Should i partition a 3tb drive

Active Oldest Votes. You can also see that the Gpt column for the corresponding disk isn't highlighted after the convert command The reason is that diskpart in Windows has very limited functionality and can't convert some disk types to others on-the-fly.

If the disk contains any partitions or volumes, right-click any volumes on the disk and then click Delete Partition or Delete Volume. Open an elevated command prompt right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator and type diskpart.

If the disk does not contain any partitions or volumes, skip to step 6. Make note of the disk number you want to convert. I'm not affiliated with any of them Windows 10 version and up also have a built-in ability to do a lossless conversion called MBR2GPT. Improve this answer. Add a comment.

Windows cannot convert disk format without deleting all partition, so it returns an error in cmd The problem is due to the disk format. Solution: delete that 2TB partition right click on "disk 1" select "convert to GPT" you should be able to create two 1. Hugo Tai Hugo Tai 1 2 2 bronze badges. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Email Required, but never shown. The Overflow Blog. Does ES6 make JavaScript frameworks obsolete?

Podcast Do polyglots have an edge when it comes to mastering programming It is a newer partition style, breaks out the MBR disk size limit and can support up to 9. Check the following table to get more information between those 2 disk styles. Therefore, you have to delete all partitions along with data beforehand.

It can convert disk to MBR or GPT without deleting any existing partitions on the disk, so the data wil be safe during the conversion. Next we will show how to convert a 3TB data disk as an example. Step 1. Launch it. It will display you the basic environment of your disk s. Step 2. Click OK.

If not, your system will be unable to boot next time. The second visible partition was for data. The C, E, and hidden drives drove me nuts and the second drives were always confused.

I gave up, killed the partition nonsense, reformatted and installed new. Partitions are outdated, unnecessary, and usually cause later problems. I use my C Drive to run the computer and try to keep it small. I for Opus programs. At the end I have five drives that are external drives.

With this setup, if you have an unrecoverable crash you can just reformat and reinstal Windows and lose none of your data. If you just have the C drive and are not particularly computer savvy you are likely to lose all your data. I have always used just the one partition but recently decided to go for two partitions; one for OS and installed programs C — second for data only G. I store full system images on external HDD, and that system gives me much smaller images to work with.

Means quicker creation and restoration times plus uses less space on external hard drive. Doing it this way the folders can grow to any size instead of dealing with the problem of one of the partitions outgrowing its size. In 30 years I have never lost my D, E or F drives partitioned 2 drives but many, many times have had to re-install my c drive backup. In most cases file corruption or virus attacks will happen to the main drive not to general program areas.

I have only ever backed up my c drive and always to a usb drive with perfect results. With the speed of modern drives it is not necessary to partition a drive. If you have never had a hard drive fail, then you are about due. They all have mechanical moving parts and will eventually fail. I would never trust my important data to just one location. I work for a HD manufacture and have talked with hundreds if not thousands of people who have lost their data because it is not backed up.

Backup is a fraction of the cost of Data Recovery. I want to just have my hard disc with one C partition how do I remove D and save all data to C at the same time. Well, to each his own opinion. After managing backups on dozens of office computers for several companies over the last 15 years, I have learned this: Almost any single partition hard drive can be salvaged using a variety of methods.

The only times I have seen catastrophic loss of data was on hard drives with multiple partitions. Ask anyone who has lost mission critial data. Once that happens, they often become converts to single partitions.

Internally, I would use the second HD for all of my personal data and suchlike, including a Downloads Folder with separate Sub-Folders for each downloaded ancillary, whether those be programs or files. Still internally, I would have automatic back-ups to the original HD, which would also contain the usual programs, systems etc such as Windows.

Generally those main systems such as Windows have some form of Recovery such as CDs, without a need to backup. Externally, as I am actually running, I have been forced to use the internal HD for all of my personal requirements including the Downloads Folder; and as supplied, it has a D: Partition with the general Systems, Windows etc. Whilst it is fairly easy to find out the range of standard programs such as Windows, required to do a Recovery, it is more difficult to keep track of all those miscellaneous programs, routines etc garnered over the years.

This is where the Downloads Folder comes in to play, being an inherent Aide-Memoire of those programs. I have four hard disks in my computer. Partitioning just the first one 1TB as C: and D: was advantegous for me because the system files and some software that insisted on C: were causing frequent fragmentation problems and if left as a whole, every defrag would have taken hours. Now with C: sized as MB, defrag takes only about minutes. I found out that D: and other drives need defragging only once or twice a year which can be done overnight.

Another advantage is the infections and searches are usually in C: and scans are much quicker this way. It is also easy to back up all the drive to a fraction of one of the 1. I used to have several partions but now have the same 3 on each of 3 hard drives in 2 removable caddies:- C for OS and programs. D for downloaded Program installation files and E for all my data. I regularly clone the whole of drive 1 to drive 2 using Paragon Drive Copy.

Then remove it and insert the drive 3 to which I copy the following week or so. All 3 drives are fully bootable. I also have a tendency to forget which partition I put a particular file, picture, or whatever in. This is also a very easy way when you install a program, yet make it accessible from either desktop. Hope this helps some of you. I have been doing this for years, and as I have my own company with quite a bit of work, I can honestly say, that this is very good!

