Partitioning a 100gb hard drive as 2 separate drives

I just bought a new 100GB hard drive for my old laptop which has been
refurbished. I need to split the hard disk for a C and a D drive. One for
Windows XP, the other for personal files. When I load the XP disk and I get
to the partition screen, it ask me how many KB I want to allocate for XP and
shows that I have about 95MB's available. I didn't split the drive yet
because I didn't understand the question. How can I have a 100GB drive and
the available disk space says only 95KB. My desktop uses about 30+GB for all
programs on the C: drive and I'de like to allow about 35 to 40GB for programs
on the laptop and have the rest for files and backup stuff. I am asking
because I heard that once I partion a hard drive I can't unpartiion it. I've
read Microsofts articles on this issue but no one seems to be able to clear
up this small conundrum. Any response will be greatly appreciated.

Are you certain your old laptop supports 100GB hard drives, older ones do
not. What size drive did it come with? Is it installed in place of the
original I'm assuming?
As a side note it is not a smart idea to use a second partition for backup,
when the drive fails you lose the backup as well.

--

----
Crosspost, do not multipost http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
How to ask a question http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375



"Robbywon" <Robbywon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news32AF5C8-DD47-4AE6-A2DA-EAFC3C1A29DB@microsoft.com...
>I just bought a new 100GB hard drive for my old laptop which has been
> refurbished. I need to split the hard disk for a C and a D drive. One for
> Windows XP, the other for personal files. When I load the XP disk and I
> get
> to the partition screen, it ask me how many KB I want to allocate for XP
> and
> shows that I have about 95MB's available. I didn't split the drive yet
> because I didn't understand the question. How can I have a 100GB drive and
> the available disk space says only 95KB. My desktop uses about 30+GB for
> all
> programs on the C: drive and I'de like to allow about 35 to 40GB for
> programs
> on the laptop and have the rest for files and backup stuff. I am asking
> because I heard that once I partion a hard drive I can't unpartiion it.
> I've
> read Microsofts articles on this issue but no one seems to be able to
> clear
> up this small conundrum. Any response will be greatly appreciated.

"Robbywon" <Robbywon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news32AF5C8-DD47-4AE6-A2DA-EAFC3C1A29DB@microsoft.com...

> I just bought a new 100GB hard drive for my old laptop which has been
> refurbished. I need to split the hard disk for a C and a D drive. One for
> Windows XP, the other for personal files. When I load the XP disk and I
get
> to the partition screen, it ask me how many KB I want to allocate for XP
and
> shows that I have about 95MB's available. I didn't split the drive yet
> because I didn't understand the question. How can I have a 100GB drive and
> the available disk space says only 95KB.

Some custom instal routines (e.g. Dell and Toshiba) reserve part
of the hard drive for a hidden logical drive (with no driveletter) for
system purposes.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

This is fresh new hard drive that is an exact replica of my old one, size and
all. it's an Acer that I'm reinstalling everything from scratch. no hidden
partitions or anything like that. I've built my own desktop but have never
partitioned a hard drive before cause I've always had a separate drive. I'll
be backing everything up with Acronis just like my desktop. Just need to know
how much space to reserve the C: drive for programs.

"Don Phillipson" wrote:

> "Robbywon" <Robbywon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news32AF5C8-DD47-4AE6-A2DA-EAFC3C1A29DB@microsoft.com...
>
> > I just bought a new 100GB hard drive for my old laptop which has been
> > refurbished. I need to split the hard disk for a C and a D drive. One for
> > Windows XP, the other for personal files. When I load the XP disk and I
> get
> > to the partition screen, it ask me how many KB I want to allocate for XP
> and
> > shows that I have about 95MB's available. I didn't split the drive yet
> > because I didn't understand the question. How can I have a 100GB drive and
> > the available disk space says only 95KB.
>
> Some custom instal routines (e.g. Dell and Toshiba) reserve part
> of the hard drive for a hidden logical drive (with no driveletter) for
> system purposes.
>
> --
> Don Phillipson
> Carlsbad Springs
> (Ottawa, Canada)
>
>
>

Everythings compatible and runs fine just need to know how much space to
split the hard drive. I'm using an external hard drive with Acronis for the
backup. I need to allow 40 to 45GB for C: drive programs but jsut don't
understand the partition process.

