[Confuqua]

I just received a Dell Inspiron 1721 laptop with a 160 GB hard drive (I know, I should have bought a larger hard drive). The OS is Windows Vista Premium.

I want to reconfigure the hard drive so the OS is in its own partition, and the applications and data files are in their own partition.

The hard drive is designated as “Disk 0”, and is currently partitioned as indicated below. I have no idea what the first segment is, what the Recovery (D) partition is for, or what the last segment is for. I assume it is the OS (C:) partition that I need to split.

• First segment – 63 MB Healthy (EISA Configuration)
• Second segment – RECOVERY (D:) 10 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)
• Third segment – OS (C:) 136.49 GB NTFS Healthy (System, Boot, etc. Primary Partition)
• Fourth segment – 2.50 GB Healthy (Primary Partition)

The C partition currently contains about 25 GB of OS, application, data and other files.
If I am muddling through the help files correctly, I can accomplish what I want to do as follows.

• “Shrink” the C partition to 30 GB
• Create a new partition in the vacated space (about 106 GB)
• Uninstall the application programs from the C partition
• Install the application programs in the new partition
• Move the data files (there aren’t many yet) to the new partition

The Windows Vista files take up about 9 GB of space, so there will be a very inefficient 21 GB of unused space in the C partition. Pictures and videos are located on an external USB hard drive. Therefore, the 106 GB of space in the new partition is expected to be adequate for the rest of what I do.

Will this work? Is there an easier way?

I have the current version of TI10, which I am using for another computer (which I am going to retire when I get this new one set up) At this point, I would rather not buy DD or some other disk manager.

Someone on another forum advised me that Dell has already allocated a limit of four entries in the primary partition , so splitting “C” and adding a partition is not an option without deleting something else (or, is that first segment not really a partition?).

[DoubleHelix]

The recovery partition is what you use to reinstall Windows and return the computer to factory settings. Unless you have recovery disks, deleting this partition would be a huge mistake.

Doesn't this model have the option to play DVDs without booting to Windows? If so, that's probably on one of those partitions.

[DaveA]

Why do you want the OS and programs separate?

With Vista and NTFS there really is no need in the additional partition.
The Windows compliant programs MUST write data to the OS (C) drive regardless of where you put the program. You gain nothing, and the disk heads will have to jump from one partition to another all the time.

[Confuqua]

DaveA and DoubleHelix,,

Thanks for the rapid response.

Clearly, I am walking around in the dark with very little experience/expertise under my belt.

What I am trying to accomplish is to set up an efficient backup phylosophy. The intention is to use Acronis True Image 10 to make a monthly disk image, supplemented by differential backups as activity dictates. this worked well on the XP computer I am going to retire.

In browsing around the various forums, it seemed that many folks were splitting the OS files from the rest. It is not clear to me why.

I am wide open for recommendations that can be followed by a semi-senile newbie.

Confuqua

[DaveA]

There is no good reason to do this. Back in the OLD DOS days where a programs stood by itself, then one could rebuild the C drive with a new version or build of DOS and the programs still ran without needing to be reinstalled. When the larger drive can out back then, (over 30 Megs) the minimum files size was quite large and wasted a lot of disk space. One of the methods to reduce the Minimum files size was to keep the partitions small.

I use TrueImage and have a separate USB drive that I I store my TI images on. If you do NOT save the images on a separate drive then you will lose them when the main hard drive fails. Partitions are NOT good for protection.

I do have 3 partitions on most of my machine, but, that is so I can "Dual" boot and run Beta software.

[Confuqua]

OK, that makes it simple.

All of my backups are on an external USB hard drive which is kept in a different building, except when being loaded.

I assume that the Acronis boot disk that I used in my XP machine will work just as well on the Vista machine. If so, everything else should work just the same.

Once that process has been implemented, is there any reason to keep the Recovery (D partition? Apparently some kind of automated backup process is using it now.

[DoubleHelix]

You need to keep the recovery partition if you ever want to restore the system to condition it was when it was shipped to you. Unless you created an image yourself the day it arrived, the system has been altered since you've used it. Either create recovery disks from the partition (if possible) or keep it. There are hundreds of threads here started by people who wish they could restore their systems but don't have disks or a recovery partition.

[Drako]

in my previous experiencies the reason to put the OS files on another partition is to only format the windows partition if there was a virius. but if you are running backups monthly there should be no reason for this

[DoubleHelix]

Drako, it doesn't make sense to separate the operating system and program files though since most programs would need to be reinstalled if the Windows partition were wiped and reloaded.

[DaveA]

Another note of history. When Windows XP fist came out it supported drives under 100 Gigs, the along came SP1 with BIG Drive support and now we have terabyte size of drives.