8 replies to this topic

[KaRsKiN]

Hey guys

I've just bought a new laptop and upon inspection it turns out i have 2 hard drives (or rather one hard drive with two partitions). I have my OS_INSTALL C: drive, and my DATA D: drive.

Now from what i've read on the internet my C: drive is used for my windows install and for OS data should i need to restore my system, and my D: drive is used for backing up data that i want to keep.

I've never really used this before so it's all a little confusing. What i want to know is should i use my D: drive to install programs & games, and store my music, pictures etc? And leave my C: drive alone as it contains vital OS data?

It seems a strange question but my C: drive is only 40Gb, whereas my D: drive is 240Gb, so if i used my C: drive it would fill up pretty quickly.

Ideally id like to just merge the two partitions and just use a C: drive but i dont know whats best, any chance anyone with more knowledge than me could help me out?

Much Thanks

Karskin

[Phil]

Really, it doesn't matter all that much. It's just that at a certain point, either partition will run out of space. I was never a big fan of having a lot of partitions because I suck at estimating usage. This is especially true for Windows where I usually just have one partition per OS.
Then again, the manufacturer obviously had a certain usage intended, so you might as well just use it that way. The only thing I wonder is on which partition they put the "Program Files" folder...

[KaRsKiN]

Program Files is currently on the C: drive...is that a problem?

[Beowulf]

No. If you want to install to another drive, simply specify a new install location. My brother installs all of his games to his extra drives, and not C. No partitions, nothing special, just an alternate install location.

Easy, right?

Edited by Beowulf, 24 August 2009 - 01:07 AM.

[Bereneth Túrien]

Multiple partitions don't even help with backup unless you're manually formatting a drive. If a drive fails, you'll lose all partitions on it anyway, so I don't see why you'd keep everything separate if the intended use is backup.

However, if you're using two partitions for simplicity/organizational reasons, then just do what Beowulf said and install programs on whichever partition you want them to be on.

If you're really picky and want most programs to install to, for instance, "D:\Program Files", there's a registry key that lets you change that. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion has values for Program Files, Common Files, Driver INFs, Media, etc. and you can change ProgramFilesDir to "D:\Program Files" to set the default Program Files to be on drive D. Unless you know what you're doing when editing the registry, i'd suggest avoiding this route.

[Bart]

If you're really picky and want most programs to install to, for instance, "D:\Program Files", there's a registry key that lets you change that. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion has values for Program Files, Common Files, Driver INFs, Media, etc. and you can change ProgramFilesDir to "D:\Program Files" to set the default Program Files to be on drive D. Unless you know what you're doing when editing the registry, i'd suggest avoiding this route.

I did that once and it caused trouble, though I can't remember exactly what.

[Beowulf]

A lot of critical updates patch items in C:\Program Files\%MicrosoftRelatedItems%\ so that would likely be it.

[Puppeteer]

I have my games and affiliated programs on my D, and the rest on C. Just keeps it easy and balanced.

[Romanul]

I have both,I use C for all applications and D for all the stuff I do(work stuff).And its good for backup too...

At least for me