I'm upgrading my MB and puzzling over whether to go with the two separate hard drives or partition just one drive. I'm still using XP and have Win7, but don't really like 7 or understand it, yet.

What are your thoughts about partitioning as opposed to two separate drives?

Thanks~

Hi - sarahandus.

Partitioning is fine if you set the boot partition for your OPSYS and programs on C: ( assuming we are talking Windows ) and all your data on the D: ( assuming that's the next HD partition ). This way if your system gets corrupted in any way and you need to do a re-install ( always better than a system restore - take my word for it ) the data you stored on D: will be safe - Docs, photos, music, etc. BUT if the HD fails hardware wise - then all is lost unless you do periodic back-ups.

My suggestion - and this is the way we set up custom PCs - is to have a second hard drive installed on which you store your data. Now if the C: HD fails, your data is safe. You could always take that HD out of the system and physically slave it to a HD in another PC and get to your data. If the D: is the one that fails, then again - hope you did a back-up.

Either way - separating the operating system and the installed programs from your data is a better way to set up a system for data loss prevention. I won't get into RAID systems - its a whole different subject and your hardware has to support it. ( Google Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks - RAID ) We love acronyms in the computer world

Since HD's these days are relatively cheap, even for a SATA 500 gig drive, I would go for 2 Hard Drives, no less than, say, 150 gigs or so.

If your present system has one HD in it now - you can very easily add the second drive. Windows will see it, assign a drive letter to it, and make it available for use ( Format it NTFS - very easy ). Then I would move all my data and any new data to the new drive for safe keeping.

This could be a very larger subject and many of us techy types ( not quite a geek - I'm too old ) have our own way of setting up our systems - but you can't go wrong with the 2 drive set up - and it's inexpensive

Assuming you have the money, the room, and the connectors for a new drive, having a second drive will provide increased drive space and should extend hardware lifetimes for both drives.
If you make both drives bootable, even if one crashes completely you will still have the second and will be able to use your computer.

Unless you want to use the BIOS to control which system boots, you should explore the options for selection of the OS. Without using the BIOS, you will always be booting into one or the other OS, XP or 7. After the initial boot process, you should have an option to select whether you get WinXP or Win7. This selection will be complicated by whether there is a single partitioned drive or multiple drives and which OS was the primary one.

Do a thorough Google search for multiple OS booting and how that is affected by the OS, drive partitions, and number of drives.

Not owning Windows7 myself, I can't give specific help on this subject.

Hi Robert

Good-advice and Yes - you can dual boot Win7 with XP on one drive and 7 on the other. You can dual boot anything, even Windows any version with Linux any distribution, there are hundreds.

The problem with dual booting for the general computer user is that it's not that intuitive unless you are familiar with BIOS settings, boot loaders like GRUB, etc etc. besides now you have 2 "systems" to keep up-to-date, patched, etc etc. You may even run into a licensing issue with Windows - it is 2 systems and 2 installs.

If you really want a kickbutt system. consider a Virtual Machine system where you can run Windows, Linux, and MAC on the same system - independent of themselves and - if you set it up properly - they all can actually share stuff with each other!

I'm not sure I understand the question.

For a single HDD -

Allocating multiple partitions on a single hard drive allows you to keep your data and OS segregated - basically it's a personal preference, very few attempt to isolate the OS from their data.

The biggest benefit is Disk maintenance. Defrag runs faster on smaller logical drives.

Also, if you ever get to a point where you want multiple operating systems, like XP and Windows 7, a second partition comes in very handy.

For 2 physical drives -

You can allocate spanned volumes or use raid -

A spanned volume only writes to the second HDD when the first is full, so there's no performance benefit. Allocating a RAID 0 configuration increases performance because IO blocks are interleaved, but if any of the volumes in the RAID fail, all data is lost.

This is why I recommended the original poster go with 2 drives. The general computer user will not have to deal with RAID 0 or 1 or 1+0 or 0+1. We could also hang a remote drive bay off an IO card or MB connector and run a bunch of drives with stripping. If one fails - just hotswap it out and replace it - the system rebuilds it and nothing is lost.

I kinda of feel this was beyond what sarahandus was asking - and the 2 drive set-up would be the most beneficial - least costly way of data protection and the easiest for someone to handle.

But hey, let's get together some day and really kick stuff around. A busman's holiday for me - it happens to me a lot.

I'd be listening intently to your busman's holiday discussion! I was interested when sarahandus posted this question to hear what was said. I have been trying to decide on how to make the best use of my three 500 GB drives in this Win 7 computer I built a year or so ago.

Hi Draclvr

You will most likely get a wealth of suggestions here - and, I'm sure, all of them will be very good.

There are numerous combinations. Let me give you my ideas on this...

You have a newer system with Windows 7, also, 3 hard drives of 500 gigs each which is no small amount of space.

Windows 7 supports software RAID and depending on the Motherboard in your PC you may have a RAID adapter (hardware RAID) built in the board. If not, and you prefer hardware RAID - you'll need a RAID Card - like a Mylex, or Adaptec etc. Anyway, ....

The 2 RAIDs are RAID 1 and RAID 5, for all practicable purposes. There's RAID 0 too - but no data redundancy.

This could get complicated but OK - let's say RAID 1 which also called a Mirror Set. In this case 2 drives are "combined" and the system will see C: as 1 (one) 500 gig Volume. Data is written to both drives exactly the same and read from both drives same way. If one drive fails - you simply "Break" the Mirror - replace the bad drive and rebuild the Mirror set - No data loss. You use 2 drives and keep one as the spare.

