Partition - what for and how do I use them?

[Guest]

I have just bought an Acer laptop with Vista Home Premium and it has two
partitions. One is called D: Data, but the computer doesn't seem to use it.
Each partition is about 50gb in size and I bought the laptop to take on a
six-month trip through Asia with me - I plan to use it to work with and store
all the photos I'm going to take on my digital SLR.

The photo files are all quite big, so it won't be long until I've used up
the spare space in the partition that's active and I don't know what will
happen when that one's full. Will Vista automatically start saving them in
the other partition?

I can't see how to save things in the D: drive and am hoping i won't use up
the 50gb and not be able to access the other 50gb.

I'm a total newbie with Vista - I usually use a Mac, but couldn't afford a
Mac laptop to take with me - so I've no idea what the point of the two
partitions are actually for, and how I'm supposed to use them. Can anyone
offer any tips?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:16:01 -0700, Adam C <Adam

I have just bought an Acer laptop with Vista Home Premium and it has two
partitions. One is called D: Data, but the computer doesn't seem to use it.
Each partition is about 50gb in size and I bought the laptop to take on a
six-month trip through Asia with me - I plan to use it to work with and store
all the photos I'm going to take on my digital SLR.

The photo files are all quite big, so it won't be long until I've used up
the spare space in the partition that's active and I don't know what will
happen when that one's full. Will Vista automatically start saving them in
the other partition?

No. And you should start using that space *way* before the first
partition gets filled.

I can't see how to save things in the D: drive and am hoping i won't use up
the 50gb and not be able to access the other 50gb.

Whenever you save a file you have to tell the operating system where
to save it. There is normally a default, but you can change it and
navigate to wherever you want--a different folder or a different
partition.

I'm a total newbie with Vista - I usually use a Mac, but couldn't afford a
Mac laptop to take with me -

Note that this has nothing in particular to do with Vista--it's
exactly the same in all versions of Windows.

Your question is so very basic, that I'm afraid to try to tell you
exactly how to do this for fear of confusing you. What I would
strongly suggest is that you either take a very basic local course on
how to use Visa, or buy a beginner's book on it. Or better, do both.

so I've no idea what the point of the two
partitions are actually for,and how I'm supposed to use them. Can anyone
offer any tips?

There is no "actually for" that everyone agrees on. Some people prefer
to have a single partition, some people prefer two, and others prefer
more than two. Of those people who prefer two or more, different
people use their different partitions in different ways.

 

[Guest]

So I need to buy a book or take a course to use Vista?!

I'm leaving next week, so no time for a course, but a book I will get. In
the meantime, it looks like you got straight to the heart of what I actually
need to know in practice, and that is how to save things to the Data
partition (apologies if I'm not using the right terminology - hope you know
what I mean!)

You say 'Whenever you save a file you have to tell the operating system
where to save it'. Ok, fair enough - but how do I do that? It would seem
sensible that I save my photos on the (currently unused) Data part of the
drive - 50gb should be enough space. The other half has the same amount, but
a lot of it is already taken up, presumably with the OS, program files, etc.

I use PS Lightroom to manage my photos, so how would I tell it to store the
photos on the right partition?

And thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, it's much appreciated

 

[Mac]

Probably a good idea to find an online storage service and upload your
photos on a regular basis (don't want all your eggs in one basket!), or you
could archive them frequently to CD or DVD and post home...

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

So I need to buy a book or take a course to use Vista?!

No, I didn't say that. *I* didn't do either when I started with Vista,
but I had a lot of experience with previous versions of Windows. You,
on the other hand, are a self-admitted beginner at Windows, and either
a book or course is likely to be the fastest way to get you the
knowledge you need.

I'm leaving next week, so no time for a course, but a book I will get. In
the meantime, it looks like you got straight to the heart of what I actually
need to know in practice, and that is how to save things to the Data
partition (apologies if I'm not using the right terminology - hope you know
what I mean!)

Yes.


