How to keep files and stuff while activating Windows

[Nuke]

That's convenient, but it's really bad for performance on conventional hard disks (i.e. non-SSDs). Partitions are physically separate on the platter, so multiple active partitions on a hard disk force longer seek times when switching between them.

its never really hurt performance all that much for me. ive done this on single drives, ssd drives, and multiple drive/ssd/both configurations. it gives me piece of mind that the os wont toast my files, or that i wont when messing with the system. it also makes things easy to backup, you just copy the whole data partition with the self booting partition imaging tool of your choice (which is often faster than copying the files under windows). i dont like how the user folder is a dumping ground for files that i neither created nor want to keep. so im very selective of what gets junctioned over. i avoid the user folder like the plague when saving important files.

current config is two ssds, a larger 500gig for data (one big partition), 256gig for os (default partitioning for os). when i just ran the 500gb i had a 150 gig partition for the os, and the rest was set up for data.

That sounds like a rather cavalier way of dealing with important data, to be honest. And of course everyone has a way to do proper backups We know how important those are.

If the data doesn't matter you can just do a clean Windows install, since it did not matter.

i probibly shouldn't have brought it up. its just something thats worked for me a couple times, it is kind of a stupid way to recover data. especially now when you can get a 64gig thumbdrive for $12. i used to be a system builder so i knew the windows 9x/2k/xp installers inside and out. i have less experience with newer versions of windows, but its really all the same, where you want it, what settings you want, etc. when your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail. (actually its a really good way to get people to leave me alone about fixing their mundane computer problems).

Edited November 9, 2014 by Nuke

[Camacha]

i probibly shouldn't have brought it up. its just something thats worked for me a couple times, it is kind of a stupid way to recover data. especially now when you can get a 64gig thumbdrive for $12. i used to be a system builder so i knew the windows 9x/2k/xp installers inside and out. i have less experience with newer versions of windows, but its really all the same, where you want it, what settings you want, etc. when your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

Fair enough!

[LaytheAerospace]

its never really hurt performance all that much for me. ive done this on single drives, ssd drives, and multiple drive/ssd/both configurations. it gives me piece of mind that the os wont toast my files, or that i wont when messing with the system.

Partitions help with data segregation and OS installs, but are completely unsuitable for backing up data. It provides a sense of security, in that many people feel like they're putting their data somewhere safe when they put it on what looks like another disk, but isn't. One head crash and you lose both the data and the backups. Given that HDD failures are among the most common hardware failure (I'm looking at a stack of failed HDDs on my desk right now), I wouldn't do this with any data that you cared about losing, and if you don't care about losing it, then why are you backing it up?

Much better to get a cheap HDD for your desktop, or a cheap flash drive for your laptop. Will cost $20 or less, be no more difficult to use and provide genuine data security.

[Guest]

There is two kinds of computer users: those who do not make backups yet and those who now make them.

And backup on some physical drive, but different partition is not counted as backup in most cases.

And learn to use Linux. You do not need deep knowledge now, modern distros are very user friendly.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Guest

[longbyte1]

i usually do two partitions on single drive systems just for this very situation. i keep about 150gb for the os partition(s), and everything else is for data. should the os ever go kaput, you can format the os partition(s) and install a new os there without loosing data. the os doesnt like it when you do this so you need to set up junction points so that your data appears to be were the os wants it, while its on another partition entirely.

on a working system just use mklink from the command prompt to create junction points. i think the syntax is:

mklink /j "linkpath" "targetpath"

linkpath is the directory where the link is created, for example "c:\Users\username\Documents\" (use quotes if the path has spaces)

targetpath is where the data actually is stored, for example "d:\documents\" (use quotes if the path has spaces)

so

mklink /j "c:\Users\username\Documents\" "d:\documents\"

Or just

I personally don't use partitions, simply because I've had a terrible experience with working with them (e.g. what if your system partition turns out to be too small?) and due to the fact that some programs dislike symbolic/hard links.

Working with partitions in Linux is okay, but just make sure to do the right thing and use LVM when you're setting them up.

[Nibb31]

My data is on a NAS. My computers typically run a tiny SSD drive only with the OS and whatever I'm currently messing with. Anything in My Documents is backup up to OwnCloud running on the NAS.

A NAS is cheap, and well worth the investment. I have an HP Proliant N54L microserver (which can be bought at a bargain price these days) with 2 x 1TB drives in RAID1, which runs OpenMediaVault, ownCloud, and a Plex media server.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Nibb31

[Nuke]

Or just

http://i.imgur.com/829J6jA.png

I personally don't use partitions, simply because I've had a terrible experience with working with them (e.g. what if your system partition turns out to be too small?) and due to the fact that some programs dislike symbolic/hard links.

Working with partitions in Linux is okay, but just make sure to do the right thing and use LVM when you're setting them up.

oh thats new* (i only recently moved up to 8.1), but i didnt write a batch file for them to gui the feature. also they probibly put everything there, and not just the stuff i want to keep. so the feature is not only redundant but worthless imho. also using mklink makes me feel like a wizzard.

*actually its not, you could always put the user folder where you wanted. but i still prefer to set things up manually since i can selectively decide what i want to keep and what can get nuked when i need to reinstall. i think it started with me locating the ch control manager profiles folder to my data drive. for some reason the software refused to load maps from there on startup, and linking seemed to be the only way to fix it. then i used it on my firefox profile, saved games, and eventually every one of my usual applications had its data linked over. the commands to do this became a batch file, and since the user folder structure didnt change much since 7, it still worked on 8. i dont like to throw away useful tools.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Nuke