I started on this partioning kick a couple of weeks ago after reading some stuff about it. I thought I could just use the Vista system to do it. After trying that route I learned that the OS puts some data way down in the drive with a bunch of space between. Vista would therefore only allow me to create an approx. 2'2 g partition to use for storage.
Yes, that's fairly normal. When the OS is installed, the files tend to be scattered about the place on the system partition. Adding your own data to the mix adds in an extra scatter factor.
At OS installation time, it is possible to get around this issue by partitionaing the drive just prior to the start of the installation process proper. Having done this a few times over the years, that's when I normally set my partition sizes. In one case I set up three partitions, the first two about 6' GB in size while the third took up the remainder of the area on the hard disk. The reason for the three partitions was that I was setting the machine up for a dual-boot scenario, and the two operating systems were to be installed on the two smallest partitions.
The solution it seems was to buy software to be able to move this bit of data and partition like I wanted. I have ordered "Disc Director" to do this.
That will probably do the job for you just fine.
Going from memory here so numbers are approx--Using Vista info it says I have 698g with 687g in the C drive and 12g in a D drive that is an initial copy of the default OS as it was shipped. I'm supposed to have a 75'g drive but I have no idea where the extra 5'+g are,
As someone else pointed out, the difference is to do with drive manufacturers using 1''' as a unit of measure (with 1 GB = 1'''^3 bytes), while the OS uses 1'24 instead (with 1 GB = 1'24^3 bytes = 1,'73,741,824 bytes). That means that 75',''',''',''' bytes is reported as 698 GB (75'/(1.'24^3)) by the OS.
12g in a D drive that is an initial copy of the default OS as it was shipped
Did you make that initial copy yourself? Or is it something that you came already configured on your PC with a restore program?
If you made the intial copy yourself, then did you make an image of the OS partition? I think that that's what you'll need to do a successful system restore if you ever need to. Things like boot sectors need to be placed in the right spots for the OS to load, and a simple file copy won't usually get all that information.
Vista also tells me that I have about 127g already used. This is stuff I've installed and images that I haven't "processed" yet. I want to have space on my "working" partition cause I'm bad about not processing images in a timely manor. That's why I said 25'g.
What I'd try and do is create a smaller OS partition, around 75 GB in size. That should be plenty for most uses that I've seen, with some space in reserve.
Using 1'24 as the unit of measure, to achieve a setup where you've got 75 GB for the OS, 12 GB for the original system snapshot, and therefore 611 GB for your data, you'll need a
two-phase approach. In the first phase, you can re-partition the system drive into two chunks, one being 25' GB for the OS and your original data and the other being 436 GB in size. Once that's completed you can start the second phase. This involves moving your My Documents folder to the 436 GB partition, therefore freeing up a considerable amount of space on the system partition. You can then repartition the system partition to make it 75 GB in size, allowing the data partition to grow accordingly. That should produce a 75 GB system partition, a 12 GB "backup" partition, and a 611 GB data partition.
Hopefully the above isn't too confusing.
If you have an original Vista installation DVD and a driver CD for your PC, it might be easier to copy all your data files (images and other odds and ends) to a removeable USB hard drive. Once you have assured yourself that your data is safe, you can reinstall Vista from scratch. That would enable you to delete all the partitions on the disk, and create a new set. This would wipe out all of your data, and you need to make sure you have all of the required installation files needed to rebuild your system. Once that's done, you can transfer your My Documents folder to the D: drive, and then copy your data back from the removeable USB disk drive.
I don't know what IO is that you refer to.
IO referred to input/output, which is the process of writing data to the disk and reading data from the disk.
My whole partition idea may not be the "best" way to do it and that's ok.
There's many different approaches that one can take. Yours is just as valid as any other. There is a slight downside that you still may not separate your data from the operating system disk as cleanly as possible.
I just don't want to hurt myself in any way.
That's why having a data backup to a removeable USB hard disk is a good idea (or some other method of backing up your data). I recently had my hard disk go bad on me, corrupting a few files, but these were backed up elsewhere. I was able to get everything back and working on the new disk that was purchased and installed, without any data loss.
