+Tyranade Subscriber² Posted April 12, 2015 Subscriber² Share Posted April 12, 2015 So I am dual booting Windows 8.1 Pro and 10 and I was wondering if I was to go into disk management and remove the drive letters for my Windows 8 drive in Windows 10 will it break anything IE will I still be able to boot into windows 8? I wanna do it because TBH I do not need a thousand damn partitions for different things I have setup in Windows 8.1 to be visible in Windows 10 as I never go into them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+devHead Subscriber² Posted April 12, 2015 Subscriber² Share Posted April 12, 2015 It should make no impact on your Windows 8 installation. When you return to Windows 8, the drive letters will be back (i think). But which drive Windows boots to isn't determined by looking for a drive letter, it's done according to the partition and drive number assigned by your BIOS. I'm curious, though; why do you have "a thousand damn partitions"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Tyranade Subscriber² Posted April 12, 2015 Author Subscriber² Share Posted April 12, 2015 It should make no impact on your Windows 8 installation. When you return to Windows 8, the drive letters will be back (i think). But which drive Windows boots to isn't determined by looking for a drive letter, it's done according to the partition and drive number assigned by your BIOS. I'm curious, though; why do you have "a thousand damn partitions"? I like to seperate things by drive letters. I normally have 3 drives but with Windows 10 on the system 5 where showing up because I split my SSD in 2 and took 100GB of my 1TB drive for program installation and yeah partitioning has always been how I have organised stuff such as C: being Windows D: Programs E: Documents. I did it by the way and it re-booted fine and I could select Windows 8 on the Dual Boot menu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 People still partition their drives? For quite a while it's been one partition per drive for me, seems pointless to go through all those hoops these days +ekoht 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted April 12, 2015 MVC Share Posted April 12, 2015 People still partition their drives? For quite a while it's been one partition per drive for me, seems pointless to go through all those hoops these days I've never been one for partitioning. Then there are Acer systems. Not sure if this is an Acer thing or if it's from guy down town that only sells Acer's. I only see this on Acers that people bring me. There is always a C drive which is like 60 GB then there is a data partition which NOBODY EVER USES that has the rest of the 500 GB hard drive. So they always come complaining they are out of space. I usually just back up their stuff, delete the data partition and resize drive C to the whole drive. I'm thinking dude, the average user isn't that smart. Now if he were to move the profile storage location to the data partition, which if transparent to the user that would be different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Veteran Posted April 12, 2015 Veteran Share Posted April 12, 2015 People still partition their drives? For quite a while it's been one partition per drive for me, seems pointless to go through all those hoops these days I do temporarily when I'm too lazy to back it up for a reinstall. I just make sure I change the volume label to "NODELETE" or I will certainly do so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 I've never been one for partitioning. Then there are Acer systems. Not sure if this is an Acer thing or if it's from guy down town that only sells Acer's. I only see this on Acers that people bring me. There is always a C drive which is like 60 GB then there is a data partition which NOBODY EVER USES that has the rest of the 500 GB hard drive. So they always come complaining they are out of space. I usually just back up their stuff, delete the data partition and resize drive C to the whole drive. I'm thinking dude, the average user isn't that smart. Now if he were to move the profile storage location to the data partition, which if transparent to the user that would be different. Must be some older Acers, have a laptop and a desktop that are about a year or two old and both came with normal partitioning Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whs37 Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 A single C partition for the OS and the Data is NOT a good idea. The user data should be separated from the OS so that any OS failure does not take the data down with it. The OS is usually easy to replace, the user data is not because on top of this dangerous setup the common user does not make frequent backups. Then they come crying that they lost all the pictures and videos of their grandchildren. And when I ask where their images are, there are of course none. In many cases I can retrieve the data with a live Linux USB stick like this, but sometimes the stuff is just lost. That's why I always advocate: Imaging, Imaging, Imaging +devHead and goretsky 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted April 13, 2015 MVC Share Posted April 13, 2015 "so that any OS failure does not take the data down with it" What does a OS failure have to do with loss of the data file, let me think - oh yeah nothing.. The OS not booting has nothing to do with some picture file in a data/documents directory on their drive partition. Now having it another disk/partittion helps for doing clean installs of the OS.. Which really should be done RARE anyway.. Virus infection or something.. This is quite common with SSD and larger storage drives these days. Their pictures/videos (data) should be backed up anyway - this is what should be hounded and harped and the dead horse beaten and beaten until your arms give out from exhaustion. Why users do not back up their pictures/videos is beyond comprehension to me.. Not saying you have to be king of geek town to understand that single copy of video file of your kids first steps is not a good idea. What if you loose that laptop.. What if your house burns down, what if you get robbed and your PC stolen? And come on -- how long have you been using computers.. You have never had one die on you, and you still don't grasp that you need to have backups of your ######?? Did your car never break down, did your TV ever stop working, your phone, etc.. Its not like the average joe is not exposed to failure of hardware everywhere they look. Can they not put 2 and 2 together than that thing in the computer that stores their files could stop working as well? Whats the saying "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whs37 Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 A lot of things should be done 'anyway' - but they are not being done. I observed that in the local computer club (850 members) that 80 of 100 people have no clue what a backup is. At least once per week I am being asked to recover data from failing systems. And often it is not possible to fix the installation. Therefore: Separate the data from the OS. It is safer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 A lot of things should be done 'anyway' - but they are not being done. I observed that in the local computer club (850 members) that 80 of 100 people have no clue what a backup is. At least once per week I am being asked to recover data from failing systems. And often it is not possible to fix the installation. Therefore: Separate the data from the OS. It is safer. Often? These people shouldn't be around computers! It's not difficult to use a boot CD and copy any data off the drive before re-installing. Partitioning does nothing to protect the data on the drive, a drive failure will still take out both partitions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torolol Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 using single partition are maintainable, especially with apps/program that insist to install into user's profile (sub-)directory, which usually located in OS partitions ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
