Fast, Easy Backups
For Win98 / ME / NT / 2K / XP
Copyright © 1997-2005 Fred Langa/ Langa Consulting LLC. All worldwide rights reserved.
7) HOW TO SAFELY AND NONDESTRUCTIVELY
PARTITION AN IN-USE DRIVE
The most common, simple (and crude) tool used for partitioning is FDISK. If you’re setting up a brand-new hard drive, FDISK (part of Windows/DOS) will let you chop it into “logical drives” of whatever size you wish. But the process is a little geeky and it’s also somewhat dangerous: Resetting your partitions via FDISK will erase the entire contents of your hard drive. This isn’t an issue with a new disk, or if you want to start over with an older disk, but it’s clearly not a good thing if your disk is full of files you want to preserve.
There are many partitioning tools--- some free!--- that let you work nondestructively on an in-use disk: You can find many of them here:
http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=partitioner&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000
I used to use PartitionMagic, from Powerquest. It’s not free, but I never had a serious problem using it, and I found its front end particularly easy to use. Alas, the newer versions aren't as good, and I've found other tools that work much better: FULL UPDATED INFO HERE
But note: Any time you’re fiddling with a disk’s partition table, there is a risk of data loss. So--- ironically--- all the makers of partitioning tools recommend that you make a backup *before* you use the tool. Of course, that’s a chicken-egg kind of problem: If you’re using the partitioning tool because your current hard drive setup is too big to backup, what do you do?
You can skip this initial backup step, of course, but at your own risk. The better answer is to make at least a partial backup of your most-essential files. You could, for example, focus primarily on the “My Documents” folders, or any other folders that contain irreplaceable data. Many newer systems come with a CD burner (or you can buy one for under $100); you can use this to copy your irreplaceable files; for example. If you’re on a network, you can temporarily copy your files to a different computer’s hard drive. Or you can use an online storage service; and so on. In a pinch, you even can use email: Use something like WinZip to compress your most critical data files, and send yourself the Zip file as an email attachment. It will sit safely on your mail server until you later retrieve/download it.
Once you’ve protected your most essential files, run Scandisk and Defrag to get your current hard drive in as good shape as possible. When your disk is error-free and defragmented, run the partitioning tool of your choice, and create the new, empty partitions you need to organize your drive.
When that’s done, spend some time getting the system well-ordered: Move (don’t copy) files with similar backup priorities into whatever new partition(s) you’ve decided on.
You may also wish to move some infrequently-used applications off of C: to another partition. (As I do.) The best way to do this is to uninstall the application from C:, and then reinstall it: When you’re given a choice of where to install the app to (you may need to select “custom install” to get this option), tell Windows to place the application on some partition other than C:
If your hard drive was very full when you started, you may find it easier to handle re-partitioning in several steps. For example, you might start with a nearly-full C: drive, and use the partitioning tool to create small new D:, E: and F: partitions. After moving some files to these new partitions, you can then re-run the partitioning tool to shrink the size of C: and increase the size of the others. Do this iteratively until you’ve achieved the final sizes you wish for all your partitions.
In any case, when you’re done, you should have a C: drive that’s reasonably sized--- a size that’s amenable to frequent backups--- and that contains your most essential system files, settings, and data files. Your other partitions can be of almost any size, with the partitions with the lowest backup priority being the biggest.
Now you’re ready to start your formal, regular and effective backup process.
Next: BUILT-IN AND ALTERNATIVE BACKUP TOOLS
FOR WIN9X / ME / NT / 2K / XP
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