Moving the unallocating space at the end

[Messerschmitt]

Hi there,

My mobo came with the Xpress Recovery 2 (gigabyte) and it states that it requires some unallocated space in order to do the backup. But it seems that my problem is that the unallocated space it's not at the end of the HDD, but between C drive and D drive. Can I move it somehow at the back of the HDD?

[RJARRRPCGP]

It looks like the unallocated space is on drive C. Try to resize the partition on drive C.

Edited August 14, 2007 by RJARRRPCGP

[puntoMX]

- Or backup those 30GB on D and delete that partition to create a new D and keep some space for the recovery software. That’s what I would do.

[Zxian]

You can use a third-party partition manager (such as Partition Magic or Disk Director) to move your D partition.

Personally - I wouldn't trust backup software by Gigabyte. It soulds like one of those marketing gimmicks, but I'd rather use something proper like Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost.

[puntoMX]

It seems that it’s not so bad at all and that it comes close to Acronis TrueImage. I used it for some customers and they are very pleased with it.

[Messerschmitt]

I just tried xpress recovery as I managed to re-set my unallocated space at the end.

The program is conveniable, as you just insert the mobo disk, and just hit restore and all done.

Problem? Well it dosen't compress anything. Basicaly it takes the exact same space (plus a bit more) to do the backup. So if you have a 20GB drive C, and 15GB is occupied, then if you want to backup your drive you must have at least 15-16gb of unallocated space. Over that? tough luck, you cant do anything unless you start deleting from drive C to bring it under the unallocated space. In my oppinion it's just a waste of space.

Prooly i'l prefer to use my old 2003 norton ghost to do the image and save it on a DVD (or 2)

Question: Do you usualy even need more than 15GB on drive C in total? I mean there you only install your operating system, utilities, drivers and thats about it right? Then on your drive D you install your games, save big projects such as movies, etc. Or am I missing something when I see people having their drive C of 100GB

Edited August 16, 2007 by Messerschmitt

[Zxian]

Hang on a sec - games go with programs. If you play a lot of games, give yourself more space than 15GB.

System drive = system, drivers, programs

Secondary drive = data

[nitroshift]

Hang on a sec - games go with programs. If you play a lot of games, give yourself more space than 15GB.

System drive = system, drivers, programs

Secondary drive = data

I always install games onto the secondary partition of my HDD and leave the system partition for Windows, drivers and programs only. Am I missing something here?

[Zxian]

Why do people install games to a secondary partition? If your Windows partition goes down, so does your game, since settings are still stored in the registry.

There's also the problem of disk access. By splitting up your programs to two different sections, you're slowing down overall disk access. Depending on the game/program, it might need to access files from Windows, so the disk head needs to travel back and forth between the partitions from game to windows to game to windows. All the meantime, it's travelling over empty disk space at the end of your Windows drive.

I have partitions on all of my single-drive systems, since I dont' want my data to be fried in case Windows one day decides to keel over and die - but that second partition is for static data, not programs. Documents, music, videos, installers - all that goes on the secondary partition. Anything that you run, or is needed to run a program goes on the system partition.

[Messerschmitt]

Yea but I knew that if the game is infected for example, it will only spread through drive D, keeping C safe. But if I think a little this might not be the case

[Zxian]

How can a game get infected? Most malware doesn't infect games - it infects the OS. Regardless of where you install your programs, malware will find your system.