Should I partition my Hard Drive in case one crashes?

Question

My idea is to put the same information in BOTH partitions of WD External Hard Drive in case one crashes. I've heard WD makes you pay to retrieve your files if your Hard Drive crashes. It's 1TB so there'll be room for this for YEARS!!! Thank you for your advice.

Answer 1

Since your using an "external" hard drive you don't need two partitions...if the drive fails...the data on both partitions will be lost...I back up on DVDs and a USB flash drive. I had a very nice machine...two internal drives with mirror RAID...and an external drive...with all my stuff on it...got hit with lightning...GAZORP...everything got fried! fortunately I had it all on DVDs safely tucked away!

Answer 2

Yes, no and maybe.



Because of the way Windows works, it is difficult to make an exact copy of your main drive onto another drive. It will not copy the Windows system files and often programs files. So without special software, you can not make a complete copy of your main drive.



But you don't need to. That is because if the main drive crashes, you can use a Windows CD to reinstall Windows. And you can use your original disk to reinstall your other programs. All you really need to copy is your data. That is things like your music, pictures, documents, videos, etc.



One trick to to allows save your data somewhere inside your "My Documents" folder. Then to do a backup, all you need to do is copy that one folder to your second partition. All the subfolders and files in it will come along.



Should the main drive crash because of Windows going bad, you reinstall Windows and copy back your data.



However should the hard drive fail mechanically, you would be unable to access the second partition and everything would be lost. Usually when doing this, it is better to use a second hard drive or an external drive rather than a partition on the same drive.



Another alternative is to copy your backup to DVD(s) so that if the drive fails, you have a way to recover the data.

Answer 3

Well if the hard drive crashes or starts to fail, it will effect both partitions eventually. That's why the one wd external 1-tb drive (I forget which one, but it's on their site) is actually 2 500gb drives and it automatically copies that contents of the 1 drive onto the other just in case the first drive fails.

Answer 4

I'm confused

Do you mean make two partitions on the same drive and store the same info in both partitions or do you mean copy all the information from one drive onto a partition in a different drive?



Two partitions on the same drive will not help you because if the hard drive fails you lose ALL the information of the drive.

But if you mean to copy all the info on one drive to another different drive then that will help you. If one drive fails the info is on the other.

Answer 5

If windows crashes then a second partition with windows loaded will get you back up and running. But, if the hard drive crashes all bets are off. All the partitions in the world won't help. My thinking is a second drive is the best partition.



Good Luck

Answer 6

My suggestion would be to not save all of your information on the same drive. The problem with saving data on a drive that is constantly being used is that it gets worn over time. Much like a car that get "miles" on the odometer, your external does the same in a sense. The more you use it, the higher the risk of the drive failing. You should save your documents on your main computer and only use the external when you want to back up your data. The less you use it, the longer it lasts.

Answer 7

yea you can partition the hard drive and use the 2nd partition as a backup for files when your windows or other OS goes to sh!t on you... however, if that hard drive burns out.... you wont be able to retrieve jack since the hard drive is done. The best thing to do is backup on a 2nd sata hard drive and use that hard drive as a backup. If 1 goes off the rails you still have your files on another one. Or get a portable HDD and back it up there....there cheap like 100 bux for a 1 tb.

Answer 8

If your hard drive crashes, it's going to affect all partitions that are on that hard drive. Your best bet to protect against data loss is to have two similar size *internal* hard drives, and use drive imaging software (like acronis true image) to automatically do a scheduled copy of all of drive C: (or your entire hard drive) to the 2nd hard drive. Create an "image" of your first hard drive to your 2nd hard drive automatically, like once a week or once a month.



Then if you are really paranoid, you should manually image your internal hard drive (the one you have windows installed on) to your external hard drive every month or so. Then store the external hard drive in a fire-proof safe.



But that's only if you are really paranoid about data loss. It's highly unlikely that both hard drives would go bad at the same time. So in a worst case scenario, if your windows hard drive goes bad, you replace it...then use acronis true image (or whatever) to restore one of the recent image files to the new hard drive.

Answer 9

You also need to backup to a DVD or CD. You can backup different folders to different CDs.

I worked in IT. We had daily, weekly, monthly and off site monthly backups. The daily backups were kept for a week. The weekly for a month. The monthly went offsite and were kept for a couple of years. When I used to backup special files to a 3.5 floppy I always made two copies. I have had instances where one of the copies could no longer be read. I have sent a crashed hard drive out to be recovered. The area that was bad had a database on it. The database index had to be rebuilt and all data on the bad sector was lost.

Answer 10

There are classes attainable which will do what you're finding for. i comprehend Norton makes one. What i could recommend is which you in basic terms positioned what you're able to need to maintain secure in there. as an occasion in case you have some %. on one complicated stress, then in basic terms replica that into the backup. maximum persons do no longer in all probability have a could desire to backup each little subject on their workstation.