[Stealth]

of course you do realize that your hard drive is partitioned regardless.

it's whether you want multiple partitions...

[Kamikaze]

Did you even read the poll?

[Stealth]

i wasn't referring to the poll.  i was referring to the numerous people who've posted who incorrectly assume that "partition" means having multiple partitions

[Ryx]

I'm with Fishguts. Keep important stuff on other partitions and then the system on another.

Currently I have way to many partitions (15) and  going to shuffle things around a bit (getting rid of some of the 10GB parts.).

Usually I have 2 system partitions and swap between the two when I re-format. This way I won't have to worry about losing data in a re-format, because the 'old' system is still available. If that makes sense.  

[CP5670]

I have only one 200GB partition for everything but I regularly make backups to an external drive.

At one time it was a good idea to have Windows on its own partition but these days almost all of the programs put their junk in the Windows directories and registry (very bad trend IMO), so if you reformat that partition and put a fresh new windows on it, you will have to reinstall almost everything anyway.

[MatthewPapa]

My view is to just get one super big hdd for all my junk and one small but fast hdd for my os. I can then reinstall my OS from time to time for maintenence.

[Nuke]

i perfer to keep everything that would have to be re-installed (should the operating system ever die) on one partition. i mean if its gonna kill the program to reinstall the os ya might as well keep it all together. i keep my files (mp3s graphics and so on) and games on a seporate drive alltogether, mirroring critical suff on the same partition that windows resides.

i broke personal tradition and put windows on a very small partition, keeping programs on a seprate partion. i have 3 other partitions for backup, for linux (which i never installed) and for dos (which i also never got around to installing). from now on im keeping it simple by limiting each drive to one partition. it causes me much fewer headaches.

i can tell you that by spliting up your swapfile between 2 or more drives will increase its performance (especially if those drives are on seprate chanels).

[Sandwich]

The problem with placing Windows on its own, smallish partition, is that, like CP said, anything installed tosses files under Windows' own directories as well (esp. if you're running 2k or XP). Just check to see how large your "Documents and Settings" (how effing vague can a dir name be, anyway??!?) folder is.

[Nuke]

ah i miss the days when installing software was as easy as typing 'copy *.* C:\proggiefolder' you could copy that folder somewhere else as a back up and if ya copy it back it will work. take quake 1&2 for example, i havent re-installed them sence i bought them. i only installed them once, been copied a million times to 4 different operating and it always works. microsoft tents to ignore the first rule of engineering....

KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!!!!

[Kamikaze]

Originally posted by Sandwich
(how effing vague can a dir name be, anyway??!?)

Unix (and its clones) beats Windows on yet another thing, vague names. I don't think a casual user could tell what /etc is used for.

Then again the average user doesn't need to know what /etc is with modern Linux distributions.

[WMCoolmon]

I don't even use Linux, but I do know /etc used for documents and settings.

Partitions is definitely the way to go. One for vital system stuff (basically Windows), one for apps, and one for documents and such. Works good, and you almost don't need a start menu since all your programs are in one place. Stuff like Firefox and Thunderbird can have their userdata directories changed too.

[Sandwich]

I still don't understand partitioners. What do you do when you run out of room on that 30Gb game partition, you have plenty of GBs on the movies partition, and you really really want to install UT2006?

[Kamikaze]

Sandwich: Let's say I want to install UT2k6 into /usr/games/ut2k6. /usr is out of space so I can't do it normally. What I do is chop up the movie partition in two and mount the new partition as /usr/games/ut2k6. That way /usr and /usr/games/ut2k6 are on separate partitions.

Alternately (since I'm a lazy hacker bastard) I'll install ut2k6 in my movie partition and symbolic link from /usr/games/ut2k6 to /movies/whatever/the/heck so ut2k6 pretends to be in /usr/games/ut2k6 (even though it's not).

I'd only do that if I was desperate and couldn't uninstall some other game though.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Sandwich
I still don't understand partitioners. What do you do when you run out of room on that 30Gb game partition, you have plenty of GBs on the movies partition, and you really really want to install UT2006?

the only time i'd say run multiple partitions on a personal, regular-user computer is when you're running multiple operating systems.

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Sandwich
I still don't understand partitioners.

For me, it means I can format at a moment's notice - because none of my data is in danger. The opportunity is given for problems with lack of space in one partition or another, but it's a risk worth it for the ease when format time comes.