"David B." wrote:

> Are you certain your old laptop supports 100GB hard drives, older ones do
> not. What size drive did it come with? Is it installed in place of the
> original I'm assuming?
> As a side note it is not a smart idea to use a second partition for backup,
> when the drive fails you lose the backup as well.
>
> --
>
> ----
> Crosspost, do not multipost http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
> How to ask a question http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
>
>
>
> "Robbywon" <Robbywon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news32AF5C8-DD47-4AE6-A2DA-EAFC3C1A29DB@microsoft.com...
> >I just bought a new 100GB hard drive for my old laptop which has been
> > refurbished. I need to split the hard disk for a C and a D drive. One for
> > Windows XP, the other for personal files. When I load the XP disk and I
> > get
> > to the partition screen, it ask me how many KB I want to allocate for XP
> > and
> > shows that I have about 95MB's available. I didn't split the drive yet
> > because I didn't understand the question. How can I have a 100GB drive and
> > the available disk space says only 95KB. My desktop uses about 30+GB for
> > all
> > programs on the C: drive and I'de like to allow about 35 to 40GB for
> > programs
> > on the laptop and have the rest for files and backup stuff. I am asking
> > because I heard that once I partion a hard drive I can't unpartiion it.
> > I've
> > read Microsofts articles on this issue but no one seems to be able to
> > clear
> > up this small conundrum. Any response will be greatly appreciated.
>
>

On Fri, 2 May 2008 12:46:00 -0700, Robbywon
<Robbywon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I just bought a new 100GB hard drive for my old laptop which has been
>refurbished. I need to split the hard disk for a C and a D drive. One for
>Windows XP, the other for personal files. When I load the XP disk and I get
>to the partition screen, it ask me how many KB I want to allocate for XP and
>shows that I have about 95MB's available. I didn't split the drive yet
95MB or GB?

Hard drive manufacturers specify a GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes
= 1 x 10^9.

In Windows a GB = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes.
In Windows a MB = 2^20 = 1,048,576 bytes.

So, (100 x 10^9 bytes) / (2^20 bytes/MB) = 95,367 MB in Windows.

>because I didn't understand the question. How can I have a 100GB drive and
>the available disk space says only 95KB. My desktop uses about 30+GB for all
95KB, MB or GB?

>programs on the C: drive and I'de like to allow about 35 to 40GB for programs
>on the laptop and have the rest for files and backup stuff. I am asking
>because I heard that once I partion a hard drive I can't unpartiion it. I've
>read Microsofts articles on this issue but no one seems to be able to clear
>up this small conundrum. Any response will be greatly appreciated.

Robbywon wrote:
> I just bought a new 100GB hard drive for my old laptop which has
> been refurbished. I need to split the hard disk for a C and a D
> drive. One for Windows XP, the other for personal files. When I
> load the XP disk and I get to the partition screen, it ask me how
> many KB I want to allocate for XP and shows that I have about
> 95MB's available. I didn't split the drive yet because I didn't
> understand the question. How can I have a 100GB drive and the
> available disk space says only 95KB. My desktop uses about 30+GB
> for all programs on the C: drive and I'de like to allow about 35 to
> 40GB for programs on the laptop and have the rest for files and
> backup stuff. I am asking because I heard that once I partion a
> hard drive I can't unpartiion it. I've read Microsofts articles on
> this issue but no one seems to be able to clear up this small
> conundrum. Any response will be greatly appreciated.

First - what do you hope to gain?

I know you say you will be putting your OS and installed applications on the
'c partition' and then your data (stuff you make using the os and
applications) on the 'd partition'. What do you think this gives you?
Sure- if *nothing* goes wrong with the hardware, you can technically wipe
out the 'c partition' when you want and install Windows XP and your
applications again - leaving your 'data' alone and intact - but given the
nature of your question - it does not look like this has been a concern in
the past nor is it likely to be a concern in the future for you. ;-)

Second - it is not entirely true that once you partition a hard disk drive
you cannot change it up. Yes - it is true with Windows XP alone, but there
are third party partitioning tools that can do this for you and/or third
party imaging applications that would allow you to take an image of the 'c
partition' and the 'd partition' and then - after repartitioning with
whatever tool you feel comfortable with - apply said images to the new
partitioning scheme...

Third - before you even go any further - you need to get your terminology
straight. Perhaps you were just nervous posting a question or something,
but you went from having a 100GB (GigaByte)hard disk drive to only having
95MB (MegaByte) free when you went to partition it (95GB would probably be
about right for a 100GB retail drive for formated space available) to only
95KB (KiloByte) available at one point. In other words - you kept stepping
down a full factor of 1000 in a given sentence. 1GB = ~1,000MB =
~1,000,000KB. (It's actually 1024, but...)

