Do i have to make a partition?

[xavieroztas]

OK lets say there's one pc that has been built and never been used. If I install Windows 10 on it and while installing it, it shows hard drives there. Do i have to make a partition? What happens if i don't?

 

[Hellfire13]

You cannot install anything unless there is a storage drive of any kind.
While installing, creating partition is not compulsory, but it helps later on. You can have one dedicated partition for your OS drive with system files and another one, two, etc for your other type of files like pics/vids/games/docs/etc. If you do not create partition, everything will be stored in one single drive. The disadvantage of this is, if there is ever any virus on your OS drive, you have to format the entire drive. This might lead to data wipe out.
Remember, most virus infection infests in your OS file systems and .exe files.

 

[Colif]

Windows 10 installer will only show hard drives if you choose custom install. If you do a normal install, it will do the creation of partitions on the C drive behind the scenes. You normally don't have to do anything.

Its better still to have two hard drives in PC and have all your personal files on the 2nd drive for same reasons as you said, a virus, but since they can also infest boot partitions, its generally a better idea to clean install entire hdd at that stage and it would mean you lost all those extra partitions you mentioned. If all files on another hdd, and you only have windows + applications on C, you don't lose anything from the clean install besides time

If you have more than 1 drive in PC, you can create partitions on the 2nd drive once windows is installed. I would only have 1 hdd attached to PC when you install win 10 as it likes to use extra space on other drives to put boot partition on and if you ever move that drive it chooses, or it stops working, the Win 10 install wouldn't work.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Do i have to make a partition? What happens if i don't?

Windows installation will try to create necessary partitions on its' own.
Make sure, you have only one drive connected, while installing windows. If you don't do that, windows install process may place bootloader on one drive, windows OS on another drive. This complicates things, when when you want to move drives to a different pc.

 

[cherry blossoms]

Several points to make:

1. Yes, you have to setup at least one partition of sufficient size.
2. If you have multiple drives, unplug all drives except the one you will be installing Windows to. This is so the windows install doesn't put the bootloader on a different drive from the OS.

 

[Colif]

Several points to make:

1. Yes, you have to setup at least one partition of sufficient size.
2. If you have multiple drives, unplug all drives except the one you will be installing Windows to. This is so the windows install doesn't put the bootloader on a different drive from the OS.

1. No you don't, the installer will do that itself if you do a normal install (assuming drive is blank, you shouldn't need to do a custom). Win 10 will create 4 partitions, 3 of which are less than 1gb in size total so you hardly notice they are there until they stop functioning.

even if drive is not new and you want to remove partitions, all you do is delete them all, leaving unallocated space, and click next, Win 10 will create the 4 it needs again. Then you click next again

 

[gondo]

You always need a partition. Most people think that means splitting it into 2 or more drives. Wrong!!! Having just 1 drive is also a single partition. If you do nothing windows will automatically create a single partition using the entire drive. If you want to split it you create 2 or more partitions.

Partitions are the process of allocating the drive space with a file allocation table of some sort. Basically a way of formatting your hard drive a particular way your operating system uses to store and retrieve data. Every hard drive is the same, but it can be used differently based on if you are using Linux, Windows, Android, etc.... That's why you need to create a partition for each operating system and it's always different. You need at least 1 single partition for the drive to be useful to the operating system. You only partition manually if you don't want 1 large single drive which is done auto by the operating system.

 

[Lekro44]

Several points to make:

1. Yes, you have to setup at least one partition of sufficient size.
2. If you have multiple drives, unplug all drives except the one you will be installing Windows to. This is so the windows install doesn't put the bootloader on a different drive from the OS.

1. No you don't, the installer will do that itself if you do a normal install (assuming drive is blank, you shouldn't need to do a custom). Win 10 will create 4 partitions, 3 of which are less than 1gb in size total so you hardly notice they are there until they stop functioning.

even if drive is not new and you want to remove partitions, all you do is delete them all, leaving unallocated space, and click next, Win 10 will create the 4 it needs again. Then you click next again

You can't go anything other than custom install with a blank drive. You just don't have to make the partitions yourself, only click the desired drive (marked as unallocated space) and Windows will proceed and create them automatically during the installation.


The "normal" installation option is only available when you already have lets say Windows 7 installed and want to upgrade it. You can't even click anything else but custom with a new PC/blank drives.

 

[Colif]

I never said you don't need a partition, I meant you don't have to make one yourself.

I was wrong about fresh installing onto new hdd, never done it myself on 10. So I learned there.

If you do a clean install on an empty drive, win 10 will create the partitions for you. No need to manually make any of them. See step 12 or 13 here (difference depends on if drive is MBR or GPT) - https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-clean-install-windows-10-a.html

His drive will be unallocated space, all he needs to do is select that disc and click next, win 10 will create the partitions for him.

 

[gondo]

Everyone here is correct. So lets summarize. Lets take a 2TB drive for example.

- Do nothing and windows will allocate the entire 2TB to a single primary partition, format it, call it C drive, and install windows on it.
- Do a custom install and you have the choice to create 1 or more partitions any size you want, you can format 1, all, or none of those partitions. Assign one as the primary for Windows and begin the installation. Any unformatted partitions will need to formatted after windows is installed. Any space that wasn't allocated to a partition during the custom install can be assigned to a partition in Windows afterwards.
- Many people will make for example a 500GB primary partition for windows during setup. The remaining 1.5TB of unallocated space will be made into a D: partition in windows once your done. Most people don't assign all the drive space during setup and just do the 1 partition for windows and finish up the rest afterwards. This makes setup faster and you just finish up at your own time later on.

The reason people create a small partition for windows is as follows. Create a partition just big enough for windows and programs. 500GB or so depending on how many games you install. Games take a lot of room so it depends. It it's just office and photoshop 100GB might be plenty. The remaining 1.5TB would be a separate partition for storage. Put all your personal info, movies, photos, music, etc... on there. Now lets say your windows is corrupted beyond repair. You can reinstall windows and during the installation you can choose to only format the C drive which only contains your programs and windows itself and that 1.5TB D drive is untouched. So you reinstall windows, which requires you to reinstall all your programs again, which is why you put them on your C drive. You just reinstalled windows back to factory without loosing any of your pictures, music, and data.

So lets say you have spyware, viruses, etc.... You could browse google looking for a fix. Try several fixes. 4+ hours later you may or may not have the problem fixed. Chances are your windows still works crappy. Or you can take 30 minutes, stick the windows DVD in, reinstall and be back to factory start with zero problems. Much faster and you have a fresh install. You have to get all your updates and drivers and stuff but you have a factory install. And in the process you get all the latest drivers for your hardware. The beauty winth Windows 10 is it is pretty stable, bug free, and you rarely need to reinstall it. I am going on over 2 years straight with the same install whereas in the past with Windows 98 or something else you could be installing as often as every month just to get rid of bugs.