Partition on Hard-Disk !

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augustya

Journeyman
Hello Friends,

I bought a new Laptop sometime back. I have not made any partition on my Hard disk, I have not divided it into two parts as they normally do like a C Drive and a D Drive or something like that.If I am like using it only for my personal use. Without connecting to any network or anything, so no real risk of data getting accessed by someone else and all. So do I need to then have a partition on my Hard Disk. Is it required? how does it help ?can I keep using it the same way without any partition.

Thanks !
 
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pimpom

Cyborg Agent
The advantage of having more than one partition is not only for security. You may need to format the OS partition and reinstall it at some point. If and when that happens, with only one partition, the only way you can save all your data is to write everything to optical discs or an external drive.

The need to format and reinstall may happen for a number of reasons - viruses (you can't be sure you will never be infected), corrupted OS files, corrupted file structure, bad sectors, etc.

If the single partition gets really screwed up, you may not even be able to back up important data before formatting it.

With multiple partitions, it is unlikely that all partitions will need to be formatted at the same time. And you can save all important data on a non-OS partition.

Of course, it's a good idea to back up vital data to external storage media at regular intervals. But if you're like most people, you will have a lot of data that won't exactly be a complete disaster if you lose them, but will nevertheless cause a lot of regret and inconvenience if you lose them.

As an example, I have five partitions on my main hard disk -
C: OS and installed progs
D: Documents (I also locate My Documents on D: )
E: Software and backups - drivers, apps, utilities, vital data (also backed up on disc)
F: Multimedia - songs and movies
G: Games and Misc
 
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pimpom

Cyborg Agent
^True. If you're involved in a car crash at 150 km/h, a seat belt or an air bag probably won't save your life. But they will definitely increase your chances of survival in a crash at 30 km/h.

In the same way, having several partitions is not an absolute guarantee against all kinds of bad things that can happen with a hard disk, but it greatly reduces the danger of losing everything. It's not meant to be a complete replacement for backing up; it's an extra precaution.
 
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