Let’s review a couple of the reasons for partitioning a drive:

    1-To seperate your important irreplaceable data from your replaceable operating system and programs.
    2-Partitions allow you to keep the temporary , log and other junk files from getting mixed in with the data
    3-Partitions can give you an area to add another operating system, handy when switching from one version to another (this what we did at the end of 2.1)
    4-You can reorganize your drive and free up disk space using partitions
    5-Partition’s can be created for your paging and temp files to increase performance and safety
    6-Images require a seperate volume so making a partition is a good way to allow you to keep an exact copy of your operating system with allowing a quick recovery from software failure (this will be covered in detail in next months lesson on images)
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    NOTE:Partitions will not save your butt if your physical hard drive has a hardware failure.

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The items in bold will be explained below in detail. The others should be self explanatory.

Your system is constantly creating temporary  files most are named with a  .tmp extension or .dmp extension. The best plan of action is to redirect all temporary and junk files to a  ”temp” directory on the “pagefile partition. (this is what I call this partition however, you may choose any name that makes since to you). You do this by selecting “environment variables” from the “system properties” dialog box. Note: there are two areas you do this in the user and the system box. Once you have redirected all the obvious files to the temp area reset the temporary folder location in your Internet web browser to the same place. You will also want to reduce the size of your disk space assigned to temporary files to 10-20mb. I have never needed more then that since I started browsing in 1995. These files are are self purging though it is a good idea to delete them once and a while. All of this is trash collecting and having a area to put all this junk is smart. While doing the cleanup run the ”Disk Cleanup”  program from the accessories system tools menu and select the drive you set as your “temp” file area.

The reason I call this partition the “pagefile” partition is because that is were the pagefile.sys (virtual memory file) is. Being that the pagefile.sys is a type of temp file I make the “temp” folder in the same partition.  Setup the pagefile so you leave between 50-100MB on the boot partition and then make another custom file on the pagefile partition. This one should be equal to your memory plus. You will now have a well balanced system with less chance of tmp and junk files screwing up your boot or data partitions. This will correct problems caused by having everything in one partition and you will have less problems when you cleanup and de-fragment your partitions. I have used this type of setup since the early 90’s with great success. You will also be able to create and restore images much easier.  since you have a partition to make them in. These are area’s we will cover in the next lesson.
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DON’T WASTE TIME LEARN TO BE A PROACTIVEUSER NOT A REACTIVE TAIL CHASER!


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