[pixxi]

Hi everyone, I have four partitions on my laptop, Local Disk, System, Winre, and Drivers. I was just wondering, is these being seperated of any use? It seems to me that it's just an inconvenience. I only have just over a GB left on my local disk, (the only place it lets me save program files), so I was wondering, is there any way I could extend my C: drive, or even make one big one?
Thanks very much, Geekstogo has become my lifeline

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Hi pixxi

There are some advantages to having multiple partitions. The mains ones are:

1) The ability to organise & separate files. For example, you may have a partition that's purely for the OS & programs, one for downloads, one for documents, one for videos etc. This can make your files easier to find, organise & backup.

2) The major advantage of keeping your own files on a separate partition to the operating system, is that it makes reinstalling the OS a lot easier. e.g if you need to completely wipe windows & perform a fresh installation (or restore it from a backup image), you don't need to worry about backing up all your own documents etc first as they are already on a different partition. Bear in mind here that you can also map the 'My Documents' folders to a different partition.


If you wish to resize the windows partition or resize any other partition without losing the data on that partition, then you have a couple of options:

1) The first one is to use Vista partition management tool. Go to Control Panel, type 'partition' into the search box and you'll find it.
I have NOT used this tool myself but I have heard it is quite restricted in what it can do. However, if it's free and if you're running Vista then you already have it.

2) If you don't get on with the above tool or if it won't do what you want it to do, then you next option is to use a 3rd party program such as Partition Magic or Acronis's Partition Expert (part of Acronis Disk Director Suite).

[Samm]

Hi pixxi

There are some advantages to having multiple partitions. The mains ones are:

1) The ability to organise & separate files. For example, you may have a partition that's purely for the OS & programs, one for downloads, one for documents, one for videos etc. This can make your files easier to find, organise & backup.

2) The major advantage of keeping your own files on a separate partition to the operating system, is that it makes reinstalling the OS a lot easier. e.g if you need to completely wipe windows & perform a fresh installation (or restore it from a backup image), you don't need to worry about backing up all your own documents etc first as they are already on a different partition. Bear in mind here that you can also map the 'My Documents' folders to a different partition.


If you wish to resize the windows partition or resize any other partition without losing the data on that partition, then you have a couple of options:

1) The first one is to use Vista partition management tool. Go to Control Panel, type 'partition' into the search box and you'll find it.
I have NOT used this tool myself but I have heard it is quite restricted in what it can do. However, if it's free and if you're running Vista then you already have it.

2) If you don't get on with the above tool or if it won't do what you want it to do, then you next option is to use a 3rd party program such as Partition Magic or Acronis's Partition Expert (part of Acronis Disk Director Suite).