Community poll forum: How many partitions do you have on your primary hard drive?

1) control system
2) downloads and documents backup
3) system clone (mirror) backup

my operating system :windows xp
i have a virus on my computer and i want 2 activate the antivirus2005 on my computer but i can't.as i don't know the product key.whaT is the position of this product key?(where i put it?).i want awritten message with no links 2 sites or somethng like that.

In my system I have several hards drives, but the first one has 3 partitions.
The why is easy.
On the first partition I have installed XP Pro only and on the 2nd partition I have all the other ''programs'', than on the 3rd an 1 to 1 image of XP that will be completely replaced after 2 weeks working with the latest updates of XP.
On other HD's I have ''data'', ''pictures'', ''Video'' and one only for downloads.
This way it is easy to ''format'' if some unwanted naughty manages to slip past my Firewall and other anti malware protections.Cheers,J.P.

One of my two home machines is a test box.

Partition 1 - DOS 16 for dual boot 47MB
Partition 2 - NTFS c: Windows system 39,951 MB
Partition 3 - Linux Ext3 system 20,011 MB
Partition 4 - Linux Ext3 swap 2,055 MB
Partition 5 - NTFS f: data drive 40,006 MB
Partition 6 - NTFS G: graphics 86,702 MB
Partition 7 - NTFS H: scratch for Photoshop 2,008 MB

Partitions 1,3 and 4 are because of the dual boot nature of the box.

Partition 7 is to isolate a swap for Photoshop.

My main partitions 2, 5 and 6 are for ease of backups.

Yes, I swear by Partition Magic.

You didn't leave your email when you replied to my post so I'll just reply to yours. My friend had a corporate version of Windows XP (valid for up for 50 licenses or something) so I didn't encounter the problem until recently. Sadly though, I don't believe there is a good answer to that. I've contacted Microsoft customer support, receiving the answer "every time you reinstall your windows, it uses up a license". Obviously, this is not much help. So, I've found that I have had to forgo my legal ways and turn to the underground for support. There are many websites where you can aquire serial keys (e.g., www.serials.ws), which are of course illegal. But I don't exactly have a guilty conciense about it either. If Microsoft doesn't have enough common sense to include us regular formatters into their plan, then let them lose millions.

Follow the instructions when Windows tells you that your key can't be used anymore (blah blah). Call Microsoft tech support. After playing with their stupid automated system for about 2 minutes you can get in touch with someone human. They'll ask a few simple questions just to be comfortable that you're a legit user and then they'll give you a new key.

It is all a matter if organization, the operating system normally installs to the primary hard drive parttition. Since it continues to grow in size, due to the addition of more and more applications (programs) it needs space in which to grow. I allocate approximately 40-60GB of space for this and to date have never really needed more than 30GB of this allocated space to meet the needs of my system. Unlike most people I do not store music, photos and other 'personal' files on my primary drive. Instead I allocate space for such storage on the other partitions. Why? If the system crashes and needs to be restored non of my personal data would be lost, should it become necessary to reformat the primary partition and start over.
I use Partition Magic to do this since it allows partitions to be reformatted or resized at will while the data is kept safe and sound during the process. MS DOS never had this capability, 'fdisk' could create partitions o.k., however once created you were stuck with your original sizes until you reformatted the entire drive. In the new scheme of things, partitions can be resized, moved around and reformatted individually at will, with little or no disturbance to the rest of the drive. So preferentially I limit my partition sizes to around 40-80GB. This makes the defragmentation of the individual partitions much faster, since data in storage does not really get very fragmented just sitting there. On the other hand the operating system is constantly changing, and requires more frequent defragging, and purging of temp files, and obselete or redundant registry entries no longer in use. Many excellent maintenance programs are available for these daily-weekly chores to keep the core of the computer system cleaned out and humming. I confine all these activities to my primary boot drive.
I always think of extra partitions as pigeon holes in a rolltop desk. They are there to allow me to keep my machine organized, each one carries a label spelling out its particular function in the overall scheme of things. I have been partitioning drives for at least the last 15 years, and found it to be the best way of organizing my own computer to take care of my filing system. The number of partitions is really a matter of personal choice, but with hard drives getting bigger and bigger, partitioning is almost mandatory. As an example I would partition a 320GB drive into at least 4 X 80GB sections. One primary partition for the operating system, and 3 logical partitions for other uses, even different operating systems.

I have three partitions on my hard drive because I run several os's on my system. Most times because someone else needs help with something and i can drop down to that os and help them to fix theirs without usually having to reformat and install the os again.
dennisree

1 for the os and cache, 1 for programs, 1 for data, 1 for backups.

Also acess times are shorter and back ups are easier.

If my XP needs a redo, I'll only reformat that partiton.

2 HDD

On the first drive, it is split into 3
(1) Operating System - XP
(2) Program Files & Downloads
(3) Data

It seems like about once a year I need to reformat and reinstall my OS. So, I can do so without having to lose my data. Sure, I have to reload all the software, but at least I know where it is.

On the second drive...
Right now it is just 1 partition, but I have in the past split it into 2 so I could run Linux, if I wanted.

I used to do the OS partion/Data partition thing but at the end of the day, if you keep all your data under "My Documents" split up into the relevant folders (Docs, Pics, Movies etc) then it is easy to do backups anyway.

The way that XP updates come in, how do you know how large you have to make the OS partition anyway ?

There seems little point in multi-partitioning.

I have two vaio's, one laptop the other a desktop. Both are partitioned (quite unevenly I might add). The drives can be repartitioned to any configuration with the vaio recovery program which is included. You will, of course lose the information on the drive but it does take care of this. I really think Sony could do without this partitioning on small drives (my laptop was only 60GB} and I can understand why it would be used for large drives, but to make the primary partition the small one is annoying.

I heard a long time ago (and found out personally that it was true) that partitioning your drive would speed up the system. I have mine split into categories that I use often, (i.e. main, graphics, gaming). This keeps me organized as well since all my graphics programs and related data such as pictures are in one place. The idea behind partitioning is to minimize the area that your system searches for data. If you have a 100gb hd and you are loading a program, the system has the whole 100gb to search for the executable as well as the accompanying files. If you have that program on a 30gb partition, the search is faster because of the smaller area to cover. I've also found it helpful because I have my main partition to house my OS and system files. Since I have a tendency to download and try new games/graphics programs and they are installed on separate "drives", I don't have to defrag my main drive as often.

I use one partition (C:\) for programs only. The other (D:\) is used strictly for data with directories (folders) for each application, i.e D:\Wordfiles and D:\Excelfiles.
This make finding data and backups a snap.

Windows won't just let you cut-and-paste it to your second partition, but it can be done:

1.) Click here to download Microsoft TweakUI.
2.) Install/run it, then expand My Computer and select Special Folders.
3.) Select My Documents from the drop-down menu, and click Change Location.
4.) Select a new location for My Documents.
5.) Cut-and-paste the files from the old My Documents to the new My Documents.
6.) Delete the old My Documents to avoid confusion.

* Note that TweakUI simply changes the default location that Windows recognizes as the My Documents folder. It does not move the files currently in it, which is why you have to cut-and-paste them to the new location.

Hope this helps,
John