Why should you partition a disk?

Question

I'm asking because I'm concidering using linux as an OS and I read you must partition the drive to do so

Answer 1

Partitioning is just like turning one hard drive into 2 or more smaller hard drives. You would partition if you want to use more than one filing format on a single physical drive.

Ever notice you can't format just part of your hard drive? The entire partition has to be formatted. To use a single hard drive to house a dual-boot Win32/Linux system you HAVE to partition.

Answer 2

Well, you don't necessarily need to create a partition on your hard drive to install Linux. It seems you want to divide the hard drive in to two parts, with Windows OS installed on one and Linux installed on the other (i.e. a dual boot system). Here are some alternative options:

1. You can use a Linux live CD. Have you heard about these? Basically the Linux operating system in stored entirely on the CD and everything runs off the CD. This option is good because you don't need to install the OS. All you need to do is insert the CD into the optical drive and the computer will boot into Linux and not Windows. There are several brands of Linux live CD. The more popular ones are Knoppix, Ubuntu and Damn Small Linux

2. You can use a virtualization software like VMWare or Windows Virtual PC to create a Linux envirnoment.

Suggested Reading:

1. "Kicking Linux's Tires" -- pcworld.com (http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,121426/printable.html)

2. "How to run another OS on your PC" -- lifehacker.com (http://lifehacker.com/software/emulation/how-to-run-another-os-on-your-pc-143971.php)

Other reasons for partitioning a hard drive:
1. use one partition for all your works and another partition to backup important files.
2. the size of the hard drive is too large for the computer's bios to manage (usually a problem with old computers).
3. move the paging file from one partition to another partition to improve Windows performance (i.e. make it run faster).

Answer 3

Honestly, i don`t use Linux (excepting the times i build up a server. which i think is the think you want it to do).
Partitioning is important so that a OS can find booting files faster. Also is important because you don`t lose the data from your HDD (music, movies, games and other) if you re-install the OS.
E.G. : 120GB HDD is split-ed in (1st)partition of 20GB (for the OS - Win XP Pro SP2 / Linux Fedora Core ), (2nd)partition of 50GB (for other stuff like games and so on) and (3rd)partition (also for other stuff).
It`a faster boot of the PC if the OS is looking for its files in 20 or less GB, other than finding them in 120 GB (as shown above).

Answer 4

A partition is a virtual drive inside a drive, created through storing information about the drive's virtual layout in special locations on the drive itself. The system's BIOS and operating system(s) then utilize this information to determine where to look on the drive for boot instructions and data.
If you are going to install Linux, you might want to check out this page. It will give you a good overall understanding of the Linux install.

http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/4269/3/

Answer 5

It's not hard...All it does is create a virtual drive(s) inside the main drive. As you are using the computer it would just appear as though you have multiple hard drives. (i.e. drive c:, drive d:....etc) I'm not sure why you would HAVE to partition a drive though. If you were dealing with large amounts of data concerning multiple tasks, you could partition a drive in order to seperate them.

Answer 6

You dont have to. But it is a good idea to keep two separate operating systems on different partitions, to avoid problems.

Answer 7

It puts all the operating system files on one drive and all the rest of the crap on the other. Keep you from blowing away important stuff. Helps it run better too.