Partition question

Ed Meadway · Post by **Ed Meadway** » 13 Jan 2007 10:19 am

I have an old Quarterdeck product called "Partition it". It was designed for win 3.1 and 95. Can I use this old program on win 98 SE?

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 13 Jan 2007 1:39 pm

It should work, since it is also for Win95. Win95/98/98Se/ME all use "FAT" for the disc file system.

Ed Meadway · Post by **Ed Meadway** » 14 Jan 2007 9:18 am

Thanks Jack!

The book that came with it makes partitioning sound like the only way to go when setting up a new disk. They say faster, neater, saves space, gives you more room, etc.

Do you "power" users make lots of different partitions?

If the HD is big enough is it really needed?

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 14 Jan 2007 12:49 pm

I personally do not partition. The Disk operating system could care less where data is, and partitioning could cause a problem later on if you fill up a partition and then either do not have room for what you want to save or you have to use a different partition.

I did partition an external USB connected hard drive and was going to put music on one partition, have another for some other use and another for backups. However, I ran into a space problem with the backups and wound up redoing the drive and making it one big drive and that eliminated my problem.

Dave Potter · Post by **Dave Potter** » 14 Jan 2007 12:54 pm

Well, since at least one partition is required, the book is technically correct - a partition is the way to go, because without at least one, it ain't gonna' work. But, I don't bother with multiple partitions anymore either. Years ago when I first discovered what partitions were, I played around with them some, but the novelty wore off. Partition maintenance is one added headache I can easily do without.

Anytime I have a bona fide need for a totally discrete area to park data, I just mostly add another drive. I'm up to five of them at present, not including the CDROM/DVD drive. The biggest one is a 1.5 terabyte drive, in RAID 0, but it's all just "Drive H:" to me.

John Daugherty · Post by **John Daugherty** » 14 Jan 2007 2:47 pm

Why not use good old "FDISK" to create a logical drive?

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 14 Jan 2007 4:07 pm

John, there are products that allow partitioning and they won't interfere with existing data. and fdisk wipes the disc clean.

Ed Meadway · Post by **Ed Meadway** » 15 Jan 2007 6:24 am

OK Fellas......thanks for the information. Now for the whole story.

I installed a new HD and (mostly) followed a magazine article on how to make partitions using fdisk. I must have missed the part about making a 2nd partition because when I got done there wasn't any. Now I know the importance of it because my new 120 GB drive only has 3 GB that I can use!

My plan is to try "Partition It" as Jack suggested and if that doesn't work I'll just format and reload everything into 1 partition as the rest of you do.

Thanks a million guys...........Ed

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 15 Jan 2007 11:19 am

Ed;
Read this Microsoft article and follow all instructions, in the order presented, for the Filing Table of your choice, using the MS-DOS FDisk commands: How to Partition a Master Hard Disk

[/list]