You say 'Whenever you save a file you have to tell the operating system
where to save it'. Ok, fair enough - but how do I do that?

It depends on how you are saving it, but in most applications you will
be at a "save" or "save as" dialog box. In that dialog box, you can
navigate to the drive (partition) and folder you want to save it to;
otherwise it goes to the default.

The difficulty in explaining this is that if don't have basic
familiarity with Windows, it's probably very hard for you to
understand what I'm saying. If I were to actually show you, you would
probably understand instantly; that's why I suggested that a book or a
course is much better than my (or anyone else's) explanation here.

It would seem
sensible that I save my photos on the (currently unused) Data part of the
drive

That's a reasonable choice. Not necessarily the only way to do it, but
reasonable.

- 50gb should be enough space. The other half has the same amount, but
a lot of it is already taken up, presumably with the OS, program files, etc.

I use PS Lightroom to manage my photos, so how would I tell it to store the
photos on the right partition?

Sorry, I'm not familiar with that application, but if it uses the
standard "Save" and "Save as" dialogs, try to follow my instructions
above.

By the way, *before* you save anything there, create a folder on that
second partition to save the photos in. You can call it something like
"Photos".

You can also move the photos you already have on your first partition
to that new folder on the second partition, and free up some space on
the first partition.

If you are about to ask me how to move files, I want to stress again
that this is a very basic Windows technique. I can answer the
question, but I'm really very leery of doing it without showing you
how, because I may take something for granted that you don't know and
lead you astray. A newcomer to Windows really needs some basic
instruction on how to use Windows in general, not just the answer to
the specific questions your asking here. Without that basic knowledge,
the risk of your making a serious error (no matter how much I explain
here) is very great.

And thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, it's much appreciated

You're welcome. I hope you don't feel that I'm trying to belittle you
or give you a hard time; that's not at all my point. I'm just afraid
that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and if you don't
understand the basics, just following instructions here can get you
into serious trouble.

 

[Guest]

I don't think you're belittling me or talking down to me at all. on the
contrary, you're being very helpful. I think I may have overestimated my
newbie-ish-ness with windows a little bit - i've used windows at work for
years, so i'm aware of of how to save things, etc. just wasn't sure about
partitions and so on. I'll have a go with lightroom and get back to you with
the results.

thanks again for the great help and advice, ken.

 

[DCMonkey]

Many people like to have a separate partition for their data and will
redirect the common file locations (Documents, Pictures, etc) to be on that
partition. I suspect most people don't do that however and I'm surprised
Acer would set it up like that by default (And it's unlcear whether they
even directed the user folders to that partition).

Still, you could make a folder on that drive and put a shortcut to it in the
Favorite links list(Sidebar) of Explorer (Finder) to make it wasy to get to
when saving files.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I don't think you're belittling me or talking down to me at all. on the
contrary, you're being very helpful.

Glad to hear it.

I think I may have overestimated my
newbie-ish-ness with windows a little bit - i've used windows at work for
years, so i'm aware of of how to save things, etc.

Great! Then I misunderstood your level of knowledge, and I can
probably be more helpful if you have specific questions.

just wasn't sure about
partitions and so on.

Note that navigating through the Save as dialog is really no different
with partitions than with folders. You can almost think of the
partition as just a higher-level folder. Navigation works exactly the
same way, so if you're familiar with one, the other should be nearly
identical.

I'll have a go with lightroom and get back to you with
the results.

thanks again for the great help and advice, ken.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

 

[Guest]

That's worked a treat, Ken. Thanks. If only I'd realised it was as simple as
navigating to the right partition and saving as if it were just another
folder. I guess I assumed that it was going to be something far more
complicated and discounted the simple solution straight off!

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

That's worked a treat, Ken. Thanks. If only I'd realised it was as simple as
navigating to the right partition and saving as if it were just another
folder. I guess I assumed that it was going to be something far more
complicated and discounted the simple solution straight off!

Thanks again for your help.

