Partitioning and formatting

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808Alaska

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OK i got a question for you guys. i know how to partition and format a hard drive when installing a new OS but what does partitioning and formatting actually do? why do you have to do it? i know that NTFS is better then FAT32 but why? thanks for the help.
 
You don't have to partition. Formatting is just a way to say "whipe all information and start new". Partition just divides your hard drive into differerent sections and would show up as Drive C, D, E whatever. Fat32 is the old file system, NTFS is the new. Do NTFS.
 
ok so what if i did 20 Gig partition on a 40 Gig drive. what would my drive look like? will i only have 20 gigs of free space to use?
 
Basically, FAT, FAT12/16/32, and NTFS are just ways that data is organized on the disk.

FAT systems are limited because the rules don't allow for things like large modern disks, or large files. Plus the indexing and stuff is less efficient.

NTFS also allows for encryption and compression natively. hence if you go to "Security" you can find "NTFS Permissions".

Now there is even NEWER stuff where you can "Basic Disk" or "Dynamic Disk", which basically means you've got a basic disk... or a disk that can have different types of volumes on it.

A volume is like a partition except that a volume can span multiple disks.

It's almost like RAID except not.
 
A 40 gig disk with 20 gigs partitioned would be seen as a 20 gig partition and about 18 gigs of free space.

FAT32 = Windows 95, 08, 2000, whatever.
NTFS = Windows XP and up.
 
just for example when you look at the my computer window you would see two drives, C, D...or whatever
 
ok i understand that kinda stuff. but what i guess im trying to say here is why do people partition hard drives? is there a reason for doing it? and when you do a 20 gig partition on a 40 gig drive, are you giving yourself 20 gigs of free space before OS install and other updates and such. if so what happens to the other 20 gigs that aren't partitioned? thanks for the help.
 
ok i understand that kinda stuff. but what i guess im trying to say here is why do people partition hard drives? is there a reason for doing it? and when you do a 20 gig partition on a 40 gig drive, are you giving yourself 20 gigs of free space before OS install and other updates and such. if so what happens to the other 20 gigs that aren't partitioned? thanks for the help.

Keeping your data on a separate partition means that you can reinstall your OS without formatting out your data.
 
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