? When I do factory state restore I see the message saying that "all partitions will be deleted".

Thanks for any advice.

[Nolonemo]

I'm just going to chime in here, slightly OT. I don't have the IBM recovery software (actually, I might, on the image i made of my factory load HD), but after reading the posts about it on this forum, it sounds like a real PITA to me, and a little kludgy/wierd to me. But, in fairness, that might be because the only posting are about problems people are having with it.

When I got my TP, I immediately imaged the HD (over my network) using Acronic TrueImage (just in case there was anything on it I wanted to get at later), then I did a low level format/partition the way I like it (separate partitions for OS, apps and data) and did a fresh install of XP and the softare I use. I reimage every week to two different networked PCs. You can to this to a 3.5" HD in a USB enclosure if you're not networked. A bare metal restore would be a matter of minutes. If I go on the road, I burn the backup image (I split it to 1.5GB chunks when I image) to DVD, so I can restore in the event of catastrophe. I don't have to worry about cryptic messages because I have total control over what I want to restore. With TrueImage, I can even go into an image and recover a file I accidently deteled from the HD without having to do a restore at all.

But, back on topic. For partitioning, I prefer Acronis Disk Director over Partition Magic (I used PM for years before switching, BTW). Disk Director is not quite as easy to use as PM (just because the layout of the program isn't quite as intuitive), but it's a magnitude faster. Plus, I have lost data on one occasion when using PM but never with DD (but I've used PM a lot more than DD, so that's not really saying anything.

One final thought. If you are going to repartition a drive with data on it that you care about, using any software, you are absolutely nuts if you don't do a full image/backup first. I learned that the hard way (apart from the data loss, I have so much on my desktop machine it literally takes me all day to load all the programs). I repartitioned bareback (pardon the expression) many times with no problem, but when the law of averages caught up with me and a crash during the repartition hosed my drive with no backup, it really sucked. Now I have religion. You should profit from my mistake!