kindergarden question reguarding partitioning

[chuckycheeze]

I recently bought a very expensive computer with a lot of upgrades from a canadian outfit and told the builder to partition my hardrive to make the C 80 gig and D 80 gig and and the E 75 gig , when I got home I discovere it the C only had 10 gig and the E and D had the most gig allotted to them , well after putting photos and music and some utlilites on C now I have no room left at all on it for more photos or music or utlilites , and the place where I got the computer went out of business in the usa so I would have to send it back to Canada to change the configuration , which of course I would never do , even if they were in the usa I still don’t think I would want to unplug it …… I talked to two different salesmen one in the compusa store another in circuit city store and the first salesmen gave me this advice , go to start .> my computer > and horizontal tileing in taskbar bring up the my computer window with the E drive which is in my computer with all my drives and partitions then also bring up the my documents folder along side the my computer window so now I have two windows side by side then right click on photos folder in the my documents folder in documents –settings and while keeping finger on mouse drag the photos folder into the E drive/ partition and choose move here then go into the E drive and I will see the photos file in there and just double click it and it will open up just like when it was in C in documents and settings the default path and he said to do the same thing with music only instead of moving it to E move it to media player or was it move it to E and from E to media player on the playlist , now with the music that seems even less logical to me then moving the photos folder then just double click on photos document after locating it in the E partition and it will come up no different then when it was in the C partition , but maybe he knows ??
And besides that would my operating system know where to find it if it was in C and now its in D drive , would I get a message can’t locate path or something like that ? , another salesmen had another more logical solution , buy partition magic from circuit city and he said do this …. Right click on the 80 gig D drive and choose delete ,and delete the D drive and then merely put mouse cursor on the C drive and strech it out with the mouse like stretching out a window on windows to make it wider only keep pulling it till its 89 gig and has taken up all the new space floating around created from deleting the D drive , then If I want I can always move the photos and music to the E drive like the other salesmen said .He also said its not good to have more then two partitions because the hardrive has to work to hard that way and it would wear out faster is that true ?

[Panama Red]

No need to repartition. The Right click and move will do just fine and 10gig is ok for Windows and programs. Move My Music to either the D or E partition. I'd also move My Documents off the C drive.

[bozo]

Having multiple partitions is one of the best things you can do. I have 6 partitions. I keep the C: drive clean of all data & programs...only XP & it's updates are on the C: drive. I have 8 gig on that drive (initial XP install takes about 3 1/2 gig)...so that's plenty of room for XP. Having you OS isolated on one partition will allow you down the road to format & re-install the OS without disturbing other data\programs.

[rjfvillarosa]

I whole heartedly agree with bozo, I don't partition, I use separate hard drives a small one for the OS and bigger ones for my documents and data, but it amounts to the same thing, from a maintenance/security point of view it is excellent.

[RayH]

Chucky Calm down. Take a breath. Everything is OK. In fact, the builder did you a favor.

Files should never be saved on the same partition as Windows. Windows can get hosed without damaging your files. Windows then can be reinstalled with your files intact!

I have all my files on D, including My Documents, Favorites, Address Book, and E-mail.

To move My Documents, first create a folder on either D or E. Call it My Documents X or something. It will come in handy to help you identify that the My Documents is being moved. Then right click on My Documents > Properties > Target > Move. Now move it to that folder.

If you use IE, to move Favorites, just use Windows Explorer; right click (move and paste). Favorites are under C:\Documents and Settings\user.

If you use OE, make a folder on D or E. Call it Email X or something. Tools > Options > Maintenance > Store. Move the email folders to the new folder on D or E.

The OE address book is a little trickier:

The Address book is moved by [in Windows Explorer] creating a new Address Book folder on a different drive. From:
C:\Documents and Settings\"User name"\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book\
Right-click and drag-n-drop "User name".wab and "User name".wa~ to the new folder and choose "Move Here".

You have to manually edit the registry. Click Start / Run and type "Regedit" in the run-dialog box and hit the key. Find the registry key: "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4\Wab File Name" and change the path to the new location. Close regedit and restart the computer. If you don't, it will create a new "User name".wab and default back to the original location.