Partitioning

Hi Jeff,

This is one area where we have it easy in Windows - if you buy the right program for it.

I use Partition Magic and it really is magic. It lets you re-partition the hard disk in many cases without even re-booting - it
usually works within Windows. You could just continue working and let it re-partition in the background as you do so though that
would be risky in case another program caused a crash - so I prefer to leave it to do its thing and go away and come back when it is
finished. Never had any problems with it. You can also cancel when it is in the middle of re-partitioning. Sometimes it needs a
re-boot for some types of changes.

I do always back up just before re-partitioning though - because if you got a power cut in the middle of it you could end up with an
unusable hard disk and need to re-format. Not sure if that would happen with Partition Magic.

I used another program before then however, and it was awful, because it actually messed up the partition with my Windows OS on it,
with no way to recover from it that I could find, so that I had to re-format it and re-install windows. So one surely has to take
care with it.

Robert

Hi there,

In Windows a good tip is to have a separate partition for the swap file.

Partition magic doesn't erase anything and in normal use you don't need
to re-install windows or put your files back onto the disk or anything
like that which is quite useful at times.

However as Jeff has recommended, of course you must back up anything of
any importance before re-partitioning - which one should be doing anyway
as a regular thing.

If you get a power cut or the fuse goes in your plug or something mid
partitioning, then I expect you would need to re-format your hard disk and
re-install as what it is doing is pretty low level. But you don't
need to do that in normal use so it is quite a time saver if one
is planning to re-partition anyway.

Don't know if anyone here is planning to do this on Windows.
It can help to improve perforamance - especially the
matter of having a separate partition for the swap file.
That means that your swap file can never get fragmented
as it always has a partition to itself and so as much
consecutive free space as desired.

Robert