Then you say that, "My desktop uses about 30+GB for all programs on the C:
drive..." <- really? I have installed a LOT of systems... Systems with
Windows XP and the following applications: AutoDesk (AutoCAD), MatLab, SPSS,
Adobe CS3 product line (Photoshop, etc), Office 2007 (including Project and
Visio), SAS, WordPerfect, 3D Studio MAX, Adobe Acrobat Professional and so
on - (all the little plugins and normal stuff) and not gotten to a 30GB full
partition *without* the user files. My bet is that out of that 30GB - the
majority is taken up by the folder "%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\"
(or C:\Documents and Settings\ for most people.) Which means "The files and
stuff *you* created using the OS and applications installed upon the
machine." Your stuff, your pictures, movies, internet favorites
(bookmarks), documents, spreadsheets, drawings, databases, emails, contacts,
etc and so on...

Personally - I think unless you plan on formatting the system and rebuilding
it from scratch periodically (and often actually) - you are gaining little
to nothing from a partitioning scheme such as you are proposing. Even if
you partitioned it 40GB for "c" and 55GB for "d" (which is about what I
would suggest the split be) - unless you do things just right (redirect your
desktop, favorites, email application of your choice's local files and "my
documents" to the "d" drive, etc) - it will probably turn out you are
keeping most of your stuff on the C drive anyway and even if you do it 'just
right', unless you wipe out the 'c partition' every so often - the only
thing you might have accomplished is a simpler backup scheme. If the hard
disk drive fails - hardware failure - it is unlikely it will just fail in
such a way that your data will remain safe on the second partition. You
will need good and consistently taken backups. ;-)

My opinion - given what you have in this entire thread so far and not just
the original post I am responding to is to *not* partition the drive into
multiple parts. Create a single 'all consuming' partition. Use the 95GB it
shows you and create a single partition and format it and install Windows XP
and all your programs onto it. Then purchase an external USB hard disk
drive and start backing up either certain folders or the entire machine or
BOTH to that external drive on a schedule you can maintain realistically and
that makes you comfortable that if the worst happens - you will have the
majority of your stuff safely tucked away.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Thanks for answering my post Shenan, I was a dufus and didn't re-read my post
thoroughly enough before I sent it. I meant to exclude the KB out of the post
cause I now see it is confusing. I should have just thougth about the
conversion factor before hand. thanks again for your input. I have alot of
trade software and music software that takes up extra space on the C: drive
so that's why I have to allow for extra. Again thanks.

"Shenan Stanley" wrote:

