1TB HDD - No Partition

[rustyd79]

Hi,

I recently bought a new rig with the help of the friendly people here at Tom's and I really like it.

However, it seems that when I received it, the Cyberpower failed to create any sort of partition for backup/restore on my 1tb HDD.

So, am I stuck with 1TB of space now or is there some program that may be available that could create a partition for backups that would not force me to re-do the entire drive?

I recall that back in the day, the only way to repartition would flat out wipe everything - hence the question.

If there's not a way, I guess a another new HDD is in order.

Specs in sig.

Thank you in advance.

 

[hang-the-9]

OK, so the first thing, you never want to use the same disk for "backups". It's like keeping your spare car key in the glove box.

Keep the drive as is, get another drive for backups/PC images. Get clonezilla and an external drive, create a clone of the computer as you like it, make an image of it, put that image away. Then make backups of your data as it changes to go along with the image you made. If the drive dies or you get a virus that eats your files, restore the image, and restore the files you have backed up. You can also once in a while make another image of the PC. Keep in mind that you may not want to image the entire PC at once. Probably image the core setup with your applications, and make backups of the files outside of the image.

 

[WyomingKnott]

If I understand your question, your entire 1 TB drive is dedicated to a single C: drive, and you want to break it into two smaller drives? If so, any decent partition editor can do this for you - I think that Win7 Disk Manager can even do it; shrink the C partition, then create a new volume. I use EASEUS Partition Manager ( http://www.partition-tool.com/ ).

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Unasked-for advice: You refer to the second partition as a partition for backup/restore. I recommend strongly that you not do this. A backup on the same drive as your system drive will be lost if the system drive dies.

A more traditional approach is to partition the drive into two parts, for OS and data. You move My Documents, My Music, and data directories onto the second partition, the first holds only software.

Then you buy at least one backup drive (I have four). The backup drive is either an external drive or a removable drive (or, if you are a big corporation, perhaps a tape drive). You do complete image backups of your OS partition, so that if the OS fails you can restore that backup to a new drive and boot (well, you will have to do a Repair Install to make the new drive bootable). You do file backups, on a rotating schedule of full and incremental, of the data partition.

The backup drive must be removable so that if something fries your machine the backup will survive. I personally have two of these bays in my machine, so I can insert and remove bare drives while the system is running: http://kingwin.com/products/cate/mobile/racks/kf_1000_bk.asp

Edit - I cross-posted with hang-the-9. I agree with what that member wrote. By the way, your title says "no partition," but you actually have one partition. Small issue with technical usage.

 

[rustyd79]

OK, so the first thing, you never want to use the same disk for "backups". It's like keeping your spare car key in the glove box.

Keep the drive as is, get another drive for backups/PC images. Get clonezilla and an external drive, create a clone of the computer as you like it, make an image of it, put that image away. Then make backups of your data as it changes to go along with the image you made. If the drive dies or you get a virus that eats your files, restore the image, and restore the files you have backed up. You can also once in a while make another image of the PC. Keep in mind that you may not want to image the entire PC at once. Probably image the core setup with your applications, and make backups of the files outside of the image.

I have been looking for another storage device and ran across this: OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $199.99 with Rebate at Newegg.

With the system I have, I can put one of these in in about 2 minutes. Since my PC is new, there's not a whole lot on it so my line of thinking is 1) Find a program to back up just the essential data and whatever else I choose and 2) Speed!

Any thoughts on this? I know it's kinda low storage space, but I Don't know if this is a good idea or not. If not, I will simply snag another 1tb drive and follow your advice regarding the backup images.

 

[hang-the-9]

If you don't have that much data, 120 gig is enough for Windows and a bunch of programs. If you like to install a ton of games though, may not be enough as there are games out there than can eat up 20 gig after updates, expantion packs, etc...

I'd just get a second 1tb drive, and run backups to the other drive. An SSD is a bit of a fluff purchase, it will not speed up things enough that it's needed, and you will miss the exra space a lot more. If you can live with waiting another 10 seconds for boot or maybe 5 more seconds for an app to start, get a regular drive.

 

[rustyd79]

If you don't have that much data, 120 gig is enough for Windows and a bunch of programs. If you like to install a ton of games though, may not be enough as there are games out there than can eat up 20 gig after updates, expantion packs, etc...

I'd just get a second 1tb drive, and run backups to the other drive. An SSD is a bit of a fluff purchase, it will not speed up things enough that it's needed, and you will miss the exra space a lot more. If you can live with waiting another 10 seconds for boot or maybe 5 more seconds for an app to start, get a regular drive.

Srry for the late reply, but recent events have prohibited me from being online. That said, Your advice is sound. Thank you all for the replies.

 

[rustyd79]

Best answer selected by Rustyd79.