[Richiiee]

Okay I have 2 questions about hard drive partitions, if either or both of them could be answered it would be much appreciated.

1. Can I create a partition on my hard drive right now when it already has data on it or will I have to create it after/during a reformat? Is there any risk I could lose data if I create a partition right now? I don't really have any other devices to back up my data...

2. I have a 230gig hard drive. I was hoping to create 2 partitions, a 200 gigs one and a 30 gig one. The 200 gig partition would contain programs and my personal data while the 30gig one would contain Windows XP OS files and TEMP files and the WINDOWS folder and all the things needed by the computer itself. If I ever wanted to reformat, would I just be able to reformat the 30gig partition to re-install Windows, while keeping my other partition of data with no chance of deleting files? In other words, could I reformat one and keep the other?


Thanks.

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Yeah, you can use a number of disk management applications to partition your existing drive. There is a small chance that your data could be damaged, but I've honestly never had it happen to me. You might want to back up your important information before doing it. You mentioned you don't have a data backup device, but you could probably burn the information on disk?

Here is a very popular disk management software. It'll work great for XP, but has problems with Vista's NTFS variant.

You might also want to try Acronis Disk Director.

Both these applications work great with Windows XP, but I'll stress the importance of backing up your information before attempting to change your primary partition.

[lurky]

Yeah, you can use a number of disk management applications to partition your existing drive. There is a small chance that your data could be damaged, but I've honestly never had it happen to me. You might want to back up your important information before doing it. You mentioned you don't have a data backup device, but you could probably burn the information on disk?

Here is a very popular disk management software. It'll work great for XP, but has problems with Vista's NTFS variant.

You might also want to try Acronis Disk Director.

Both these applications work great with Windows XP, but I'll stress the importance of backing up your information before attempting to change your primary partition.

[Richiiee]

Well I've got about 15gigs of data I'd rather not lose... but I'm sure I could find places to back them up. Thanks.