Harddrive Partition Help

First off if this is in the wrong forum I am sorry, I wasnt sure where to post this.

So, I have a problem. I contracted the win32.virut virus and it was causing alot of problems on my system. Today I set an avast bootscan and told it to delete any and all traces of the infection, which I assume when I get home will have basically wiped out most of my windows files. I hope I can get a repair to retrieve some data, but if not I'm ok with that.

My question. I ordered a 1TB Harddrive and it will be arriving tomorrow or saturday. I have a 500GB currently. I would like to set up the faster 1TB drive to contain several partitions to help prevent something like this from destroying my drive again and have a basic understanding of what I need to do / should do but need a bit more of a walkthough.

I plan to set up 4 partitions on the 1TB drive, one for Vista, one for XP, one for all my program files, and one for all other data (videos, songs, etc), and then after I have it completely setup, once a week I plan to make an image of it and save it to my older 500gig HD so that if anything MAJOR happens I can always just load the image.

My problem, I have NEVER done anything like this and dont know how to go about setting up the partitions, loading programs to separate ones as well as data, etc. I do know what imaging/backup software I plan to use, (http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm) but as far as setting up the partitions and then setting programs to use one, data on another, etc. I'm basically in the dark.

Thanks for any help in advanced!

 

There is no need to set up a separate partition for programs. So just 3 is fine. Partition order is older partition comes first on the hdd. So XP THEN Vista, then you data partition.

A tall order. My suggestions are 1. BiNG and 2. Image for Dos. Go to Terabyte unlimited for both. They have evaluation copies and detailed manual and videos to watch. Drive Image will not be able to clone a hidden partition but you can create a PEBart or UBCD4Win bootable cd with Drive Image incorporated on it.

My only other advice is to use BiNG in dos mode ie run it from a boot floppy or Bootable CD. Image for Dos will run from a bootable cd and will image your o/s partition.

In respect of data backup use Syncback (free edition).

Good Luck. You have a lot of learning to do

PS once you have mastered the above, you can then learn about mbr / partition tables and how to use MBRWork.

 

If your machine is a desktop and you have space and the ability to install a slave drive, your partitioning can be done by the Disk Manager.