My PC is in need of a major clean up (Formatting hard drive and re-installing windows)

Only thing is i have around 50GB of valuable stuff. and i dont want to lose it all, what do you guys do, buy an external drive and save it to that? or is there another way? cant be arsed burning it all to DVD's so external hard drive seems only option.

get a cheapo HDD (ie a 80 gb off eBay) and drop that in

Try to borrow an external disk. Otherwise... how big of a floppy pile would you think 50 GBs would turn out to be?

*inserts disk #1831*

Get ahold of Norton Partition Magic and partition the drive if you have enough free space, then move what you want to keep onto a different partition to windows.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/120GB-Ex ... 16178QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


this looks good eh?

Quote from Bean0 :

Get ahold of Norton Partition Magic and partition the drive if you have enough free space, then move what you want to keep onto a different partition to windows.

That sounds like a plan, can i format 1 partition and leave another with all the valuable stuff on? then remove the partition after formatting and re-installing windows?

Found a partition program thats free, is it not wise to use this?
http://partitionlogic.org.uk/

Currently I have 200GB of stuff I don't want to lose (I could and could get it again, but would rather not), so I partitioned my 300GB into a 20GB and a 280GB, 20GB for windows and other such junk, so when I format my stuff stays untouched.

50 GBs of stuff could be fit on 11 DVDs. Burning them at 8x speed will only take about 8 minutes/DVD, so that makes a rough 90 minutes to backup your data. If those 50GBs are so valuable to you then You should perhaps backup them, and now is the right time imho

well i have 20 gig of useless stuff and dont wanna get rid of it
not that useless acctually, old pics that reminds me of good gaming times
stuff i need but not atm useless stuff is sumthing i find funny LOL
don't ask me why

why?

1 problem with partitions is windows has to be on disk C: iirc, and some programs automatically install to thier destination say a patch for a game would be C: program files..blah..blah/halflife etc etc, and if you had half life installed on D: you couldnt install the patch...

I just got a new pc, nothing valuable on old PC...

So...
You ask what's on this pc now?
well...
LFS, CSR and... Racing Pitch
(oh and my old desktop (which is VERY full))

Quote from BlakjeKaas :

I just got a new pc, nothing valuable on old PC...

So...
You ask what's on this pc now?
well...
LFS, CSR and... Racing Pitch
(oh and my old desktop (which is VERY full))

Actually no i didn't ask that at all....

Quote from whitey6272 :

Actually no i didn't ask that at all....

Well, I was busy editing and stuff...

But a new post is good too

Just buy:
a new Ipod(ish) thing which stores much...
OR
buy a cheap HDD

Quote from whitey6272 :

why?

1 problem with partitions is windows has to be on disk C: iirc, and some programs automatically install to thier destination say a patch for a game would be C: program files..blah..blah/halflife etc etc, and if you had half life installed on D: you couldnt install the patch...

That's why windows goes on C:\
Everything else (my documents, games, etc) go on D:\
And I have a E:\ and F:\ which are 120 and 250GB respectively, which currently are filled with random files I'm too lazy to put anywhere else.

Yes games automatically say "honoes C:\Program..." so I just change it to "D:\Games\", and all patches for games these days will automatically scan your PC for the game.

Quote from whitey6272 :

My PC is in need of a major clean up (Formatting hard drive and re-installing windows)

Only thing is i have around 50GB of valuable stuff. and i dont want to lose it all, what do you guys do, buy an external drive and save it to that? or is there another way? cant be arsed burning it all to DVD's so external hard drive seems only option.

Ok, failing all of the above(the partition post the best option) you could wait
untill NASA send their probe to mars in 2025 that will set up the NASA intergalactic proxy(sponsered by Google) , you could then start transmiting your data and then format c:\ and by the time it comes back to you here (planet earth I THINK) you will have c:\ nice and clean and then save all of your data...

Partioning for the win.

I always try to keep my OS partition as small as possible, I've currently got a 3GB partition for WinXP, have used about 2.4GB of that. Means I can never lose much data and also it's very fast to defrag.

Ditto, have an XP Partition, programs (where possible) go on another partition, as do games and media, and files

Partitioning ftw!

(Oh yes, and i have a Ghost copy of XP on an unmounted partition in case things **** up!)

Something I might have overlooked.

I *think* you can only partition free space from within Norton, so if your drive is full you're a bit stuck.

I would strongly recommend against partitioning a drive full of data that you want to keep. There's a huge risk of disaster.

Your best bet is as previously recommended: buy a new hard drive, install windows on that. Then you can either copy the data to the new drive or keep the old drive as a secondary.

Quote from Forbin :

I would strongly recommend against partitioning a drive full of data that you want to keep. There's a huge risk of disaster.

I agree it's possible problem but I've never had a problem, been regulary repartitioning my drives with good old Powerquest software (damn Symantec for buying out companies) for years, never had a problem.

whitey6272 - edited your thread title for clarity

A tip someone said to me and its always worked a treat.

Any time you have a single HDD (such as some people only have one 20gb hdd in their comp, others have a single 300gb) partition off 6,7,8 gig for windows and install it on there. Then you got the rest to do as you please. Then when you format, not only does it go faster than formatting 300gb, but you dont lose your stuff.

I'd get an external HD. Not just because its easy but also because you can keep a long term backup on it so even once you copy everything back to the internal one you have a safe copy.

Once you shift the data off the HD though definately split partition. I use 8GB for Windows, and the rest as a seperate partition for data, which I keep a backup of on the HD in my server. Saves headaches when you have to re-format and generally makes stuff easier to find as a bonus.

Easy way is to have a mac, no need to reinstall


But I have a Winblows PC to play games, I just copy anything across (Savegames - standalone programs - patches etc) to the mac and wipe the HD and start again.

A painful process that needs to be done atleast once every 2 months

Quote from Bob Smith :

I agree it's possible problem but I've never had a problem, been regulary repartitioning my drives with good old Powerquest software (damn Symantec for buying out companies) for years, never had a problem.

Sorry Bob, while I normally agree with you, that is when I understand you :ices_rofl , in this case I disagree.

Never ever ever ever try to repartition a live machine with data you want to keep AND HAVE NOT BACKED UP.

"Yeah sure, but it worked for ..... " advice is no help if it turns pear shaped.

Either attach a second hard drive or ideally attach an external hard drive and copy over your info BEFORE you do ANYTHING.

While there are stories of people who do it successfully imho its a pointless risk.

Copy your info then reformat. I'd suggest about 10 gig for windoze, 2 gig for the swap file ( ideally on a second drive ) and the rest how you want.

Key point tho - NEVER REPARTITION WITHOUT ALL DATA BACKED UP FIRST.

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Never ever ever try to repartition a live machine with data you want to keep.

"Yeah sure, but it worked for ..... " advice is no help if it turns pear shaped. Either attach a second hard drive or ideally attach an external hard drive and copy over your info BEFORE you do ANYTHING.

While there are stories of people who do it successfully imho its a pointless risk.

Copy your info then reformat. I'd suggest about 10 gig for windoze, 2 gig for the swap file ( ideally on a second drive ) and the rest how you want.

Key point tho - NEVER REPARTITION WITHOUT ALL DATA BACKED UP FIRST.

100 % agree...