Partitioning Question?

[xfxmonkey]

I have a specific question for partitioning hard drives. I have searched the web and found no direct answers. Hope someone can help.

I'm trying to partition my hard drive so I have the OS (Win 7) on one partition, and have all the data on a different partition. BUT! I need the data partition to install, and download, and store any data automatically to that partition. without me saving files to a certain location etc... I know it can be done because this is how a lot of company computers are shipped (dell, toshiba, etc...)

[Steve R Jones]

99% of the time when I download - I download to E:\TEMP .....The very first time I download and specify a fold like that - the OS remembers...

[xfxmonkey]

But is there a way to make it automatic. Say if I do a custom build for a client and they don't "know computers" very well at all. Is there a way to partition the drive so i knows which one is OS, and which is Storage?

[Steve R Jones]

Build the system....Go to some web site and download something to a folder you specify. The next download will go there unless the USER changes it.

Food for thought-> Only use one large partition and then you don't have to worry about it.

[stroyal]

I don't think it is anything you do when you are partitioning, though you do need to make the partition/s, for your set up.

I had a laptop that was given to me with no way of installing window, so I was stuck with a very small system partition and a large second partition.
It would fill up and have all that space on the second partition,
I moved My Documents , Desktop, and The Memory Cash to the second partition, and it worked fine.

That part would be automatic once you set it up, but the other part is when programs are installed.
Maybe after the first install it will default, but not sure.

[stroyal]

Build the system....Go to some web site and download something to a folder you specify. The next download will go there unless the USER changes it.

Food for thought-> Only use one large partition and then you don't have to worry about it.

Yep. This was the only time I worried about it.
I'd rather have 2 single partition drives

[Cmptr-Gy-Dv]

When I build a system for someone who needs storage I always name the storage partition.
Normally I will name it (DATA_SAVE) and then name the C: drive like WinXP or Win7 so they know what the storage drive is and what the os drive is.
But windows will default to the last download location like others said however some PC cleaning
Tools will erase the last download location and then it defaults back to the download folder on the os partition.

[Taxmancometh]

I'm wondering if these programs could be of use.

EASEUS Partition Master is FREE Magic Hard Disk Drive Partition Manager and Partition Recovery Software for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 and Server 2000/2003/2008. Free for home users.

GParted -- Screenshots



I restructure active partitions all the time. Time is the only caveat.

In Firefox, go to the options and select you download location. I'm sure that's the same for IE. That will never change with a cleaner of some sort. Except the main temp directory. You can change that too, but it involves going into the environment variables. right click my comp / properties / advanced.

If your primary concern is just with downloads, then that is just a directory change in the browser. No biggie!

[RacerX]

Yeah, these guys pretty much covered it.
In Win7 you can easily change the default location of your download, and Doc folders to whatever drive/partition you want.
And of course set the browser to point to the same folder as well for Firefox.

From there the Library folders will show those folders and files as though they were on the C drive,so it will be seamless.

The only thing to keep in mind is that any installed programs will of course install to the C drive. This shouldn't matter as you can always reinstall them if you had to do a backup in case of failure.

Any associated files, such as a program that may store stuff in the My Docs folder will still store it in the new location so you'll be fine.

If you also needed a way to default installs to the other drive i don't know off hand how to do it.
I' suspect a reg hack would work, but i'd advise against it for a few reasons.
Since W7 uses 2 program files folders, one for 32 bit and the other for 64, i wouldn't want to chance things getting screwed up by an improper install, so i'd leave that alone.

also I agree on Easus, have used it several times with great success.

[xfxmonkey]

Alright, thanks for the advice everybody

[Taxmancometh]

The only thing to keep in mind is that any installed programs will of course install to the C drive. This shouldn't matter as you can always reinstall them if you had to do a backup in case of failure.

Upon installation of a program your asked where to install... Personally use F: more than C: The caveat to this is if you clone the drive full of partitions and registry entries. Then you either have to use the same path that was choosin when you installed the program or use separate drives that are designated F: and so fourth.

In my case I had three separate drives; C:, F:, and G: which all needed to become part of one drive. My solution was to create three separate partitions instead named; C:, F:, and G:. Works! Otherwise, I would have to reinstall all those programs because the registry entries would not match the correct install path. Huge PITA!

EASEUS worked great for me. Especially sense discovering I needed more room on C partition. Simple move of free space from G --> to F --> and that created more space allowed to transfer for C: ..hard to explain.

[xfxmonkey]

thanks for the update

[Windows7Guy]

Hello xfxmonkey,
It depends on the version of Windows 7 that you have. As a good rule of thumb a minimum of 30GB is recommended for Windows 7 *(possibly more for Windows Ultimate).
Windows 7 System Requirements
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it requires:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Some Additioinal information with regard to the "system reserved" Partition in Windows 7 setup:
If you do not want the 'System Reserved' partition to be created and existed, the best way is to stop Windows 7 installation process to create the partition when installing Windows 7.
In Windows 7, the feature (100 MB partition to store WinRE files) is installed on all computers if the OS is installed on hard disk with single partition scheme, or unallocated space (space which not yet been partitioned) on the hard disk drive.
Thus in order to skip or avoid the 100M partition to be automatically created during installation, here’s a few rules to follow when choosing where to install Windows 7 to:
1. Do not install Windows 7 to a hard disk that not yet been partitioned or to unallocated space (When install Windows 7 to unallocated space, no warning pop-up or confirmation is asked, and setup will straight away and directly create partition 200 MB of disk space as special partition without notification).
2. If possible, try to create all the necessary partition(s) and format the partition(s) before attempting to install Windows 7.
3. If you’re installing Windows 7 into a new hard disk, or a blank hard disk with no partition defined yet, or if you must delete all existing partitions to start afresh, chose Drive options (advanced). Delete (if applicable) unwanted partitions. Then, click New to create the single partition or multiple partitions according to your own preference.
When prompted with dialog box saying “To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions for system files”, click on Cancel button. Optionally, to be double confirm, Format the partition before selecting it to install Windows 7
Finally, if you want to do some research; there are also some great articles, instructional videos and such to help with your Windows 7, installation, migration and upgrade decisions located at our Springboard site:
Windows Client | Deploy, Manage, Desktop, 7, Vista, XP | TechNet
Thanks again and good luck!
John M.
Microsoft Windows Client Support