lack of space/ partitioned drives

BillScarab

darich wrote: »

The OP didn't say that there was one physical drive - there is a C drive and an F drive. Everyone here has assumed (possibly incorrectly) that there are 2 physcial disks in the machine.

I think that having partitions is more preferable to not having them.

From the OP

"We are running out of space on our hard drive which is partitioned"

Sounds like one drive that's been partitioned to me.

continentalgal

darich wrote: »

... You can't give a drive a larger capacity by redistributing from another so if C drive has a capacity of 26gb it cannot be increased by allocation space from another physical drive. Redistribution is straightforward within one drive but not possible between 2.

You're right, it was a mix-up of words [I chimed in with the OP's use of terms], I meant a redistribution of space between the partitions. It sounds that there is only one HDD in the pc case with a capacity of 40gig, so the parents could allocate more space to C: (partition) which will then be taken from F: (partition).

I disagree with supersaver - last year I did something daft which resulted in the C: partition being corrupted. I re-installed the OS (of course the other programs had to be re-installed, too) but all my files (correspondence, pics, songs, even the email database!) which I had kept on a different partition were unaffected ... phew! People claiming that partitions are unnecessary obviously never experienced a computer crash and the subsequent shock when they realise it's all ... gone ... :eek:

BillScarab

People who think partitions are unnecessary backup their data! :rotfl:

I must admit I don't like partitioning drives, if you want your data in a different place to your OS and Apps the best bet is to buy a separate disk, or even better two discs that mirror each other if your motherboard supports RAID.

continentalgal

BillScarab wrote: »

People who think partitions are unnecessary backup their data! :rotfl:

cr*p ... you found me out

superscaper

continentalgal wrote: »

I disagree with supersaver - last year I did something daft which resulted in the C: partition being corrupted. I re-installed the OS (of course the other programs had to be re-installed, too) but all my files (correspondence, pics, songs, even the email database!) which I had kept on a different partition were unaffected ... phew! People claiming that partitions are unnecessary obviously never experienced a computer crash and the subsequent shock when they realise it's all ... gone ... :eek:

You missed the bit in my post where I said I've experienced hard drive failures. The last one I had the drive itself physically failed. No matter how many partitions I had it would have made no difference, everything on the hard disk was lost. But I haven't lost anything because as Billscarab points out I backup my data. And I hope people who do partition don't rely on that as their only means of backup as it won't save you if something happens to the hard disk (or even the entire pc). The phrase don't put all your eggs in one basket comes to mind. If the same thing happened to me exactly as happened to you I wouldn't have lost anything either so I still can't see the advantage of having partitions and even if there were I certainly wouldn't rely on it as a good form of backup in case anything goes wrong because it isn't.

I've experienced computer crashes etc so I'll put it back to you that people who find partitions useful as a defence have never experienced hard drive failure.

continentalgal

Yup, my bad, still had some sleep in my eye when I replied to your comment. You're right, when the entire disc crashes, there's nothing you can do about (well, I'm sure there is but I guess it would require a forensic computer lab?).

superscaper

continentalgal wrote: »

(well, I'm sure there is but I guess it would require a forensic computer lab?).

Which assumes that there's anything on the disc I want to recover which there wasn't and I wouldn't need to. My entire pc could be stolen or set on fire but I wouldn't have actually lost any data. That's the point of backups. Partitioning isn't even a form of backup. All my files and documents etc can easily be restored if anything were to happen. So if I can't actually lose any data what is the advantage of a partition?

continentalgal

superscaper wrote: »

So if I can't actually lose any data what is the advantage of a partition?

If you're asking me directly, I'd say, by separating program files from 'other' files, defragmentation of the partition/volume is kept at a minimum and access reading time remains fast. I might be iterating antiquated knowledge since I'm no longer familiar with the latest processor types and perhaps it doesn't impact drive access time any more if data clusters are scattered on the disc?

Then I'd like to bring everyone back to the OP's original question which wasn't about backing up data but solving the space problem.

BillScarab

For the OP I would susggest a general tidy up, scan with ccleaner and get rid of sdome of the rubbish. Move my documents to the f drive, then if there is still not much space on C look at re-partitioning. I've used partition magic in the past and it's straightforward to decrease the size of the larger partition so you have free space to allocate to the smaller one. Or just merge them into one partition.

continentalgal

BillScarab wrote: »

I've used partition magic in the past ...

That's the one I was thinking of but couldn't remember ... I second that recommendation.