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Microsoft => Microsoft Windows => Windows 10 and 11 => Topic started by: michael432000 on December 24, 2020, 06:23:49 AM

Title: Backups and Partitioning options.
Post by: michael432000 on December 24, 2020, 06:23:49 AM

Hi there.

I recently purchased a refurbished HP 8300 pc that has a new 120GB SSD drive with Windows 10 on it and a 500GB HDD drive.

Thus far I have only downloaded Zoom, Skype and LibreOffice and created a few documents. 

This PC shows Local Disc C and new volume F.

Novice questions: Can I/Do I need to partition the C drive to separate the operating system from future downloads? Can I/do I need to back up the operating system to the HDD drive and if so do I need to partition it first?

Thank you.

Title: Re: Backups and Partitioning options.
Post by: ngc2392 on December 25, 2020, 10:40:04 AM

well, it's always a good idead (if you can, of course) that you separate os partition and data partition. if something goes wrong, you just format/replace system but data remains on other partition/disk.
In your case...i would just redirect the user folder to be on f disk (500 gb) or just redirect documents/picture folder to f disk. and backup that folder(s). It is option to backup image of system but you must do that periodically (on 1 week) because if you do it just occassionally, sometimes the image gets "old". When you restore the image, it may need some time to download all the new updates, drivers etc etc.
There are many free programs to do just backup of folders or backup of system drive completely. I use easeus todo free. Mainly to do daily / weekly backups of my documents/pictures folder to NAS drive.