Fresh Install Windows 7...Separate Partitions?

jonah1825

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Mar 6, 2010
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hello community I am about to receive a new computer with no OS on the hard drive. I plan to install Windows 7 Professional x64 on it and I was wondering if i need to create separate partitions. I see many places saying creating system and data partitions is the smart way to go, yet I don't completely understand how or why. If anyone could explain to me why it's necessary and a good way to go about partitioning the hard drive that would be great!
 

manojgj

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have a separate partition partition is prevents data loss when PC is get affected with virus it may corrupt any data in C: drive or we have to format C:drive completely to remove the virus which results in data loss if we have only one partition..
so its good to have OS on separate partition & data's on other partition..
you can also make an partition for installing application & install the application in this may give some relief to system partition (it take a an little bit extra time while opening the application which is not even notable by US & we are not going to open an application frequently .. once it fully loaded then it's same as in system drive.

 

nocheese

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Like Manojgj said, it's partly for some protection against malware (although much of it will span multiple drives).

I recommend it to some people mostly as a matter of convenience. As stated above, when doing a reinstall it's in a separate location.

However, if splitting OS and data, use a completely separate drive if possible. This way when doing an OS reinstall you can disconnect it completely to make sure nothing gets overwritten by accident.

For my systems, I leave it as-is. My data is usually stored on a server if it's important, and anything stranded on the OS partition should a system crash, i have other tools available to let me get to it before formatting the drive.
 

jonah1825

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thanks for your replies i guess ill worry about separating data from my OS when i get a separate hard drive...being an undergrad college student I don't have too much data that is vital to my well being...what little important info i have is backed up on my flash drive
 

steadfast1984

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when you custom install windows, it will ask you if you want to create a partition, you will have to enter the size of the partition you want for system side manually using MB's. so say if you want a 60 GB partition for windows you need to emter it as 60 x 1024 = 61440MB
so you enter 61440 when it promps you to, lets say you have a 500GB harddrive it will say you have 512000MB free. so once you allicate 60GB (61440MB) for your system side and install windows, the rest of the DISK will be called an Unallocated partition. windows 7 has a native partition manager built into the program. So when you got it running, just type "partition manager" into the search on the start menu, go into the program, and assign the other partition a Letter. and your done.
so to recap on the formula how to convert GB to MB its

the amount of GB's you want x 1024 =xxxxx MB

I hope you follow. Good Luck
Steadfast1984