The last partition is ONLY for back-up purposes. Hope this helps! As Leo pointed out, multiple partitions in a single physical drive do not protect you against hard disk failure and, yes, since it may cause files you need concurrently to be physically distant from each other on the hard disk, due to partitioning, it will slow down the computer being that hard disk reading is one of the slowest things a computer does. Certainly, Windows files are being used almost constantly.

If you place your data files in another partition, the reading mechanism will be jumping all over if you happen to need to scan a large database. What would be the reason for supplying new computers with partitioned hard disks? At present, the disk with GB can be seen everywhere with the expansion of computer disk space, so to partition a hard drive with a large amount of space become more and more urgent.

How to partition a hard drive? Maybe use 3rd-party partition utility. So kind of you! The more useful information I have found throuth the article—Guidelines on how to partition a hard drive by Creating, Deleting, Formatting and Resizing Partition.

Share with you all. Hi,I deleted the partition on my hard drive,i deleted the D drive and i was left with the drive labelled C. So far so good!! I thought if i deleted the D drive,the capacity i was deleteing would be transferred to the C drive,so doubling the C drive. Why has this happened,i have restarted the Samsung NC10 but still no gain in the C drive. Thanks Alan. Is a partition useful against virus attack?

I think to duplicate data in D and E disk-partition so if one is attacked, I have the back-up here in the same hard drive. Is it OK? Hi Leo — good article. In context of size of hard drives these days, is this a reason not to partition? In fact, it would tend to decrease usable space.

If one drive fills up to almost full, some of the free space in the drive might become unusable. I find partitioning very useful in organising major types of data such as: documents, software, movies, recovery, projects. Its also very useful because when the system goes down, only c: drive is affected none of the data. I also have a second internal hard drive for backup of the first drive. External hard drives are useless, two of them went down with mechanical failure.

Hi Leo, Thanks for nice explanation. My new laptop is configured with a single partition having window7 installed in it. What you suggest?

Rgds, Bhupender. Hi Leo, Thanks for your prompt reply. My system is also having a one key recovery feature, changing the partition size will also make the recovery feature useless, as it will not work.

So I will go with you and not planning to go for hardisk partitioning any more. Also i have already purchased a good licensed antivirus software to make the system secure. Just one more query, I have heard about system restore application of windows, i just wanted to know how effective it is in case of some malware attack.

Although i can any time revert to the factory setting using one key recovery feature, but this will make me loose many of the installed applications. Best Regards, Bhupender. Bhupender System restore can do very little in helping to recover from a virus. You might find these articles useful Can I get rid of spyware using system restore?

Hi, i download a lot of movies and regularly change what games im playing, which means im constantly moving watched movies to a portable hard-drive and sometimes back again to watch. On an average month i would transfer gig of data between my main drive and my portable drives. Is this data transfer high enough that i would be better off partitioning my hard drive into system plus main programs and data files?

Since installing Win 8, the backup image would be quickly outdated due to updated versions of software i regularly use.

Although i still have a small encrypted partition and a large one for big, rarely accessed PDF files. I have opted for partitioning in order to be able to install the main OS on the C drive but then install all other programs on the D drive the partition. That way if I ever need to format the C drive alone as part of some sort of maintenance I will not have to lose precious time reinstalling all the programs. However I have never come to this point until now…and although I am about to reinstall my precious C drive with the main OS as it has slowed considerably, I have no clue whatsoever how to recall he programs installed on the D drive.

Can you help me with this, please? Dan Installing your programs on the D: drive is an interesting idea, but unfortunately, if you reinstall the OS, the installed programs will no longer work.

When a program is installed, it makes changes to the registry and usually installs files in various places on the c: drive. So when you reinstall Windows, the programs will look for these files, and not finding them will cause the program to error out. I have always had OS et al on C: and data on D: mainly for backup but it also faciltates uncomplicated copying of a whole partition over to a new computer, and allows me to reinstall OS image without worrying about the data.

In addition, I use substitute drives using the subst DOS command. I heave a sigh of relief each time subst still works when I upgrade to a new OS, particularly to Win8. I have a new HP Laptop with Windows 8. C is for everything, but recovery, which is handled by D, In the past I have partitioned my HD into several partitions for data, photos, etc.

As to backing up my data, I stumbled upon a unique way of handling it. You plug it into your computer and forget about it. The first time you use it you check off what you want backed up- data, pictures, etc. The first backup takes a little time that depends on the amount of data you have on your computer, but from that point on whenever you turn on your computer the USB drive scans your internal drive and just adds any new data, photos, etc.

I find it to be the perfect solution to backing up your data, the USB Drive, as long as you leave it plugged in you can take it out after it does its back-up at start-up, but I have enough USB slots to leave it in automatically backs up your data without you having to remember to do anything.

If you have a crash, loss of data. It is most annoying to fill your data partition and find you have lots of spare space on your OS partition!

Each to his own, I guess. I used to set up multiple partitions in the old days, but there is little value for it now, with NTFS. I find that speeds things up a lot. It also allows you to keep an image of your OS and Programs separately from your data, which can come in handy.

Other than that, if I am just using one drive, I just make sure that I keep all my data in the My Documents folder, and keep it classified in sub folders.