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How Should I Organize My Hard Drive?

Although you can organize the information on your hard drive pretty much any way you want, there are some methods that seem to work best for most people.

The easiest method of organizing a hard drive is by function. You use one partition (traditionally C:) for the operating system, one for your applications, like spreadsheets and word processing, and one for the data you create.

It's often a good idea to give your most commonly used applications like your word processor and Internet browser their own partitions. However, be aware that a lot of applications are installed by default on the same partition as the operating system. Generally, you don't want this. Use the "custom install" option on the installation program to put the application on another partition (D:) and to put the data files on a third partition (E:). Otherwise you'll quickly fill up the operating system partition, increase the problems of fragmentation, and often slow down your system.

Another reason why you don't want a lot of applications on your C: partition is that you want to leave a lot of empty space on the C: partition. By "a lot" we mean at least 200 Mb, 500 Mb if you can. The reason is that many programs use the C: partition in the installation process, even if they are being installed on another partition. This can involve putting huge amounts of data in the C: partition temporarily. If the installation doesn't have enough space in C:, it may abort and fail to install the program.