You're welcome. Glad to help, and glad you got it taken care of.

 

[Gunrunnerjohn]

First off, if the photos have ANY value, I'd suggest you take along some DVD-R
media and make backups of the photos as well as keeping them on the hard disk.

If this is a normal data partition, you can simply point your camera's download
utility to the drive and save them there.

I have just bought an Acer laptop with Vista Home Premium and it has two
partitions. One is called D: Data, but the computer doesn't seem to use it.
Each partition is about 50gb in size and I bought the laptop to take on a
six-month trip through Asia with me - I plan to use it to work with and store
all the photos I'm going to take on my digital SLR.

The photo files are all quite big, so it won't be long until I've used up
the spare space in the partition that's active and I don't know what will
happen when that one's full. Will Vista automatically start saving them in
the other partition?

I can't see how to save things in the D: drive and am hoping i won't use up
the 50gb and not be able to access the other 50gb.

I'm a total newbie with Vista - I usually use a Mac, but couldn't afford a
Mac laptop to take with me - so I've no idea what the point of the two
partitions are actually for, and how I'm supposed to use them. Can anyone
offer any tips?

John Will
Microsoft MVP - Networking

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

First off, if the photos have ANY value, I'd suggest you take along some DVD-R
media and make backups of the photos as well as keeping them on the hard disk.

Agreed

That's the way some Acers are built - they're a bit lame, in the usual
"big OEM" way; no custom-installable OS disk (or even *any* disk at
all) and they may hog all 4 partition slots in the table so you can't
add your own, co-install Linux (hmm...) etc.

Vista won't automatically join partitions unles syou've used an
advanced NTFS feature to do so, which I don't recommend. Further,
whatever apps you are using, won't switch automatically either.

I'd start by storing photos on D: from day one, rather than store them
on C: first. The more C: gets clogged up, the slower the PC will run,
and as C: is always "in use" with tons of write traffic, it's both a
more dangerous storage location and it will be slower to maintain
(defrag, ChkDsk, post-bad-exit AutoChk, SR activity) than D:

Tools, Options. If you kick out the fluffware camera data capturing
stuff and use a card reader and Windows Explorer instead, then you can
as easily save to D: as C:

The traditional PC design supports up to four partitions per physical
hard disk. Each partition is an area of space reserved for the OSs
that own it; in this way, up to four different OSs can reside
independently on the same hard drive.

MS "owns" several types of partitions, which can either be Primary
(containing one volume, which can be bootable) or Extended (contains
one or more logical volumes, none of which can be bootable directly).

The usual approach is to use a primary to hold the booted OS, and an
extended to hold as many additionbal "data" volumes as you like.

Acer's brain-dead approach is to use primary partitions for
everything, instead of logicals on an extended. That leaves less (or
no) space in the partition table for anything else, given they usually
have their own "hidden" partition for material you'd expect to have
received on CDs or DVDs.

But that's big OEMs for you' attracting users via brand name, then
ripping them off worse than the most generic of builders. After all,
if a cheap LAN card can afford to ship with a driver CD, WTF is wrong
with Acer, that they're too mean to ship with OS on DVD?


The nice thing about partitions, is that they isolate activities
within them, as long as those activities are sane and are constrained
by the OS to stay within that OS's visible space. So material is
safer off the "main" OS partition, though still succeptable to
physical HD failure, powerful malware payloads, PC theft etc.

Also, different partitions (or volumes within the same extended
partition, for that matter) can use different file systems. Vista
obliges you to use NTFS on C:, and while this complex file system is
more efficient and offers better security, the maintenance and
recovery tools are poor. You're more likely to recover data from a
stricken FAT32 or FAT16 volume than NTFS.

Further, by choosing partition size, order and content, you can
concentrate most HD activity within a narrow band of cylinders, and
that means speed that does not deteriorate as your data piles up.

