Partitioning

[clocker]

I am a adventurous, if not particularly knowledgable, computer idiot and am seeking advice on partitioning my HD.
I run XP Pro and have the usual gaggle of software along with approx. 55GB of media files (music, movies,etc.).
I have a program called Partition Magic and think that I might benefit from adding some new partions, but am unsure about what to move where, or the advantages of doing this.
Any advice or links to information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[callum]

The flash tutorial that comes with partition magic is quite helpful.
I found it easy to use and I'm also a computer idiot.
It only takes a few simple steps to create a partition, and as long as you take it slowly and pay attention to what you are doing you should have no problems.

[clocker]

Thanks Callum.

I'm not really concerned about using the program per se, as you said the tutorial seems fairly comprehensive.

I guess my question is- what would be the point of doing it in the first place?
If I were to move say, all my media files to a new partition, what benefits would I see?

[callum]

The thing I like best is being able to keep all my music,movies and other downloads on a different partition from windows.
Which makes things alot easier when I want to reinstall windows, as the windows partition can be formatted and the others left untouched.
I think it also helps to keep the partition that contains windows defragmented as downloads are no longer going onto the windows partition.

[Xilo]

Here's what I do. I either have two harddrives or two partitions. If it's two partitions, 6-10 gb will do for one and the rest for the other. I install Windows and system stuff (like codec packs and stuff like that) on the smaller partition/harddrive and then install all my other stuff on the other partition/harddrive and put all my other crap on that partition/harddrive to. I periodically image the Windows drive/partition. That way if Windows goes down the crapper, you can always image it. You won't have to reinstall everything or worry about losing your files. It's really just a big time saver and helps keep your system more in a tidy order...

[MadDog-2000]

Well the guys basically answered your question but I would like to add some more stuff. Having two partitions is a good idea, you should keep your personal files (pictures, movies, music) seperate from your OS and program files, it makes it easier to manage your data. If you ever loose data or accidentaly format the wrong partition you can get all your files back by using a special program that needs to write to another partition in order not to override "what appears to be" deleted files. If you have more than one partition you are also able to use programs like Norton Ghost, which can clone partitions and hard drives. This makes replacing the OS a 10 min task if for some reason you need to! As XP administrator you can also lock and encrypt that partition, so no one besdies you can get to the files, if there are other people using the same PC. Locking partitions also keeps viruses out.

[clocker]

Alrighty then.
Thanks for the input folks.