[Xelion]

I have 5 partitions on an 80GB SATA hdd

Windows - 16GB
Programs - 13.8GB
Games - 13.4GB
Design/Dev - 16.4GB
Data (Practically Everything else) - 14.7GB

Though I am planning on partitioning the Windows and Program Files together on my next format, thanks to Microsoft and every other company out there not allowing me to install files where I want them! Still I think the point of partitioning was to be able to format the OS and keep Program Files separate but its a bit of ***** not being able to control where certain .DLLs and common files end up... Formatting can be such hard work especially when progs have to be installed in a certain order, it can take up to a whole day plus windows update... sheeeesh!

Originally posted by Sandwich
I still don't understand partitioners. What do you do when you run out of room on that 30Gb game partition, you have plenty of GBs on the movies partition, and you really want to install UT2006?

To run out of room on a partition is a bad mistake on the user's part.. you can run into unwanted trouble.

Disadvantages
[list=1]

• Each partition has its own recycle bin that takes up space. There is a workaround by deleting things permanently and avoiding the recycle bin altogether.
• Virtual RAM (HDD Space), every partition needs it and if your hdd partition is full its going to run slower.
[/list=1]

Advantages
[list=1]

• I think it increases performance.
  
• Defrag takes less time, and you chose a part of the drive that needs it more often as well.
• Like a few others have already said, you can format the partitions you want or reinstall the OS without getting rid of the others, but I still recommend formatting the entire drive once every 2 years.
[/list=1]

[Stunaep]

What the others said: other than having a seperate partition for the OS (something everyone should have), for easy reformatting, partitions really don't have that much of a point.

[Sandwich]

Why format? Delete the \windows\ or \winnt\ folder, and reinstall. If you format, you're likely to lose the \documents and settings\ folder, which stores each user's My Documents (by default), as well as a crapload of other crucial data (most email clients store mail there).

[Cyker]

Originally posted by Nuke
ah i miss the days when installing software was as easy as typing 'copy *.* C:\proggiefolder' you could copy that folder somewhere else as a back up and if ya copy it back it will work. take quake 1&2 for example, i havent re-installed them sence i bought them. i only installed them once, been copied a million times to 4 different operating and it always works. microsoft tents to ignore the first rule of engineering....

KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!!!!

AMEN TO THAT!!!

It was just nice when programs installed all their bits in ONE PLACE and had all their config files in ONE PLACE...

But now, jeez, I did a log of one program and it installed stuff into Windows, WinSys, Program Files, ProgFilesCommon, had registry entries up the wazzoo... *sigh*

The worst part is when you install gargantuan beast like Microsoft Office and the installer crashes leaving you with all these bits strewn everywhere and a broken installer (It won't let you remove because it's not installed but it won't let you install because it detects bits of itself... the one time this happened to me I ended up reinstalling Windows because I couldn't be arsed to step through the registry to manually fix it!).

Originally posted by Sandwich
Why format? Delete the \windows\ or \winnt\ folder, and reinstall. If you format, you're likely to lose the \documents and settings\ folder, which stores each user's My Documents (by default), as well as a crapload of other crucial data (most email clients store mail there).

This is VERY dangerous - When you do a re-install Windows will create a totally new set of directories in here for the Administrator and All User accounts, but if for some reason it doesn't, OR you try and force it to use the old ones, you run a high risk of FUBAR'ing the system because the split-registry files get funny about being forced together.
Ditto for leaving Program Files intact.

When re-installing Windows, I usually burn the whole partiton to a CD and format it from scratch so the installer doesn't trip over it's former remains, and then re-install programs by hand and then restore data from the CD.

For this reason I keep Ghost images of newly installed partitions in case they ever need to be restored.

Stuff like this is why partitions can be a good idea but this is a fairly extreme example. As you say, for the average user it's far easier to just have one big-ass partition. (Multiple partitions can be a big hassle sometimes )

Given I frag my Win2k partition on such a regular basis I prefer to keep it on it's own and also keep programs and data on another drive so I don't have to keep backup-restoring it

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Why format? Delete the \windows\ or \winnt\ folder, and reinstall. If you format, you're likely to lose the \documents and settings\ folder, which stores each user's My Documents (by default), as well as a crapload of other crucial data (most email clients store mail there).

Yeah but you're also likely to accidently keep user settings which may have crapped up your programs. Far better is to copy the my documents etc to another drive/partition and only put back what you actually need.