With Windows 7's release just around the corner, now's a great time to get your PC ready for the new operating system. First step: separate your data onto a dedicated partition. A partition is what ...

Cedric Crawley wants to keep Windows 7 and his applications in one partition, and his data in another. Creating a separate data partition protects both your system and your data. See Reasons to ...

I agree with this recommendation on every operating system you might use, including Windows Vista. As a matter of aesthetics, it's nice to keep your data from mingling with system files, and as a ...

Partition loss is not synonymous with data loss; they are different issues. It is technically a more complex task to recover data from deleted partitions than restoring accidentally deleted or ...

Leo knows that data is safer if you don’t keep it on the same partition as Windows and your programs. Last week I explained fixing this in XP; now I’ll tackle Vista. Restoring Windows to its brand-new ...

A multiple-partition setup helps organize your data, because you can dedicate blocks of storage to a specific task. As an example, you might have programs on your C: partition and business documents ...

Partitioning your hard drive sounds like a technically involved task that most people don’t need to bother with—but it’s actually relatively simple to do, doesn’t have to cost you any money, and can ...

Reader Kevin Riley has a splitting dilemma. He writes: I have a 1TB FireWire hard drive that is about a quarter full. I’d like to partition the drive but don’t want to have to back up all my data to ...