For example, if you store 20G pics on C:, then the HD's head travel
has to traverse this as it moves from early-installed OS code at the
front of the volume, to newly-created temp files on the other side of
this 20G cold "lump". In contrast, if those 20G of pics were stored
on D:, then your working OS head travel would be much shorter.

Moving the HD's heads is the slowest part of disk access, during which
no data flows, so this pays off quite well.

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

The most accurate diagnostic instrument
in medicine is the Retrospectoscope

 

[Richard Urban]

You seem to be light on computer basics for any Windows operating system.
Once you know the basics they apply to most all of Microsoft operating
systems. A book wouldn't hurt you none. Take it with you on your trip.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Guest]

The main reason to use more then one partition is easy, if windows dies ( and
that happens alot) you only need to format the windows partition and thus
dont lose any data or files that might be important. I have a 100gb C: drive
for windows and 500gb D: drive for games/data

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

The main reason to use more then one partition is easy, if windows dies ( and
that happens alot) you only need to format the windows partition and thus
dont lose any data or files that might be important. I have a 100gb C: drive
for windows and 500gb D: drive for games/data

Not only do I disagree with that statement, but I think it's
essentially a dangerous point of view.

First, Windows does *not* die a lot. I've run Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95,
98, 2000, XP, and now Vista, each on either two or three machines
here, and also supported similar installations on many other machines.
Windows has *never* died on any of my machines or on any of those I've
supported.

But most important, that point of view is dangerous because it assumes
that your data is safe because it's on a second partition. In fact,
your data is barely any safer there than it is on the main partition.
On that second partition, it is still susceptible to simultaneous loss
of the original and backup to many of the most common dangers: head
crashes, severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus
attacks, even theft of the computer.

If your data is important to you, you need a program of regular backup
to external media. Only that provides any real protection. Separating
data on a separate partition is just kidding yourself.

 

[Rock]

Not only do I disagree with that statement, but I think it's
essentially a dangerous point of view.

First, Windows does *not* die a lot. I've run Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95,
98, 2000, XP, and now Vista, each on either two or three machines
here, and also supported similar installations on many other machines.
Windows has *never* died on any of my machines or on any of those I've
supported.

But most important, that point of view is dangerous because it assumes
that your data is safe because it's on a second partition. In fact,
your data is barely any safer there than it is on the main partition.
On that second partition, it is still susceptible to simultaneous loss
of the original and backup to many of the most common dangers: head
crashes, severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus
attacks, even theft of the computer.

If your data is important to you, you need a program of regular backup
to external media. Only that provides any real protection. Separating
data on a separate partition is just kidding yourself.

I second what Ken says. Partitioning is useful to make backup easier, but
is only marginally useful for protecting data.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:21:52 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"

If your data is important to you, you need a program of regular backup
to external media. Only that provides any real protection. Separating
data on a separate partition is just kidding yourself.

False. I was not suggesting separation of data across partitions as
substitute for backup, if you read what I wrote.

Backup's not the answer to everything either, as by definition it is
not the same as your live data (it survives because it is older).

So doing nothing except backing up will expose you to situations
where, because your data is on C:, it is lost when you restore a
backup too old to have included it. I could assert that "backing up
is just kidding yourself" because in this particular context, it fails
to survive your data as off-C: partitioning would have done.

Unless you use feeware tools, it is not possible to have a backup that
is both useable to replace a lost OS installation (i.e. that will
result in a bootable system when restored) AND be browsable to restore
particular lost data files.

Because XP is too fragile to survive a file-level backup, you are
obliged to image off the partition, and if you use available free
tools to do that, you'll prolly have to go outside Windows to do that.
The result is a slab of unbrowsable "everything" that has to be
restored *as* a partition somewhere if any part of it is to be
accessed - that's messy, and it's not likely to be done every day.

Which makes that sort of backup practically useless as an up-to-date
data backup. So instead, you can make data backups as files, either
"loose" or compressed into browsable archives. But restoring that
isn't going to give you a useable system on bare metal.

