A hard drive
is not always used as a single drive, but is often split up into
multiple drives. This is accomplished prior to formatting, in a process
called partitioning. As the name indicates, a hard drive partition is part of the drive, or a section, treated by the operating system
as an independent storage area or drive. Hence, a 120-gigabyte (GB)
drive can be partitioned into several drives, rather than being used as
one large drive.
This is handy for a number of reasons. For
example, one can use a separate hard drive partition to install an
alternate operating system (OS). If the two systems require different
formatting schemes, this configuration can accommodate that. Programs
and data can exist on a third partition to be used by either OS --
whichever is active. A boot loader on the C:\ drive allows the user to choose which OS will boot.
Many people like creating a separate hard drive partition for the OS,
even when there is only one OS present. By loading the OS into the C:\
drive and the programs into the D:\ drive, for example, the C:\ drive
can be reformatted and the OS reinstalled, if need be, without losing
programs or their settings and data. Creating multiple partitions also
allows one to organize, maintain and utilize large hard drives better. A
hard drive partition that does not include the entire disk can be
defragged or scanned much faster than a larger partition. When programs,
data and multimedia content are stored on their own partitions, they
can also be archived easily on backup drives as needed.
Partitioning is commonly accomplished with the fdisk command. Alternate methods include graphical tools like Partition Magic. While the partitioning scheme only allows four primary partitions, more can be created as extended partitions. Hence, any number of partitions is possible.
One example of a 120 GB drive made into several partitions is as follows:
| C:\ | [10GB] | Operating System | Hard Drive Partition #1 | ||||||
| D:\ | [20GB] | Programs | Hard Drive Partition #2 | ||||||
| E:\ | [10GB] | Data Files | Hard Drive Partition #3 | ||||||
| F:\ | [80GB] | Ripping/Burning Multimedia Storage | Hard Drive Partition #4 |
Partitioning a hard drive will cause all data to be lost. Before
creating a hard drive partition on a disk already in use, be sure to
backup all data. Thoughts, advice, and how tos on various partitioning
strategies are available from many tech sites.
Photo courtesy from: http://www.techmixer.com/free-windows-partition-manager-software-from-easeus-partition-manager/
