If i add a hard-drive?

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NathanP2007

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So i built a new computer in the last month, and it has a 80gig hard drive, and i partitioned it so 20 gigs if for Win7, and the other 50 is extra for games etc. I really want more space, so i saw a 1terabyte drive for 80 bucks on TigerD.
Is it possible to buy that drive, put it in. ReFormat the second partition so its empty. UN partition the drive so the full 80 gigs if C: drive.
And have the 1terabyte be the drive i install games etc on?

If not, what is my alternative? Im assuming if i straight up reformat both partitions and delete the second, it will delete windows off it right?
 
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I don't think you will be able to unpartition the drive to make it a full 80 gigs again. I am almost positive you will need to delete the partitions and reformat the drive. I could be wrong but I am pretty sure this is how it will need to be done.
 
Unparition the drive... lol

Well OP you got the right idea.

Just install the new drive and format it to one big chuck partition.

Any data you want to save on the 1st hdd (2nd partition) just drag and drop it onto the new drive.

Then delete the 1st hdd (2nd partition) and expand the 1st partition.
 
K thanks, thats basically what i ment by un-partition...aka delete a partition.
 
really? iv heard its best to make a partition for the windows file, why never make a partition?
 
i wouldnt partition either. i would put os on one drive and files folders game on another drive......and be done with it. even move swap file to the second drive for awesomeness
 
I will do that (C: drive 80gigs for Win7, and new hard-drive for everything else) BUT, im curious..if i just drag and drop all the files from partition #2 (where all the games are) , wont that affect where the games try to load from? or will it all adjust on its own?

What i mean is i install custom onto E drive...if i put in the new hard-drive and its F drive, wont moving it from E to F affect where the game thinks its source is?
 
NathanP2007 said:
I will do that (C: drive 80gigs for Win7, and new hard-drive for everything else) BUT, im curious..if i just drag and drop all the files from partition #2 (where all the games are) , wont that affect where the games try to load from? or will it all adjust on its own?
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Good chance that a lot of things will be fucked up. Wherever you had your programs rename the new drive so it is the same letter and paste your stuff there. Then it will all work as it used to.

Also, I suggest to not partition exactly because of the situation you are in. It's a pain in the ass if you ever decide one partition is too small and partitioning doesn't really do anything most of the time. Just use folders for organization.
 
Jospeh said:
Never make partitions if you can avoid it...
Click to expand...

/facepalm

nothing wrong with putting the OS on one partition and the games/data on another.

OP it's possible to copy the second partition to the 1TB drive and then grow it out to 1TB.
then grow the first partition out to 80GB.
however the 1TB drive is going to flat smoke the pants off your 80GB drive, period.
 
LightningCrash said:
/facepalm

however the 1TB drive is going to flat smoke the pants off your 80GB drive, period.
Click to expand...

listen to this, your much further ahead just to ditch the 80 gb all together, and with 1 TB i myself would just install windows to it, have one partition and enjoy, it'd be faster and less complicated.
 
Partitions are good actually. If anything happens to your windows partition, you still have your data safe on a separate partition. You can reformat without losing data--this has saved me countless times when windows became corrupted and irrecoverable.
 
MrMitch said:
listen to this, your much further ahead just to ditch the 80 gb all together, and with 1 TB i myself would just install windows to it, have one partition and enjoy, it'd be faster and less complicated.
Click to expand...

When there is fragmentation on the disk drive, the whole drive is affected if its a single partition--it isn't faster. Performance is reduced because files and data will be scattered across the whole drive and makes seeking/reading longer in a single partition, so fragmentation degrades the performance of the entire disk drive. Partitioning can isolate fragmentation to a part of a disk drive instead of the whole drive so the overall downgrade of performance is isolated. From an organizational point-of-view, partitioning makes organization easier as well. What I do is place all my programs on my C: partition, and all my videos, music, pictures on my D: partition. This makes things much simpler imo.
 
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wow.. wtf are you people talking about..

1. yes you can resize a partition if you have multiple partitions on a drive.. just delete the partitions you dont want.. if its a system partition you want to resize.. run paragons partition manager on a thumb drive or cd on boot.. resize the partition to what you want it to be..

2. how the hell would you even use a drive if there was no partition.. come on people do you guys even know what a partition is? and like lostnkonfused said or didnt say.. running multiple partitions will not slow a drive down.. and will also limit the fragmention so its not across the entire platter(s)..

3. yes you will have no problem throwing a 1TB drive into your system and using it as your storage/gaming storage drive.. just use an ntfs partition and you should be golden..

4. even though the 80 gig drive is small.. depending on what 1TB drive you have.. the 80gig will usually have a faster seek time then the 1TB drive will trying to run a system partition plus storage partition on it.. and will also effect your gaming depending on the game and file structure of the game..

5. as for the games not knowing where the source folder is.. this is only effected by the shortcut file which you can just change the target location to the new location of the game and the registry file which you can change by using regedit.. or just spend the 20-30 minutes installing all the games again.. some games do not have a problem with being moved.. and some do..
 
LightningCrash said:
Don't be afraid to back that statement up with anything.
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it depends on the drive and how many platters its using.. but performance wise you shouldnt run your OS on the same drive you are using as storage/gaming.. it effects the load times and access times because the drives constantly having to shuffle back and forth between system files and game files.. sure ya can if you want.. but like he said.. its pointless especially with the prices on hard drives now.. just replace the 80 gig drive with a 160 or 320 or even a WD 640.. gain twice the performance plus extra storage for a system drive..
 
Sounds to me the best way to go about this then is (correct me if you disagree)
Uninstall everything off the second partition, and remove that partition so the 80 gig drive Western Digital Caviar Blue WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive has only the OS on it. Then just add the 1Tb Hitachi 7K1000.B Hard Drive - 1TB, 7200RPM, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM and use that for everything else (games, pictures, vids etc)
 
NathanP2007 said:
Sounds to me the best way to go about this then is (correct me if you disagree)
Uninstall everything off the second partition, and remove that partition so the 80 gig drive Western Digital Caviar Blue WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive has only the OS on it. Then just add the 1Tb Hitachi 7K1000.B Hard Drive - 1TB, 7200RPM, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM and use that for everything else (games, pictures, vids etc)
Click to expand...

He should ditch his 80GB and just use the 1TB and partition it.
 
dont really feel like ditching something i just paid 40 bucks for. Also whats the big difference between using just the 1tb and me using the 80 for windows and 1tb for everything else....also i dont feel like reinstalling windows..and not sure if i reinstall windows if i can use the same product key.
 
Ok, I'm guessing this is what My Computer looks like when ya open it up:

C: 20Gb partition for Win7

D: Optical Drive

E: 50Gb partiton for data and games

F: 1Tb drive, one large NTFS partition

What I would do is copy the contents of E: to F:

Delete E:

Download the gparted livecd and use it to expand C: out to a full 80Gb

Boot back into Win7 and change the F: drive to E: and your apps *should* run fine.

I say should as I have done this with XP installs and had had no issues. I have not tried it with Win7 so procede at your own risk.

Personally, I like using partitions to seperate the OS and data. I also like using a small partition to dump an acronis image to, Macrium Reflect is another alternative for imaging within windows.
 
the gparted livecd things says for "for x86 machine" ....my windows7 is 64bit, does that affect anything?
 
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