How to Partition a Hard Drive
A fresh hard drive is always in form of a gigantic memory chunk. Operating on a single large memory area can be infeasible and unmanageable. Partitioning creates logical partitions on the drive referred by some alphabets which are known as “Drive Letters” (C: being the conventional drive for operating system installation). The drive should be partitioned for two significant reasons,
- To install multiple operating systems on different logical partitions
- To categorize, arrange and organize your personal data/files on various logical partitions (it also helps in separation of the system files from your personal files)
Before you start partitioning the drive, you should answer the following questions:
- How many operating systems will I install?
- Do I merely want to separate out my private data from the system data or do I need a more intricate organization?
- Will the size of the partition I create be adequate for the data?
Once the above questions are thought over, make a note of the number of partitions you want to create and their sizes. Typically, a hard drive is divided into 4-5 logical partitions of equal sizes; just a convention and not a rule.
Partitioning an Unused/New Hard Drive
Partitioning a newly purchased hard drive involves few straightforward steps which if executed correctly presents you a finely partitioned hard drive. Some operating systems like Windows NT/2000/XP and Vista offer you a comprehensive direct control over the partitioning process during the initial installation; remaining Windows operating systems make use of a small-sized partitioning utility called “FDisk”.
- Boot your system with a Windows 98 bootable disk (a command prompt is displayed on boot up)
- Run FDisk command on the command prompt
- Select Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive > Create Primary DOS Partition
- Enter N for Use the maximum available size for a Primary DOS Partition and enter the required size in Megabytes (MB)
- It will prompt you for a volume label which acts as an identifier for that partition
- On enter the primary partition will be created (a warning for ‘No partitions are active’ will be shown)
- You need to set a active partition (in order to boot your system from that partition) by selecting Set active partition from the menu
- Select the partition you want to set as active (only one partition on a system can be active at a time)
Note: The above steps create only a primary partition and not the extended logical partitions. The steps given below will help you create extended logical partitions.
- Select Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive > Create Extended DOS Partition
- You can select the remaining hard drive’s space for the extended partition
- On Esc, you will be asked to create logical drives in the extended partition (the multiple logical drives are created within the extended partition)
- Select Create Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition
- Enter the size (in Megabytes) you require and the drive name you desire
- Repeat step 12 & 13 to create multiple logical drives
- Once the partitions are in place, reboot the system with Windows 98 bootable CD and format all the partitions you just created
Partitioning an Used/Old Hard Drive
Partitioning an in-use hard drive can actually be a risky process due to loss of existing data. In order to avoid such misfortune, always get a backup of your present data on some other drive/s before partitioning. Many excellent and trouble-free partitioning utilities are offered in the market which simplifies out the entire process for the user; “Partition Magic” being the extensively preferred software.
You will need to read through the partitioning utility’s user manual carefully before starting the process. The manuals give you a comprehensive step-by-step procedure on how to partition the hard drive. The procedures in the latest partitioning utilities generally cover few easy-to-follow clicks on a friendly graphical interface. Follow the specified steps cautiously and partition the hard drive accordingly.