> Robbywon wrote:
> > I just bought a new 100GB hard drive for my old laptop which has
> > been refurbished. I need to split the hard disk for a C and a D
> > drive. One for Windows XP, the other for personal files. When I
> > load the XP disk and I get to the partition screen, it ask me how
> > many KB I want to allocate for XP and shows that I have about
> > 95MB's available. I didn't split the drive yet because I didn't
> > understand the question. How can I have a 100GB drive and the
> > available disk space says only 95KB. My desktop uses about 30+GB
> > for all programs on the C: drive and I'de like to allow about 35 to
> > 40GB for programs on the laptop and have the rest for files and
> > backup stuff. I am asking because I heard that once I partion a
> > hard drive I can't unpartiion it. I've read Microsofts articles on
> > this issue but no one seems to be able to clear up this small
> > conundrum. Any response will be greatly appreciated.
>
> First - what do you hope to gain?
>
> I know you say you will be putting your OS and installed applications on the
> 'c partition' and then your data (stuff you make using the os and
> applications) on the 'd partition'. What do you think this gives you?
> Sure- if *nothing* goes wrong with the hardware, you can technically wipe
> out the 'c partition' when you want and install Windows XP and your
> applications again - leaving your 'data' alone and intact - but given the
> nature of your question - it does not look like this has been a concern in
> the past nor is it likely to be a concern in the future for you. ;-)
>
> Second - it is not entirely true that once you partition a hard disk drive
> you cannot change it up. Yes - it is true with Windows XP alone, but there
> are third party partitioning tools that can do this for you and/or third
> party imaging applications that would allow you to take an image of the 'c
> partition' and the 'd partition' and then - after repartitioning with
> whatever tool you feel comfortable with - apply said images to the new
> partitioning scheme...
>
> Third - before you even go any further - you need to get your terminology
> straight. Perhaps you were just nervous posting a question or something,
> but you went from having a 100GB (GigaByte)hard disk drive to only having
> 95MB (MegaByte) free when you went to partition it (95GB would probably be
> about right for a 100GB retail drive for formated space available) to only
> 95KB (KiloByte) available at one point. In other words - you kept stepping
> down a full factor of 1000 in a given sentence. 1GB = ~1,000MB =
> ~1,000,000KB. (It's actually 1024, but...)
>
> Then you say that, "My desktop uses about 30+GB for all programs on the C:
> drive..." <- really? I have installed a LOT of systems... Systems with
> Windows XP and the following applications: AutoDesk (AutoCAD), MatLab, SPSS,
> Adobe CS3 product line (Photoshop, etc), Office 2007 (including Project and
> Visio), SAS, WordPerfect, 3D Studio MAX, Adobe Acrobat Professional and so
> on - (all the little plugins and normal stuff) and not gotten to a 30GB full
> partition *without* the user files. My bet is that out of that 30GB - the
> majority is taken up by the folder "%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\"
> (or C:\Documents and Settings\ for most people.) Which means "The files and
> stuff *you* created using the OS and applications installed upon the
> machine." Your stuff, your pictures, movies, internet favorites
> (bookmarks), documents, spreadsheets, drawings, databases, emails, contacts,
> etc and so on...
>
> Personally - I think unless you plan on formatting the system and rebuilding
> it from scratch periodically (and often actually) - you are gaining little
> to nothing from a partitioning scheme such as you are proposing. Even if
> you partitioned it 40GB for "c" and 55GB for "d" (which is about what I
> would suggest the split be) - unless you do things just right (redirect your
> desktop, favorites, email application of your choice's local files and "my
> documents" to the "d" drive, etc) - it will probably turn out you are
> keeping most of your stuff on the C drive anyway and even if you do it 'just
> right', unless you wipe out the 'c partition' every so often - the only
> thing you might have accomplished is a simpler backup scheme. If the hard
> disk drive fails - hardware failure - it is unlikely it will just fail in
> such a way that your data will remain safe on the second partition. You
> will need good and consistently taken backups. ;-)
>
> My opinion - given what you have in this entire thread so far and not just
> the original post I am responding to is to *not* partition the drive into
> multiple parts. Create a single 'all consuming' partition. Use the 95GB it
> shows you and create a single partition and format it and install Windows XP
> and all your programs onto it. Then purchase an external USB hard disk
> drive and start backing up either certain folders or the entire machine or
> BOTH to that external drive on a schedule you can maintain realistically and
> that makes you comfortable that if the worst happens - you will have the
> majority of your stuff safely tucked away.
>
> --
> Shenan Stanley
> MS-MVP
> --
> How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>
>
>

Thanks for the conversion rates Andy they help alot, and thanks for answering
my post. I should have thought about the conversion fators more clearly
before I posted in haste. And thanks for answering my post.

"Andy" wrote:

> On Fri, 2 May 2008 12:46:00 -0700, Robbywon
> <Robbywon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> >I just bought a new 100GB hard drive for my old laptop which has been
> >refurbished. I need to split the hard disk for a C and a D drive. One for
> >Windows XP, the other for personal files. When I load the XP disk and I get
> >to the partition screen, it ask me how many KB I want to allocate for XP and
> >shows that I have about 95MB's available. I didn't split the drive yet
> 95MB or GB?
>
> Hard drive manufacturers specify a GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes
> = 1 x 10^9.
>
> In Windows a GB = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes.
> In Windows a MB = 2^20 = 1,048,576 bytes.
>
> So, (100 x 10^9 bytes) / (2^20 bytes/MB) = 95,367 MB in Windows.
>
> >because I didn't understand the question. How can I have a 100GB drive and
> >the available disk space says only 95KB. My desktop uses about 30+GB for all
> 95KB, MB or GB?
>
> >programs on the C: drive and I'de like to allow about 35 to 40GB for programs
> >on the laptop and have the rest for files and backup stuff. I am asking
> >because I heard that once I partion a hard drive I can't unpartiion it. I've
> >read Microsofts articles on this issue but no one seems to be able to clear
> >up this small conundrum. Any response will be greatly appreciated.
>