So the best of both worlds is to keep C: small and devoid of data, so
that it's faster to image, restore, and maintain (e.g. ChkDsk, the
AutoChk after bad exits, etc.).

The rest of the space you can use for data, non-critical large apps
(like games), and everything else; you can disable System Restore
there, as it's pointless, and backup what you need as files.

In my experience, Windows installations do not often melt down, but
with adventurous use on a poorly-maintained system, YMMV. What
happens more often, is that the file system gets corrupted, and data
is lost. When working on sick PCs (dying HDs, bad RAM or motherboard
caps that have been crashing the PC for months, etc.) I nearly always
find file corruption on C:, less often on E: (where I store "nearly
everything", less often on D: (for data only) and very seldom on F:
(target for unattended automatic data backups).

Yes, off-PC data backups are important, but they are also very likely
to be done infrequently, if at all, by most users. The closest you
can do to that, is auto-backup from one permanent storage device to
another, which may be (or have to be):
- the same physical HD, different volume
- the same volume on the same HD, different directory
- another physical HD in the same PC (nice if you have one)
- another PC on the LAN via "pull" through read-only share
- another site via some sort of Internet or WAN-based backup

Anything else needs the user to insert disks or storage, or cancel
when disks or storage are not to hand. Guess what happens more often?
With a cancel-less system, they'll just bad-exit to duck the nag and
eat the data you were trying to have them back up (death by AutoChk).

As you say, no off-HD backups is potential bad news, but the potential
is more likely to be realized if data's sharing C: with an active OS.

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

Who is General Failure and
why is he reading my disk?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:21:52 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"


False. I was not suggesting separation of data across partitions as
substitute for backup, if you read what I wrote.

I didn't say anything about what you suggested, Chris. My response
wasn't to your message, but to Optikn3rv's.

 

[Esoterixia]

Actually, Acer noetbooks/laptops have 3 partitions: 1 is the Hard drive (C),
1 is the Data drive (D), and 1 is hidden, and I believe is used for the
eRecovery.

The C drive is where most of your programs install by default. According to
Acer, I was told that the Data drive is for you to save your stuff to -
documents, photos, downloads, etc.

In the event that you have to do a rollback/Windows Restore, the stuff in
the Data drive will NOT automatically rollback. This means that if you
downloaded a file, and a week later you have to do a Restore to Previous
version for some other issue you've got, all of the files you've
accumulated/saved in the Data drive doesn't disappear, since technically,
those files didn't exist in the date that you rolled back to. Make sense?
This was explained to me over the phone, but the initial conversation started
in a tech support email I sent to them, which I'll paste below for you.

If you delete the partition and merge it with the C drive, you can do so -
but I'm not sure if it will give you problems when/if you later on need to
use eRecovery.

-------
Thank you for contacting Acer America. I’ll be happy to assist you.

The hard drive is partitioned into three partitions by design. If you look
in My Computer you will see two of these partitions, Acer C and Acerdata D.
Acer C is where the operating system and all software is installed. Acerdata
D is for you to use as storage. This protects your data. If you ever have to
reformat due to a virus or other corruption, the data in the Acerdata D will
not be erased. The third partition is not shown in My Computer. This
partition has the files necessary for the Acer eRecovery to:

1. Reinstall the operating system, setting the system back to the way it was
the day you purchased it.

2. Create copies of the factory installation CD's.

3. Create a snapshot of your current configuration, you can then use that
configuration if you have to wipe out the operating system.

4. Reinstall just the drivers or applications that came preinstalled on the
system.

If you prefer to remove all the partitioning and have the hard drive set up
as one large partition, you are free to do this however Acer does not provide
software for this purpose. You will need to use a third party formatting
utility like Fdisk or Partition Magic to create, change or delete partitions.
Partition Magic can be used to manipulate partitions in Windows without
losing data. Again this is something that Acer does not provide or support;
you will need to contact the manufacturer of Partition Magic for assistance
on how-to questions using their software.


Respectfully,
Acer America
Online Technical Support