C: drive vs D:drive

In the past I had 2 laptops that did stop working and to put them back at work I had to do a clean install ( or something like that) . My C:drive had to be wipe out. When this did happen for a second times, I did conclude that saving files to My Pictures , My videos or My documents was dangerous because if anything go wrong, the C:drive has to be wipe out. So, I did start saving all my files on the D:drive so I wouldn't lose them. On those 2 laptops, the C:drive was like 25 % of the space available and the D:drive about 75%. Now, I just bought a used HP Pavillion 15 and...my D:drive is only 20 GB and 2 GB of this is for the Recovery file but my C:drive is 908 GB. How come the C:drive is so big and could it be shrink to move most of the space for the D: drive? That laptop use Windows 8.1. Is there a partition tool directly from it? Thanks!

 

Yes there is software out there but really why do it ? If something happens to your HDD in your laptop you are going to most likely lose everything anyways. Why not buy a external HDD. You can get a 1TB or even a 2TB for under $50.00-$65.00 for all your pictures, movies or what ever so if the HDD in the laptop dies your files are safe on the external drive. I keep everything backed up on my external drives (3)

 

There is, but IIRC it's not helpful in your situation. You can shrink C: by using it, but the empty space you'll get will not be next to D: and thus not a good idea.

Try this.
https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html

Also, changing the default folders for My Pictures etc is extremely easy by using the right mouse button, or cut/paste.
Just make sure your protected operating system files are hidden before you do it.

See link.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/to-partition-or-not.790676/#post-10242312

 

Thanks! I did shrink the C:drive using easeUS tool and then I did rename the unallocated partition ( F). I didn't play at all with the D partition. The only thing curious is... I can't change the size of the thumbnail of the " My pictures" folder I did drop in the F: drive. It's stuck to " listing" and if I click where you normally do to change the size, the word "unspecified" shows.
I did manage to change the size of the thumbnail.

 

From what I am reading if you really want to backup your files/data don't store it on the D: drive especially if it is on the same drive. If C: crashing it will take out the D: drive as well unless you laptop has two HDD then the D: will be safe and separate but most only come with one Drive. So your best option is a ext HDD since they come up to 4tb for storage and that would be better to save your data to the ext. drive.

 

You can resize partitions from Windows itself using the Disk Management utility in Control Panel. Also most times if Windows crashes the partitions will be intact. So no just because your OS fails does not mean that the partitions will be gone. I used to do what you do with dual partitions a lot as I used to reinstall Windows or experiment with Linux all the while my second partition would be untouched. Also if you truly need a proper back don’t buy a huge external drive as that means if that fails all your data is gone at once. A cheap dual bay NAS with Raid 1 is a much better investment. You can in turn have that backed up to an external drive as a precaution.

Also delete the recovery partition, you can just do a fresh Windows install since the liscence is built into the bios. Just use the Windows Media Creation tool to create a bootable Windows USB or DVD. The default recovery is usually OEM Windows with vendor bloatware added, that’s why on any new laptop I do a fresh Windows install and remove the recovery partition and keep a copy of Windows on a USB drive.

 

You can partition all you want but that will not work if the Drive crashes everything will be gone. So let this be a warning offload your data/files to ext HDD or USB drive to prevent data loss.

 

If the logical C drive fails nothing happens to data on the other logical drive. You simply reformat C drive and reinstall Windows. I have done that many times. But yeah if the hard disk as a whole fails then you will lose everything so backup is still a good idea. You can still recover data from failing drives with specialized tools which I have done buts it’s a pain.

Another reason I say get a NAS is bitrot, which means bit flip between 1 and 0 with can cause saved photos etc to get corrupted. A decent NAS will have bitrot protection. At least with RAID 1 you can absorb the loss of a drive without losing data. You still want to back that up to an external drive in case the raid controller fails but data would still be intact even then as the drives would still be ok.

 

And I agree with that. I have spent many hours recovering data off of dead drivers before and never again. Spend the $60.00 for a external drive. You will thank us one of these days.

 

Yes, but it doesn't help the OP like I explanied above.

Edit: Maybe it would have, I was actually thinking about the classical expand C: problem; the leftover from the shrunken D: ends up in the wrong place. This would probably not be a problem if you want to shrink C:

 

Those tools are not cheap nor worth the money spent trying for a regular joe/jane time and effort. Do the right first backup the data/files instead.

You don't need a NAS a ext HDD or USB memory card is plenty for more data/files that users make. If you need more the ext HDD/SSD will have plenty of space without having to use a NAS-total waste of money here. You don't need no RAID what kinda delusion are you coming from the ext is storage not for running from and they don't need RAID to backup their data.

 

Delusion? I meant If you are going to store important long term stuff like a large amount of family photos/videos other critical things on your laptop amounting in 100s of gigabytes you “may” want a more robust backup, as it seemed OP wanted a second partition for important persistent data. Are you assuming that NAS owners buy them for no reason, even the $150 ones. It’s not a nessesity per se but if you can afford a cheap but decent NAS it’s not a bad investment. I was just telling him about other options as I have dealt with corrupted backups. And now where did I say you have to run stuff from external storage. No need to get offensive, you didn’t get the context I meant it in.

 

@Aivxtla, Ext HDD in 2.5 factor comes in 4tb now so now sure what a NAS has when it cost far less then a NAS. Options also factor in price. So not sure where your prices are but I've seen now a ext HDD 2.5 4tb around 199 and sometimes on sale for 99 at my local electronics retailer. And is far more portable then the NAS and it is powered by laptop no extra wires or cabling. So options need to take into account should they be on the road. NAS at home and not moving but not for a Laptop on the go or they need storage right away and don't need to setup cabling to get a NAS going.

 

An external drive is convenient for short term storage and intermittent backups which I have as well definitely and one should have one of those, I agree with you on that. In my case I simply re-purpose 1TB HDDs from old laptops or units being upgraded to SSDs, as external drives with $10-15 USB 2.0/3.0 cases.

Main reason I additionally mentioned the NAS was OP seemed to have critical data (my assumption) and when he said photos and videos I assumed like family stuff which you probably want stored in a more robust fashion if doing long term storage as a 4tb drive failing is a huge amount of data to lose all at once if failed. Seen stuff like that quite often plus drive quality has actually declined since the early 2000s when companies like Seagate cut down on back end testing as they realized it was cheaper to replace drives than do more testing. I literally had 3 WD drives fail in a span of a year once (not abused/manhandled) so with my experience and others I have see I am a bit more cautious. As I said if and only if you can afford it it’s a nice way to keep important things in addition to a portable drive, but yes definitely not a necessity.

You can get NASs with dual bays for ~$150 plus two Toshiba 3TB 7200 RPM drives for ~$55-60 like for example Newegg ( https://slickdeals.net/f/11524735-3...5-ac-newegg?src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV2Algo1) so yeah it can be nearly a $270-300 venture at the low end. At the very least try to get a 2nd external drive for redundancy if you don’t want a NAS.