x-scratch Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 when i get computers to fix . i do the following 1 back up all data like pics , docs , contacts , music onto external drive (1.5tb seagate $40 at costco) 2 do a factory reset 3 unplug default drive 4 install ssd & new back up drive 5 install windows , drivers , updates , etc. 6 copy back all data to back up drive 7 give computer & default drive back 8 wait a few days for a phone call from same person 9 do 1 to 8 again i do this at night when nobody bothers me and the last time i ever partitioned any drive was xp days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+devHead Subscriber² Posted April 13, 2015 Subscriber² Share Posted April 13, 2015 People still partition their drives? For quite a while it's been one partition per drive for me, seems pointless to go through all those hoops these days I partition my 3 TB and 1 TB drives, since it helps me keep things organized. I have a partition just for my lossless music, then another partition for all my Data (Documents, Pictures, Downloads, etc.). I also have a partition for Videos. Why would I want one ginormous 3 TB partition with a bunch of subfolders off of it? It's easier to navigate partitions that have specific purposes. My C drive is a single partition SSD, and my data has always been on a separate partition because when I install a new OS, I format and install clean. That's the other reason I wouldn't want all my data on a single partition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
episode Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 I partition my 3 TB and 1 TB drives, since it helps me keep things organized. I have a partition just for my lossless music, then another partition for all my Data (Documents, Pictures, Downloads, etc.). I also have a partition for Videos. Why would I want one ginormous 3 TB partition with a bunch of subfolders off of it? It's easier to navigate partitions that have specific purposes. My C drive is a single partition SSD, and my data has always been on a separate partition because when I install a new OS, I format and install clean. That's the other reason I wouldn't want all my data on a single partition. Besides the formatting thing, its actually the exact same. You're just looking at folders at disk level or one step under. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+devHead Subscriber² Posted April 13, 2015 Subscriber² Share Posted April 13, 2015 Besides the formatting thing, its actually the exact same. You're just looking at folders at disk level or one step under. I understand what you're saying, but I just like separate partitions. Maybe I'm peculiar, but with such large drives, it just feels like a better way to keep my data organized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
episode Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 I understand what you're saying, but I just like separate partitions. Maybe I'm peculiar, but with such large drives, it just feels like a better way to keep my data organized. You can do what you want, but to act like its somehow 'better' is wrong - its the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted April 13, 2015 MVC Share Posted April 13, 2015 I never understood how people think creating partitions helps them keep anything organized.. To create the partitions you have to pick a size for what your going to put in there.. Lets call it your music folder, and you use 1TB of the disk for this.. What happens when you go over that 1TB, but your other partitions have 1.5TB left because you thought you would have more movies then you thought, or whatever it was you were going to put in the other partitions, etc. Partitions were great and can still useful when you want to make sure that filling up 1 partition doesn't cause your OS partition or your logging partition from running out of space when you have multiuser system. But to be honest user splitting up a hard drive are only putting restrictions on themselves if you ask me. Your making yourself see the future on % of what files will use up what % of the disk. If you correctly BACK UP your ###### anyway, you have no need to create more than 1 partition if you ask me. Since if something happens to that disk, just the whole disk and start over. Then restore your files from your backup.. You would think with SSD being the big thing - most users would have their OS and programs on the fast SSD that is small, and their data on a bigger slower disk anyway which gives you your separation for reinstall by default anyway. I have not partitioned my disks in YEARS!!! Not even in linux because my installs where never meant for multiusers, etc. Its your disks you can do what you want, but I just don't really see need to create multiple partitions on a disk - unless you were going to run different file systems on the different partitions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+devHead Subscriber² Posted April 13, 2015 Subscriber² Share Posted April 13, 2015 You can do what you want, but to act like its somehow 'better' is wrong - its the same thing. Well, I guess I feel it's better for me, since I've been organizing my files this way for so many years. Having said that, I will admit that I've probably over partitioned in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
episode Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 Well, I guess I feel it's better for me, since I've been organizing my files this way for so many years. Having said that, I will admit that I've probably over partitioned in the past. What you're used to != better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+devHead Subscriber² Posted April 13, 2015 Subscriber² Share Posted April 13, 2015 What you're used to != better. Yes, but what you're used to != worse. And the way someone does it differently != better. Right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
episode Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 Yes, but what you're used to != worse. And the way someone does it differently != better. Right? Right - as I said - its the same thing, functionally. And as Budman pointed out, it can actually be worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whs37 Posted April 14, 2015 Share Posted April 14, 2015 I gather that everybody has their own scheme. Nothing wrong with that if it works for you. But I always separate my data from my system and put it on a different disk. Then I can keep my OS SSDs small. And of course always backup and image at least once per week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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