How to partition hard drive but before we go this I think I had better explain what a hard disk partition is. Not for you knowledgeable people but for those you have not had the insight on these things that you and I have. Hard disks are for the storing of data and software programs, with partitioning you can place these on different parts of the disk that are logically separated from each other.
Let look at an analogy. Think of your pantry, in it you have shelves each shelf space is analogous to a hard disk partition. The shelf spaces are separated by a wooden shelf. A hard disk partition is separated by a logical barrier. In your pantry you may put all your tins of food in one shelf space and all your cereals in another. Another one you may use to put all your pots and pans.
With a hard disk partition you would have your windows operating system on one, your data on another, software programs in another partition. You can even have another Windows system in another partition.
But why, why, why do you say. Well if we consider that two windows operating systems are installed, one in each partition then it provides a good backup system if for some reason one fails. If your main one fails then you can choose to boot the other windows system from the other partition. If you also have all your data on a third partition then you can still get all your data.
There is also one other very good reason to partition your disk. The size of hard disks are getting astronomical 300 plus gigabytes in size. Partitioning makes them much easier to manage in chunks. Also it is preferable to have your windows on a small partition as it make the startup faster. Also if you have problems with your windows system and you need to do a disk check it makes it much faster when performing this.
So how do you partition a disk? It can be a bit tricky if your window’s operating system is already installed when you bought your PC. If you are starting from scratch and installing windows for the first time then the windows install program allows you to partition a part. For windows I suggest a partition size anything from 20Gbytes up to 100gb depending on the size of your hard disk.
Once you have Windows installed on this first partition then the windows disk manager allows you to create further partitions in the free space remaining on disk. As I said before you can only do this if you are installing a new windows system.
So what if the windows system is already installed and you have been using your computer for a while?
Unfortunately to create a new partition completely, contiguous space is required without anything in it. Windows has the annoying habit of spreading stuff all over the disk. The only way of partitioning an existing disk is by using partitioning software that compacts all the programs down to the bottom of the hard disk, freeing up all the higher space. This comes at a cost because you will have to purchase this software. One you may like to review is “Acronis Disk Director“. This and other types usually provide you with more enhancements that just partitioning, they provide complete disk management that is usually superior to the windows disk management system.
So how to partition hard drive, manage and secure your hard disk as well as your valuable data it is essential that you have the right tool for the job.
