There are many legends and theories about the partitions that really leave a little bit worried, especially if they are written on famous and important sites in the IT field. So it happens that, those who hope to optimize their computer, they create many disk partitions, dividing the hard disk into many small pieces. Legends and ancient notions (now outdated) require that you have to install the operating system in one partition, all programs in a second and video files, music, movies and documents in a third so as to speed up the computer. All this scrupulousness in preparing a modern PC is completely useless if done only because "it is said to be done like this" and, above all, it does not speed up a PC. Partitioning a hard disk simply means dividing it into several parts (Microsoft calls them Volumes ), so that Windows or any other operating system sees the various pieces as if they were different disks. The different volumes can therefore be managed independently .
The reasons why one decides to create disk partitions on the computer are essentially two:
1) Because he wants to use the computer by installing multiple operating systems, thus putting Windows, Linux or other.
2) For a data security issue, you can decide to divide the hard disk into two parts, leaving the operating system in a volume with the various programs installed and, in the other part, all independent data, therefore documents, photos, mp3, video .
This is done for a simple reason: if the computer catches a very bad virus or if strange errors occur on Windows that cannot be solved, you could simply reinstall Windows on the system partition, without the data of the other partition being deleted. All this is useless in the case of a broken disk.
Personally I'm not a fan of partitions, I prefer to create an automatic backup on a different hard disk and leave everything as it is; if there are problems, it restores all or only the data I want.
In any case, I don't really understand what need there is to "prepare the partitions" before installing Windows (perhaps using outdated utilities like Fdisk). That you installed Windows on your own, you may have noticed that, during installation, you are asked whether to create a new volume and with how much space.
Generally, without starting to do long studies, you choose to make a single NTFS disk partition (the Standard format), dedicating the entire hard disk or part of it to Windows (at least half and not less than 100 GB). Then you can use simple programs that allow you to reduce the space of a volume and create new partitions, if they were to really serve (and not because others do so).
Partition Magic was once famous, a commercial program that ended up in Symantec's hand.
Today there are many free programs to create partitions or volumes and to divide the hard disk .
In Windows 10 and Windows 7 it can also use the internal utility to manage volumes which is sufficient for most uses.
See how to create partitions, format volumes and shrink disks in Computer Management in Windows 10 .
Some of the best programs to manage partitions and format disks are:
1) GParted opensource program that allows you to decrease the space allocated in a partition, expand volumes, merge two partitions and manage a disk. Being open source, GParted can also be used in commercial areas but it is not exactly the simplest.
2) Free Partition Wizard for personal use that I had already talked about in an article on free programs to create disk partitions
3) Easus Partition Master is the best free program to create and manage disk partitions that I personally used and keep on my computer. Easus Partition Master immediately displays the space allocated on the hard drives. Existing NTFS partitions are colored purple while non-partitioned space is colored gray. For each partition the size is written and if it is primary or logical. The primary partition is usually C: where Windows is installed and which is loaded when you turn on the computer. logical volumes are not considered by the Windows boot, unless they are transformed into primaries. If you want to format, resize, shrink, copy or delete a partition, just right click on the chosen volume and select the option.
Even though the program is in English, it is really intuitive and simple to use. For example, if you want to shrink primary partition C, you can easily do it by creating unallocated space . Then you can create a new partition on this space and format it . Easus Partition Master also has the function of recovering a damaged or lost partition.
IMPORTANT : Since when changing partitions, creating new ones or resizing them, large quantities of data are moved, it is necessary to create a backup of the files because the operation is always delicate and if the hard disk is old or if there were accidents, you risk losing everything. Furthermore, you should never try to partition an almost full or very fragmented disk (defragmenting before managing partitions is mandatory).
Ultimately, partitioning the computer's hard drive is something that should only be done after installing the operating system, in case you want to keep the data separately from the system. During normal use of the PC, partitioning is useful only if you want to install Linux (or a new version of Windows) on the same computer where there is Windows and create a dual boot.