OK, RAID 5, - you use all 3 drives in the array. The system will see C: as 1 (one) terabyte ( 2 drives added ). What happened to the other drive?? - well the system writes the data across the 3 drives and uses the equivalent (500 gigs) of one of the drives as "PARITY", in case of a drive failure - you replace the bad drive and the system rebuilds it from the parity information stored across the "Stripe Set" or 3 drives, and again, no data is lost.

Both these are not too difficult to set up if you pay attention to the wealth of instructions on the Net.

BUT - if you just want to utilize those 3 drives - I would just do what I mentioned very early in this thread and that's to use one of them as the operating system drive C: store your data on the next drive D: - you can even install the 3 drive in the computer as Drive E: or whatever Drive letter is available and store data or back-ups there (your CD or DVD may have the next drive letter) , or just keep #3 as your SPARE - just in case one of the others fails!!.

Well - I do hope all this helps.

It does, susreshot. My Gigabyte motherboard supports 0,1,5 and 1+0. I've always leaned towards the RAID 5 as I use an on-line backup service. Decisions, decisions!

Well - I always felt - go with your gut! If your comfy with RAID 5 - and you have the resources, which you do, then that seems to be the way to go.

One of the highest goals of any IT Dept is to make sure the data is safe from virus, crashes, hardware failures, intrusions, etc etc. The hardware is cheap, the people expendable - but the data ???!!!!

RAID 5 - you'll be just fine.

Thanks sureshot for all the information.

I have the 2 hard drives now, as well as 2 external hard drives where everything important is kept. One is kept separate from the pc and only attached to update new data.

My dream setup would be to have Win 95, 98, XP and 7 all available to play and use. So far I use VM and scummv to play those old games, but it would be nice to play them as they were designed. Would that require a compatible motherboard? I do have the legal discs for all 4 OS's.

I have done the partitioning bit and it is a bit of a pain I admit. As to RAID, my eyes glaze over just trying to understand it, at this time I have no use for it anyway.

One more question, the RAID drivers for installing XP on a SATA drive come on a floppy, but this new system has no floppy drive. I have ordered an external USB floppy drive, will it work for those drivers?

I would also be very interested in your busman's holiday discussion.

Thanks for all the help, very much appreciated.

Hi sarahandus

Sounds like your know to keep your data safe on a separate drive etc.

You have many ways you can go and a few combinations you might consider.

I have to say that I am not a big fan of dual boot or multiboot systems, especially if you are mixing 32 and 64 bit operating systems, Fat16/32 i.e. Win 95/98 and NTFS i.e. Win 2000/XP/7.

Virtualization, like VMware and Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007, which is still free I believe, is a much better solution. This way, you could have all the operating systems available to you inside a virtual environment and be able to run them simultaneously - albeit - can be a resource hog.

If you really have no problem with dual booting, how about 2 machines?? One with 95/98 (could be and older PC ) and the other with XP/Win7. Get a 2 port KVM - very inexpensive, all you need is one keyboard (K) one Monitor (V) and one mouse (M),all which you have, then you can have 2 programs running and switch between the 2 machines with a mouse click. Just think, 2 games going at once ! NAAHH !! but you could be playing a game on one PC while the other one is surfing the net, chatting, reading mail, or going through a walkthrough ( walkthrough?? us?? no-way!) etc. !

I could go on and on and I am positive others who are reading this have their ideas too. Bottom line is - whatever works for you and you are comfortable with.

Oh - yes - drivers for RAID on SATA and XP can be loaded via a USB floppy - check the BIOS. Also check the software that came with the machine - usually a motherboard disk is included which has drivers.

I don't understand what you are trying to do if you have a machine with Win7 installed already. Are you thinking of setting up a RAID set for storage? or Re-installing Windows on a RAID set?

If you are OK with saving your data on those externals and it is working for you, I would shy away from RAID set-ups though.

Whatever you do, try to keep it as simple as possible - maintaining, troubleshooting, and fixing complicated set-ups can be "painful"

Hi, sarahandus!

I have two hard drives. My operating system and program files are on C: and my user files are on D:. That way, if one drive ever crashes (it has not happened to me yet in the 24 years I've owned computers, so I guess I'm long overdue ), the other drive won't be affected.

Susan

In a state of idiocy I bought a new case when I bought the new MB, so I would have the start of 2 pcs. But with very limited space that option may be a non starter. Although it sounds like a great way to go, I'll have to think on that some more.

I have no problem with the dual boot, it's just an extra click and on my present machine the two systems are separate and contained on their own disc. I play games on the disc with Win7 and no internet connection; they can't call home if they are so inclined. For games that allow it, I load them on the connected external disc and play them from there. That also gives me the option to play them on either OS

The old MB isn't all that old,it just didn't have enough PCI slots or a R47J connection that I needed. So I' still wondering if it would play those old games or is it too new/fast or whatever?

I thank you so much for all the information and guidance on this matter, it is a great help.


Thanks~

It's not the MB alone that determines if you can play the older games. It's a combo of many components like the processor, memory, hd space, video card and sound card, not to mention the operating system! - then look at the system requirements of the software you wish to install.

You should meet, at the very least, the minimum system requirements that the game/software needs to run.

I have two hard drives and use one as a mirror image of the the other (updated daily), using Acronis True Image. It means that if the C drive goes belly-up, all I have to do is swap the SATA cables on the mother board and I'm up and running immediatley. I can then take my time to get a replacement drive and set it up.

I definitely have the minimum system requirements for Windows 98, but is it too much of a good thing for that old system?

when I opened the old case I found there were 3 HDs, 2 SATA and 1 IDE; the IDE had been disconnected though and I had forgotten all about it.

The new MB is installed and almost everything is working perfectly. Didn't even have to format the HDs!

Thanks~

Well - sounds like you are happy with the set up. If it works, great - enjoy - Hope we all helped with this

Thanks Sureshot, Your suggestions certainly did help a lot. I really appreciate that, thank you again.