My sister´s got a brand new bag!!!

[General Mortars]

Hi, folks,

My sister just dropped by with her new laptop and it´s one sassy little critter of a P4.
However, I´m rocking my brain trying to figure out how to create a new partition for her stuff.
The laptop comes with only one disk, a 100GB one and Partition Magic won´t allow me to mess with it (says some nonsense about "the selected disc contains one or more partitions which cannot be moved").

Any pointers?

[redwudz]

Sure, don't partition it. Partition Magic is probably seeing a protected partition that laptops often use to hold diagnostic or recovery programs.

You may see options when the LT is booted for repair or diagnostics. If you ever need to reinstall the OS using the discs that normally come with laptops, it will put it back. In fact it's hard to get rid of.

I haven't used multiple partitions for years. I just don't see the need for them and I never missed them. Just my opinion.

[General Mortars]

But what happens to al the data she has stored in her computer if she has to format the disk and reinstal the OS all over again?

Won´t they be lost?

[redwudz]

XP is a very stable OS. Except for HD failure, there are few times you would lose all your data. With that said, you should never depend on a HD for archival storage. Backup to DVD data discs or external drives is always recommended. My rule is to never store anything on a HD that I can't afford to lose.

The OS may crash, but you have System Restore, or Repair that you can run from the OS install discs. The laptop may have a restore/repair disc. Worst case, you can usually do a reinstall of the OS without destroying non-OS data. You would just lose programs and updates.

The situation you mention is probably one reason to use a separate partition for the OS. I would think Partition Magic would let you do that, not sure why it wouldn't, but it likely has to do with the install of the factory version of the OS and how the drive was partitioned originally.

Another good insurance system is a program like Norton Ghost or Acronis TrueImage to restore the system exactly as it was using a external DVD or CD backup image. And of course you should run a good antivirus, along with anti-spyware/anti-trojan software.

As before, the above is how I do it, others do it differently. Laptops are set up differently than a regular PC. You may be stuck with their setup.

[greymalkin]

If it's a new laptop it has a CD or DVD burner..she can backup to an RW periodically and be just fine..or she can buy a pen drive if she just has like school assignments and whatnot on there...

if you wanna get real fancy you can set her up on a wireless network with a .bat file that runs at 2am every morning and copies her data to a "server" for safe keeping....as redwudz pointed out..a hard drive isn't ideal for keeping your data safe, but 2 hard drives are much better than one