[SOLVED] How do I properly use my data partition?

Today, I reinstalled my OS from a fresh backup that I had. It only used about 462GB of the drive for my "C" partition. I created another partition (457GB), "F", and labled it as "Data".

My question is, what do I need to do in order to divert my downloads, docs, and possibly in the future, my VM's, into this partition? I'm familiar with having a data, otherwise known as a "home" partition in Linux, everything I do (except installed programs) goes into this partition, even my VM's. This allows me, when I install the latest version of Mint, to only format the main partition, and leave my "home" as is.

Even though I may not be able to accomplish the same exact thing with 7, I would like to keep my data away from my OS, in order to keep it running smoother, and upon installing a backup, I'll only need to install what's necessary, and not the entire drive.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cat

1click Start orb.2 click on your name on top right side.3Make new folders on your Data partition for Contacts,Documents,Downloads,Music,Pictures,Saved Games,Searches and Videos.4. In the folder you opened in #2 right click each of the folders and select Properties>Location>Move and select the folder you made for which ever folder the one is and move it to the new folder with the same name on your Data partition and click on Select.

Well, I have the whole content of my user folder located on my data drive. Really usefull - I can make backups of files by simply dragging them onto the desktop.

Simply right click on the folder that you want on the data drive, and in the properties, change the location. There's a tab for it, if I remember correctly.

Thanks to both of you. I'm going to have to do some praticing here, the advice given should point me in the right direction.

Cat

Forgot to mention mention to double click on Computer right afterMove to select your Data partition.

P.S. Cat Firefox 3.6.14 was released at midnight and TuneUp Utilities 2011 got an update yesterday. I know you use both. If you use Piriform's Speccy it got an update yesterday also.

Cat, how much data is on that partition. That is huge for a C partition, especially if you are going to create and offload your data onto another one. Shrink it man.

yodap, I used the Windows Disk Configuration after the install, and a full defrag, and couldn't get it below that. When I done the original install last October, using my recovery discs, it gave no option as how much drive space to use. So I shrunk it as much as I could, and was left with that much (462GB). After another defrag, I was able to shrink it about another 800MB, that was all.

When I applied that backup to this freshly wiped drive, I defragged, but could still not shrink anymore. Now, I could use one of those partition CD's to shrink it, but when I used it to shrink an XP partition, the performance became slow. Although I defragged it with Diskeeper & Auslogics Disk Defrag, upon startup, the icons load slow.

Right now, my desktop loads up fast as ever, and I didn't have to change firewalls to accomplish it, like I did on my previous 7 install. Plus, Comodo's Firewall, being it's an active one, bugs the crap out of me every time I try to install commonly used programs that I know are 100% safe. I don't mind security, but to have to respond to several prompts to install an trusted app is too much of a PITA to me.

However, I do have it installed on my notebook.

I would like to shrink it further, but don't want to sacrifice performance to do it.

Cat

I don't use TuneUp Utilities 2011 (is it a good app, and free?), I use Speecy on my notebook, and as of yet, FF is not installed on my desktop. I'm dedicated to making IE9 work for me.

But on my XP install on my notebook, both Win 2K & XP Media Center has the updated FF versions. 4.0 Beta 12 is on XP, 2K will only allow for 3.6.14, no beta.

So far, so good on making the data partition work, I'm right now creating a VM (XP Media Center) using Windows Virtual PC. And I've directed downloads to go to the Downloads folder that I manually created there.

And before I done anything, I did a full backup with Todo 2.0 (thanks, yodap). Todo does everything that the free version of Macrium Reflect, and then some. You can even clone with it.

Cat

Cat partition resizing is easier than ever with all the good freeware applications out there.

Right from our very own Freeware Database. Partition Wizard Home Three versions: Installer, bootable CD, or bootable USB.

Also Easeus Partition Master Home. http://www.partition-tool.com/download.htm There are others.

Often (but not always) the programs will automatically revert to a DOS environment when downsizing an OS partition but it's just moving data. The more data the longer it takes, that's why you should do it soon.

Always make a fresh back-up image just in case.