PARTITIONING HARD DRIVE WITH WINDOWS 7
How do you make 2 partitions on one hard drive? Usually I will partition a hard drive becoming 2 hard drives by formatting a computer when installing Windows XP. Some new pc had it partitioned into 2 hard drives. Whereas mine had only one partition hard drive. I am seriously worried that my windows will crash and my temporary documents in my c will get loss.A lot of computers sold with Windows Vista and 7 does not come up with a cd installer, driver or recovery kit. So it is difficult to format computers using Windows Vista or 7. So I decided to partition my hard drive with the guide of article from pcworld. Quick steps to partition hard drives into 2 while current hard drive running Windows 7:
Go to Control Panel->System and Security->Administrative Tools.
Click Computer Management->Disk Management(in Storage)
Then follow the steps here:
Click Disk Management, and you should see a list of your existing drives and partitions (if applicable). To create a new partition, choose a disk that has free storage space, right-click it, and select Shrink Volume. Bear in mind that you can safely shrink only basic disks; if you try to shrink dynamic disks (such as RAID arrays) that are formatted with the NTFS file system, you'll risk losing your data.
Type in the amount of space you want to shrink the disk by. The number you choose depends on what you want to use the other partition for. If you plan to dual-boot another version of Windows, for example, you'll want a lot of space (Windows 7 requires at least 16GB of available space, for example); but if you're setting aside room for an emergency recovery partition, you won't need nearly as much space.
If you plan to install an OS in this partition (Windows or otherwise), you'll probably have to stop here--your operating system installer will likely insist on making the partition itself during the installation process.Once you've cleared the necessary space, it should show up in the Disk Management window as Unallocated Space. Right-click this entry, select New Simple Volume, and let the resulting wizard guide you through the remaiing steps of the process. Generally, you'll want to format the new partition as NTFS; and unless you're using this partition for archiving purposes, you won't need to enable file and folder compression for the whole drive. (If you decide to enable compression later, you can do it easily enough: In the Disk Management tool, right-click the partition and select Properties, Compress this drive to save space.)
You can also set up an emergency partition. Suppose that Windows unexpectedly croaks and you don't have your emergency boot disc handy. If you've created a bootable partition that's large enough to contain a stripped-down OS and a handful of diagnostic tools, you can use it to rescue your data and salvage your computer. Some computer manufacturers (Lenovo, for example) supply a built-in emergency partition on some of their PCs, but you can make your own, if your PC lacks one.
Finally, partitioning lets you try out other operating systems--like Linux, for example. Generally, two operating systems can't coexist on the same volume without stepping on one another's toes, so you won't be able to dual-boot Linux or ease into Windows 7 if you're on a single-volume system.
How to Partition Your Hard Drive
Note: Users with complicated hard-drive configurations, RAID arrays, or the Windows XP operating system will likely need more-powerful partitioning software than Microsoft's Disk Management tool--EaseUs Partition Master is a good place to start.
First, back up your data. The partitioning process shouldn't delete any data, but you can't be too careful when working with your hard drive.Open the Disk Management tool by slecting Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management. An entry for Disk Management should show up underneath the Storage heading on the left-hand side.
Click Disk Management, and you should see a list of your existing drives and partitions (if applicable). To create a new partition, choose a disk that has free storage space, right-click it, and select Shrink Volume. Bear in mind that you can safely shrink only basic disks; if you try to shrink dynamic disks (such as RAID arrays) that are formatted with the NTFS file system, you'll risk losing your data.
Type in the amount of space you want to shrink the disk by. The number you choose depends on what you want to use the other partition for. If you plan to dual-boot another version of Windows, for example, you'll want a lot of space (Windows 7 requires at least 16GB of available space, for example); but if you're setting aside room for an emergency recovery partition, you won't need nearly as much space.
If you plan to install an OS in this partition (Windows or otherwise), you'll probably have to stop here--your operating system installer will likely insist on making the partition itself during the installation process.Once you've cleared the necessary space, it should show up in the Disk Management window as Unallocated Space. Right-click this entry, select New Simple Volume, and let the resulting wizard guide you through the remaiing steps of the process. Generally, you'll want to format the new partition as NTFS; and unless you're using this partition for archiving purposes, you won't need to enable file and folder compression for the whole drive. (If you decide to enable compression later, you can do it easily enough: In the Disk Management tool, right-click the partition and select Properties, Compress this drive to save space.)
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/
