Partitioning Lenovo x61 160G

I just received a new Lenovo x61 notebook, which has a 160G HDD.
The old one I owned had 100G and was partitioned into 70G on C and 30G on D. However, it often showed 'warning' on Reliability after defragmentation. It indicates that 'The free space on this volume is very low, making it difficult to defragment the volume' . Basically there didn't seem to be enough space in the C drive.

I would like to partition my new notebook and was wondering:
1. How do I do it?
2. What would be the ideal volume in C drive (I use Vista Home OS)?

Thanks in advance for any input!

 

thats up to you how much space you need. totally dependent on what you store on the other partition. are you going to reinstall vista? are you going to just copy the old image over? need to know that info before you start.

 

I intend to use the D drive purely for storage of word/excel/adobe documents.

 

The Vista home is already installed in the x61 I received.
I guess I would like to have a C for all programs and a D for my work and documents storage.
I assume when I copy things from the old computer, I can select only to copy D to D but
leave the C as is in the new x61?

 

in that case i would use gparted and create a new partition of about 50GB. this way you can store all the office documents you can handle and some picture, movies and other media files too. this will leave about 100GB for your primary partition. just download the gparted iso and burn it to disk. boot to that disk and create a partition at the end of your primary. the easiest way then to copy the files is using a usb drive.

 

Quite the opposite of techboydino, I'd partition the following way:
- c: = 65GB
- d: = 95GB

65GB is plenty for Vista and a load of installed programs! You'll appreciate more space that can be left "untouched" if you ever need to re-install your OS.... The 95GB d:\ partition would suit you very well to store pics, music, documents, program profiles and preferences...

If you ever need to re-install Vista (or downgrade to XP), then you won't have to worry about transferring all sorts of data. BTW, in Vista, it's relatively easy to change the location of the "Pictures", "Documents", "Music" folders to point to d:\ as opposed to keeping it all on the main partition.

Interesting that you mention the specs on your computer. I have an X61 with Vista Business 32 installed on a 160GB drive as well. My system is partitioned 65GB for C:\ and 95GB for D:\ ... Right now I still have 35GB left on my C:\ - that's after installing Vista SP1, a ton of programs (Office 2007-full and Sun's OpenOffice, Streets and Trips - full install, Kaspersky Internet Suite, firefox, thunderbird, utilities for my Canon digital SLR, winamp and lots more) and a couple of games (Civilization III, Rome: Europa Universalis and FreeCiv).

Regardless, it's a good thing that you're considering partitioning your HDD. Best thing that can be done - shows good planning and thinking ahead.

Cheers!

Hope that helps


EDIT:
BTW, here's a nice article on how to partition your current installation from within Vista itself - very simple way to do it - just don't touch the "hidden restore" partition (controlled by your blue ThinkVantage button):
http://vistarewired.com/2007/02/16/how-to-resize-a-partition-in-windows-vista

 

Thank you all so much!

The link
http://vistarewired.com/2007/02/16/h...-windows-vista
is great.
I successfully partitioned my new x61 to C: 100G and D: 40G - it only allowed me to have a D for 40G.

However, I failed to expand the C for my older computer which now has a C of 70G. It did allow me to shrink or expand my D, but did not allow me to expand my C even I shrieked the D first. It just created a new volume.

As I said previously, it often showed 'warning' on Reliability after defragmentation. It indicates that 'the free space on this volume is very low, making it difficult to defragment the volume’. So I feel the need to expand my C drive to ensure its reliability.

Is there anything I can do to merge the newly created volume by shrinkage of D to C drive?

 

I see your point but if you read his first post he is out of room after 70GB on his primary partition. I assume that he does not use the second partition all that often except for critical files such as his documents and spreadsheets. Most people dont want to change the default installation folder when installing something new. I setup my customers the same way, especially when most forget that they even have a second partition. Good info either way.