GOTHCLAWZ Posted May 1, 2009 Share Posted May 1, 2009 (edited) I have a laptop which has 2 hard drives, C:\ drive which is the system & D:\ drive for some reason. If I installed a new version of Windows on it by formatting the C:\ drive, will it affect D:\ drive in any way? The reason I ask is because I want to put XP on my Vista laptop but keep all my personal files. Edited May 1, 2009 by GOTHCLAWZ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted May 1, 2009 Share Posted May 1, 2009 A laptop does not have 2 hard drives, you may have 2 partitions on your drive. Formatting the first partition should not affect the second in any way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTHCLAWZ Posted May 2, 2009 Author Share Posted May 2, 2009 A laptop does not have 2 hard drives, you may have 2 partitions on your drive. Formatting the first partition should not affect the second in any way. What was that 'smart arse'? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 You are as intelligent as you look. Kids these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 (edited) Although it seems rather redundant to point out this flaw in light of some other rather glaring obvious issues - pictures in signatures are not allowed. You are as intelligent as you look. Kids these days. What's a matter smart ass, can't you see the C: and the D: Edited May 2, 2009 by remowilliams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 You are as intelligent as you look. Kids these days. What's a matter smart ass, can't you see the C: and the D: LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTHCLAWZ Posted May 2, 2009 Author Share Posted May 2, 2009 pictures in signatures are not allowed. What's the point of this then? Did they like... copy a forum & then edit it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chickybaby Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 Apparently we have a genius in our midst. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTHCLAWZ Posted May 2, 2009 Author Share Posted May 2, 2009 That's 2 hard drives right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gamerz Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 That's 2 hard drives right? Nope, that is one hard drive, 2 partitions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 What's the point of this then? Did they like... copy a forum & then edit it? Yes, I'm pretty sure Al copied the site from somewhere else and edited it a bit... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTHCLAWZ Posted May 2, 2009 Author Share Posted May 2, 2009 That's 2 hard drives right? Nope, that is one hard drive, 2 partitions. Oh cool, so whipping the Laptop with my CD shouldn't affect anything on the Data drive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artlover Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 That's 2 hard drives right? img]http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/playboy/question.gif[/img] No. It's one drive with two partitions. Typical of laptops. Go to control panel, administrative tools, computer management, disk management and look there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 Windows will usually call the System drive (the one with \WINDOWS on it) C: The remainder of drives/partitions are usually ordered by their positions on IDE or SATA channels. Sometimes SATA drives get precedence, sometimes IDE drives. It's often controllable in the BIOS. IIRC, extra drives as partitions on the boot device can actually come after other drives in some cases. With WinXP, it's not totally critical... you can reorder all the other drives on the system other than the boot drive. I've done that with my system since I like the HDDs, then optical drives in the list. Also I've got a 4-in-1 3.5" card reader which shows up as 4 drives, so I've renamed those to reflect the media type e.g. X: for XD cards, S: for SD cards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 That's 2 hard drives right? Nope, that is one hard drive, 2 partitions. Oh cool, so whipping the Laptop with my CD shouldn't affect anything on the Data drive? Stop breathing that fresh air, it's needed by another human that actually has some worth. I dunno who it is but I bet they need it more than you. Same goes for food. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTHCLAWZ Posted May 2, 2009 Author Share Posted May 2, 2009 Stop breathing that fresh air, it's needed by another human that actually has some worth. I dunno who it is but I bet they need it more than you. Same goes for food. You are so funny! Please don't stop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 Stop breathing that fresh air, it's needed by another human that actually has some worth. I dunno who it is but I bet they need it more than you. Same goes for food. Come on, I whip my laptop with CD's all the time, just leaves some scratch marks every now and then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+poobah Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 HAHA! Well Done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrozoneorg Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 If you don't know what a partition is you should not be thinking about re-installing windows. Come to think of it - if you don't know what a partition is you should not have a computer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chickybaby Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 Oh, I second that. Especially since if his computer is new enough he'll have to redo the drivers as well. If he knew how and had the time he could make Vista work pretty well and configure it to something that better suits him. I just hope he's not stupid enough to touch the "D Drive" in any way because he'll need it once he screws the downgrade up enough. Especially with a laptop, it's easy enough to do. Reminds me of this thread sadly - http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...=138881&hl=. If you don't know what a partition is you should not be thinking about re-installing windows. Come to think of it - if you don't know what a partition is you should not have a computer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numan Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 Wow, alot of snobbery in this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 Wow, alot of snobbery in this thread. Dude, I gave him the right answer, he called me a smart arse. What do you expect? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted May 3, 2009 Share Posted May 3, 2009 Formatting the first partition shouldn't affect the second. In that case, they are indeed handled as separate drives even though they may be one physical drive. I don't know much about laptops, but heck that picture might be from a system with a USB hard disk hooked up for all we know. How big is the drive on the computer supposed to be? Like, how many GB does it say on the side of the retail box? From the look of your partitions, it has roughly 120GB on the single physical drive. The problem is this: IMO, to really clean up the drive, that is, to ensure that the Windows install doesn't simply locate the old files that were deleted and re use them or to ensure something you want gone doesn't stick around, you have to write scan the drive. Sometimes this is called a zero fill or a low level format. This over writes parts of everything on the drive. All data becomes corrupted and unusable by the write scan. Partitions go to data heaven. That's how it works now, back in the day the entire drive used to be over written with zeros and it really could take all night. Of course, you'd have to back up all your data files before trying this. Once the write scan done, the next step is to re partition and reformat the drive, then you install your OS to the primary partition and away you go. I always go with a dual drive setup in a desktop environment. One drive holds the programs and OS, the other holds data. That way when the OS gets jacked, I pull the plug on the data drive and go through the procedure above on the main drive. Too bad there's only one disk in the laptop, though, 'cause my little plan doesn't work too well without that second physical drive. Why not run a USB hard disk as your data drive at home, and install just what you want to have on the go on the main drive that's inside the laptop? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Moss Posted May 4, 2009 Share Posted May 4, 2009 The reason I ask is because I want to put XP on my Vista laptop but keep all my personal files. Why? Is it just because you do not like Vista or is it because you need the HD space? Personally I found Vista to be better that I expected but then I only have the Home Basic edition so I did not get a lot of bloaty crap I did not need like the scrolly windows thing clogging my HD, the only real pain is the UAC and that is does not correctly handle multicore processors roll on Windows 7! If you had more space on your HD, you could have installed XP and dual boot it that way if XP install did not work you could still use you laptop under Vista. If you are intent on doing it I suggest you go find the hardware devices in the control panel, make a note of them and download the drivers before removing Vista as XP may not have all the drivers you require. If the XP install goes wrong I have heard that you can only install Vista 3 times before you have to go cap in hand to Microsoft, the fact that you do not appear to know that you had one HD that had been partitioned is worrying as you really need to know a reasonable amount about this stuff if you are going to attemp it therefore if you have a friend who knows what they are doing ask them to do it for you, espically if as with my laptop Vista installed from a HD partition so you do not have a install/recovery CD/DVD because you do not want to remove those file by mistake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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