Originally Posted by Cornish Jack
ormus55
I wonder if you could give your opinion on the following musing? -
With split HDs, it is normal to use the C drive for OS and Progs and D and E for data and back-ups respectively. If (as I do), you use Fdisk to delete the drives and re-install, the sequence has to be, delete E, then D, then C, then reverse that sequence for the new drives. If the allocations were reversed, i.e. Back-ups on C, data on D and OS and progs on E, Fdisk'ing could delete E and re-install without deleting the other two drives - much saving of time etc. It could be that OSs MUST be on the C drive but I can't remember where that constraint would be stipulated. Your thoughts would be appreciated
TIA
CJ,
You need the OS on the "C" drive as thats where the computer looks for it. Programs can go anywhere you wish. Get a copy of Partition Magic, its much easier than fdisk and you can modify the partitions at anytime.
I have done what you are talking about for the last 15 years, after I got tired of always re-installing everything when moving to the next "latest and greatest" windoz OS.
You really have two choices, either partition one hard drive, which is not my preference, or have two hard drives in the computer. With a laptop this is not an option, so you have to partition. With a desktop this is the best way, especially now as hard drives are so cheap.
The OS is almost always installed on the "C" drive or partition, and I put my data and programs that I know I will be using for a long time there as well. To boot, all my data, like documents and photos always go on the "D" drive. This way I have no heartburn in formatting the "C" drive as needed. All I have to back up off of "C" is my Outlook data file, bookmarks and cookies. The rest of the data resides on "D" drive and is not touched in a format situation.
What I do after this is I used to burn a CD (now a DVD) for backup, but the last year I have gotten a USB external hard drive and simply back up the "D" drive and above data from the "C" drive onto the external source. THEN as a futher backup I have my laptop that I carry with me on the road and all three are networked together. The laptop is as well backed up on the USB drive, but this also means that the majority of the information is as well backed up on the laptop. Three systems are not going to go down at once, so most of my information will be saved.
Frostbite,
The Dell customers have the luxury of a Dell "restore" CD, which has the OS already on it. Once you have backed up your data, simply put the CD in the drive and reboot the computer. It should boot off of the CD and follow the prompts to format the hard drive and restore not only the OS but all the installed programs AND the drivers. Much easier.
Only change I do with this is to Fdisk (or use Partition magic, much better) to partition the hard drive on my Dell laptop into two partitions. Then the Dell CD asks if you want to restore the partition format to factory, say no, and it installs everything on the "C" drive, keeping your "D" drive for data.