Partitions....

philnicandevan

Had a new laptop last few days....noticed that the 1.5tb drive is one single folder with various windows 8.1 bits and bobs

whats the simplest way to partition the hdd so I can use seperate folders for stuff rather than searching the one big drive?

tavernman

How much stuff have you put on it already, it can't be slowing it down already ? What have you lost to look for ?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/search-file-explorer
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/search-apps-files-settings
http://www.howtogeek.com/173703/how-to-use-windows-advanced-search-features-everything-you-need-to-know/
etc , but it's all down to whether you wish to search for terms or files etc

esuhl

philnicandevan wrote: »

whats the simplest way to partition the hdd so I can use seperate folders for stuff rather than searching the one big drive?

The best way (in my opinion) is to have the OS (Windows) on one partition, and your personal data and files (including the "My Documents" folders) on a separate drive. That way it's easy to reinstall Windows without worrying that you've lost personal data, and backing up is easy as everything you need to backup is on your data partition.

But searching shouldn't be a reason to use separate partitions. Just put the files in a sensible folder structure, and search within sub-folders instead of the whole drive.

Exo

Reinstalling Windows was a fact of life on earlier versions and so it helped to have data on a different partition.

Windows 7 is pretty stable with quite a few repair options before a reinstall may become necessary.
Regular backups of important data or imaging are still required of course.

With that in mind, you should be able to create some form of folder, sub folder and file structure on your current drive without resorting to partitioning..... as esuhl has already mentioned.

By roughly knowing what category some data may be under, you can then search a particular folder or sub folder and not search the whole drive.

If unsure how to do that, this may help.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15677/zen-and-the-art-of-file-and-folder-organization/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGBkT0X54t0

Fightsback

If you want a separate partition, shrink your current one then add a new one.

Handy pre-written guide here:

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/create-new-resize-extend-partition-disk-management-tool

After you have done that then you might want to tell W8 that you want to use this new partition for my documents instead of the default partition.

Another handy pre-written guide:

http://www.onecomputerguy.com/windows8/windows8_my_documents.htm

A word of caution, pay attention to detail when manipulating partitions and it is advised to back up your data first.

verachen

The best way is that system is in one partition, and data in one partition, which can manage your data well.Your hdd is 1.5Tb, can be devided into system partition, and data partition. Then after partition, if your data partition is small, you can resize partition size by some partition manager, such as gparted and aomei partition assistant, i used aomei pa, a free partition software, can achieve this aim, or you also can use it to partition your hard drive into system partition and data partition. The most important thing, you'd better backup your important data. :beer:

cookie365

The simplest way is to not bother partitioning it at all.

Create a folder in the top level for all your stuff and stay away from the other stuff on the drive.

If it makes it easier conceptually to have a separate drive for your stuff away from the C drive, then you can assign a drive letter to a folder, which you can then treat as a separate drive.

Though of course it'll still be on the C drive and will be included in C drive searches etc.

This article shows a simple way to do it:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/map-a-drive-letter-to-a-folder-the-easy-way-in-windows/

esuhl

cookie365 wrote: »

The simplest way is to not bother partitioning it at all.

Well... you're always going to need at least one partition. You can't format a partition with a filesystem and save files to it unless it exists.

Fightsback

cookie365 wrote: »

The simplest way is to not bother partitioning it at all.

Create a folder in the top level for all your stuff and stay away from the other stuff on the drive.

If it makes it easier conceptually to have a separate drive for your stuff away from the C drive, then you can assign a drive letter to a folder, which you can then treat as a separate drive.

Though of course it'll still be on the C drive and will be included in C drive searches etc.

This article shows a simple way to do it:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/map-a-drive-letter-to-a-folder-the-easy-way-in-windows/

Lots of files on a big drive = big master file table for one partition = slow down drive. You reduce the MFT size by having two partitions and thus two MFTs

User data files get accessed at lot less than system and program files so you are better putting user data files on a separate partition at the end of the drive. `

Better still if you can live without the DVD/CD drive is move the HDD to the CD drive caddy space using an adaptor and fit an SSD, using the HDD for data.

Horses for courses I suppose.