I'm New...C and D drive?

So i bought an Acer 5570Z budget laptop and just realized that the HD is partitioned into a C&D drive. Under My Computer it shows "Acer C:" and "D:" for Data. Yet I have put everything on my C: drive. Should I be using these seperate drives for different files? i.e. C for music and D: for files and programs?
Maybe someone can explain the difference. Seems that everything on my computer resides on the C drive.

You don't have to use D:\ drive, there is no requirement.

"You don't have to use D:\ drive, there is no requirement."

...so when C is full D comes into play?

I hate to ask alot of newbie questions, and I'm sure google could answer most of them. But why partition the drive in the first place? is it just a way for the computer to manage all the files and software in a more efficient way?

When C:\ is full it is full.

You have to use D:\ drive, the machine won't do it on its own.

I also have an Acer machine, the hard drive came partitioned, D:\ drive was empty. Acer provided a system disk and two recovery disks.

I didn't receive a back-up disk just a Windows Vista upgrade disk though. I find that strange though since I'm running Home Premium. Ah that Microsoft... I will make one ASAP though. Thanks for the help.

While I have only one active partition on my 60GB laptop drive, the OS is Ubuntu Linux and the data files on it are routinely backed up over the LAN to the desktop, which DOES have multiple partitions, both to support 2 OSs (Linux and Win98SE) and to protect the data on all four HDs. The laptop's drive has been recovered from another machine, and has a head crash in the first 2 GB, so I used PartitionMagic to deactivate the damaged area and mount the file system on the remaining 53GB.(a '60GB' drive is actually about 55 or 56 GB).

I agree with using the 'Recovery Partition Save to CD' option on those canned machines, preferably before you even connect to the Internet. Either the 'backup utility' or just burning the contents to CD or DVD insures that your drivers won't be eaten by the first virus attack on your system, and if the drive takes a powder you can just cram a bigger one in and re-install from CD or DVD. Even a slow CD and/or DVD burner beats inability to make a backup of critical data and OS files.

I always download the drivers hecne system fiels back them up on a folder . Plus a cd.

I have always formatted to clean the crap that is put on any and all laptops. Then start with xpsp2 and then the backup system files are isntalled then whatever program my client wants. That way there is no partion adn the client has that extra littel bit of space and no confusion.


I always download the drivers hecne system fiels back them up on a folder . Plus a cd.

I use the AROS as an os is the best fro x86 its based on amiga os 3.9.2 The itanium aka ps3 version is 6megs the x86 version is 25megs.

I am thinking about getting another hard drive to run as a boot drive etc. for ubuntu. In other words c: would have windows and b:would have ubuntu. How would I go about doing that? Thank in advance.

So my best bet would be to get a HD about 320GB>throw it in>transfer the data then use the old HD as a slave?

so in other words, if the OS boot screen is on c and ubuntu is on d it will be able to boot ubuntu?

My new ASUS laptop came with its 200GB HDD set up as C 70GB and D 130GB - the idea is to use c for the OS and programmes and D for data, so you can reformat or reinstall on C [or get a virus on C] without your data being lost.

In my case although the machine came with Vista Ultimate, I have the XP "crossgrade" preinstalled on FAT32 on C. Later if I wish I can use the recovery disk to restore Vista to C on NTFS leaving the data on D intact, or if I wish I can save the data externally and reformat C & D as a single 200GB C drive when restorig Vista - if I ever decide I want to!