4th Lightbulb,
*Following up from 2nd Lightbulb*
Now I am going to tell you how to use different partitions.
Well this is only my opinion, you donīt have to belive me, but I have been doing like this for almost 3 years now and it works and helps so much everytime I need to do a Format C:
As soon as we start to work with a pc we also get all the bad stuff, you know, viruses, trojans and stuff like that. Sometimes it canīt be fixed without having to do a complete fresh install of Windows again. That is what I call *a Format C:*.
There are 3 kinds of people working the Internet. First we have the person doing a Format all the time, on a regular basis. Second, people like me, trying to avoid it and the third is the person always screeming for help without a clue how to fix it.
I am not saying you need to know everything, but to know the basic is good if you are serious about your Internet Business. Since it seems that when things go wrong there is never anyone around to help. That was what got me going in trying to help myself. After begging my kids for help so many times just to hear how busy they were doing other stuff so they couldnīt show me. Now, I am blessed with a bunch of daughters boyfriends and I suppose they are too polite to say no, so I learned how to do it on my own.
Among the things I found out the hard way, after several pc crashes was to split up my hard drive in different partitions, leaving Windows almost alone at C:, that way I could save the things I had in the other two, since itīs only where Windows is installed that needs to be reinstalled and formatted when the worst happens. That I didnīt know from beginning.
Very useful information and made a big difference for me. I donīt have to back up my big music collection anymore. I have it all on E: together with all my pictures and website backups.
So on my pc there are 3 different partitions C, D, and E. C: is for Windows and programs that works best together with Windows, like MSN, Yahoo messenger, the firewall with virus protection, my FTP client, my different browsers and things like that. On D: I have different folders with all downloaded stuff, all zip files, all .exe files and pdf files. One is named *all installed exe* so everytime I do need to Format C: I can very easy install all my small softwares again, without having to look for them all over the Internet. That helps. On E: I have everything personal and all backups.
If you never tried splitting up your hard drive like this, at least give it a thought the next time you are facing a pc crash. Itīs not that difficult to do. However be careful if you are not familiar with what I am talking about. Ask someone to help you the first time. When you are ready you just start your pc with the Windows CD in and follow instructions given on the blue screen, you will need your licence key to have access and when asked say yes to install Windows, after that it is just to follow all instructions and you will see where to add or remove partitions. You can also decide how big you want them to be. However before you do, remember to do backup cdīs on everything you want to save, to be able to put it back after, since this will erase all you have on your pc. But remember after the fresh install you will be able to always save whatīs in D and E. Never loose all that you really want to save just because you get in trouble with C:, and that is so nice.
On this new machine I have 80GB hard drive so I have splitted it up into C+20GB, D+20GB and E+40G, giving Windows on C: 20 GB to work with and that is more then enough.
Good Luck!
Grandma Maggie
