partitioning help needed

i have a little 160gb sata hard drive. i format my machines approx every 4-6 weeks, to insure that i have no hidden bugs/malware/rootkits/etc( i have a/v, software & hdwe firewalls and 9 anti malware progs, but , to me, a format is kinda like a nice warm shower - it just makes me feel good). i have approx 70gb of mp3's on this 160gb drive and loading roughly 180 cd's every few weeks is a real pain. back in the good ole days of ide drives i had 2 drives, one had my o/s and programs and the other was just formatted and had the music and related files on it. point being that i could format as often as i wanted to and not jeopardize the music. now i want to create a new partition, approx 80-90gb to accomodate my music files and the rest can just be o/s, proggies and way too much free space. i have used part magic for other things but never to do this operation. do i 1) create a new partition or 2) resize existing partition,or 3) redistribute free space (prob not #3 but i wanted to include it anyway). i am using partition magic 8 and the drive is currently ntfs and win xp, but that could change to linux when vista comes out. how do i proceed? after i make the new partition, will i need to format it (its already ntfs) or can i create then just copy the files to the new drive letter - currently c: after c: & d:. i hope this makes sense and i anxiously await your reply because its time for this months format. aloha

 

Using Partition Magic you can create a new partition which you will need to format (at least that's how it used to work the last time I used PM)

 

You mean you format the HDD every 4-6 weeks....sounds like overkill to me!
There is simply no need to do this!
You can still run 2 physical drives with your serial ata interface just as with IDE (parallel ata).
With sata there is no need to config. master and slave, as each device is allocated its own channel.

 

Wow OK If it was me, I would just create a partition that was the majority of my drive space, leave the c:\ root drive big enough for whatever OS your running, then the rest of the space is to store, back up or whatever on. I use partition Magic 8.05 on all my machines and it is way easier to deal with then the RAID system on here! I created 4 partitions total, 1~20gb for Windows XP Pro, 1~20gb partition for Windows 2003 R2, 1~30gb patition for Vista, and the rest is storage, etc, this way if I have a problem with an OS I can reformat that partition from partition Magic and press on, However if you reformat your root partition you will loose access to your other OS's. Not sure why anyone would reformat that often, there are way to many very good programs out there to keep your system clean, and somewhere along the line by steady activating your system with M$ with the same CD key it's gonna cut you off! If your that concerned then I would look into another drive and use that as a safe drive to reformat all the time, personally while I can understand your desire to feel clean I have to agree this is massive overkill!