This address does exist within Windows but it’s well hidden.  One time when you will see it though is when you install the operating system and with Windows 7 (and Vista) it is vitally important to make certain you choose the right one.

This wasn’t a problem even a few short years ago as computers only came with a single hard drive.  With the cost of hard drive storage still tumbling though and capacities increasing, it’s becoming more and more common to find two hard disks inside a new PC and even some high-end laptops.

These disks are labelled by Windows, Disc 0, Disc 1, Disc 2 and so on with Disc 0 (zero) being the critical one to the operating system.  This is the disc on which you really should install your copy of Windows.

There’s no hard and fast rule here that says you absolutely must install Windows on this drive, in fact it will boot merrily from any hard disk in your PC and from any partition on that drive.  Windows often places a 100Mb System partition at the beginning of Disk 0 though.  This hidden partition stores the boot information for your PC.  It’s completely separate from your Windows installation but absolutely critical.

The boot menu resides here, if you don’t have this partition you won’t be able to start your PC without detailed rebuilding of the boot system, if it’s even possible to do so as sometimes it’s not.  Either way the process is very technical and not for the faint of heart.

If you have this System partition on a separate physical hard disk to your copy of Windows you are doubling your chances that a hard disk failure will render your system unusable.  It might also be the case that you want to swap this disc out for a larger one, or remove it completely.  This can also render your copy of Windows unusable.

Hard disks, let’s not forget, are some of the very few remaining components in your PC to have mechanical moving parts (unless you’re lucky and rich enough to be able to afford a solid state disk).  The only other moving parts in your PC are fans if that’s any indication of how old the technology now is.  These moving parts can be placed under tremendous physical strain by heavy or prolonged use.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example here.  You have installed Windows 7 on Disc 1 in your computer.  This being the second physical hard disk inside the case.  Disc 0 will always carry the System boot partition so if either one of those hard disks fails you lose access to your copy of Windows.

If you instead install your copy of Windows on Disc 0 (zero) then the other disc can fail and you’ll not lose access to your copy of Windows.  Let’s not forget that on a dual hard disk system the disc that doesn’t contain a copy of Windows will commonly be used for file storage.

It’s an easy error to install Windows Vista or Windows 7 onto the wrong physical disc.  Perhaps the leads have been swapped onto the motherboard ports during maintenance or the build of the PC so that the disk on the top of the pile in the case, the one you’d assume was disc 0 now isn’t.  Alas the only way around the problem should issues occur with this is a complete reinstall, which can take many hours when you factor in all your software and settings changes.

So the next time you come to install a copy of Windows Vista or Windows 7, have a good look at the list of available disks and partitions, and make certain you choose Disc 0 for your installation.

A tool that can flip the bit and should work with most usb flash drives is Lexar’s USB format tool. It is a portable tool that has been designed for Lexar USB drives but it works with other brands as well. The main interface can not only be used to flip the removable bit but also to format the usb drive, set a volume label and a partition to be bootable. You only need to press the flip removable bit button if you want to prepare the flash drive for use with multiple partitions. The drive has to be removed and connected again to the computer system afterwards.

It should be noted that Lexar USB Format (via Shell City) will not partition the usb flash drive which has to be done with other tools. For that you can use the build in tools in the operating system. Read Joshua’s System Partitioning With Vista article to find out how to do that in Windows Vista. A more universal software is the gParted Live CD which can be booted from any computer system.

Another option to create multiple USB stick partitions has been discussed before at Ghacks. The process involves editing the Windows Registry and has the disadvantage that the add-on partitions are only visible on that computer system.

I have been using Ubuntu installed through Wubi, a very convenient and efficient way for anyone to try out Linux beyond a Live CD or Virtual machine.

While Wubi is great It does have a couple limitations, firstly with hibernation and suspend modes, neither of which work. Not an issue for a desktop PC, but for me using my laptop quite a big drawback. Secondly, apparently installing through Wubi gives a small performance hit to Ubuntu, although I wouldn’t know how true this is.

I decided to dual-boot my Vista system with Ubuntu, however had some difficulties with getting the Vista partitioning tool to shrink the main volume.

Vista has the disk management tool which is a little more advanced then the XP counterpart and allows you to shrink, expand and create partitions on the hard drives. It can be a pretty frustrating tool and has a particular aversion to shrinking partitions.

My first attempt got me this message:

There are a variety of reasons why there was no space to create a partition, here they are and also the method you can fix it with:

Not enough HDD space

• Delete as many files as you can
• Reduce the Recycle bin size (by default it takes 10% HDD space)
• Run the disk cleaner and get rid of hibernation and temporary files
• Remove all but the most recent System Restore points

Paging Files

• Disable virtual memory for now

Defragment

• Use a tool like Auslogic Defragmenter
• MFT files, such as you can see below, on the the end of a volume will prevent partition shrinking. They’re a pain to move and I don’t have an answer for that one.

Clean

• Use a tool like CCleaner to track down any temporary and junk files which Windows misses.

Hopefully this helps you if you find yourself in the same situation. However that said there are no guarantees, the longer you’ve been using your PC the harder it will be to resize partitions without a complete reinstall. Make you reactivate anything you turned off such as System Restore.

The process is easy and straightforward. Just select one of the hard drives in the application. A click on the Scan button will start the scan for all partitions on that hard drive. Once the scan is completed it displays the working partitions with their corresponding drive letters and found partitions without a drive letter in two separate parts of the interface.

The found partitions are unmounted and can be mounted by clicking on the mount button. A drive letter is assigned to that partition and the data can be accessed normally for the time the partition is mounted.

Alternatively an image of the partition or entire hard disk can be saved and mounted later. A Windows restart will unmount the partition again.

The Special Edition looks much like the Hard Disk Manager 2008 Suite from Paragon which retails for $49.95. To get your free serial number for the application you need to visit the registration page and fill in your information. The serial number will be send to your email account. The download of the actual software has to be done from the Computeractive website.

The information have to be entered during installation of the software and a restart of the system is necessary before all functions become available.

I think that the Paragon Hard Disk Manager is one of the better products and will come in handy from time to time. You should definitely give it a try for as long as the offer lasts.

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 is a commercial software currently retailing for $49 according to the Paragon website. Computer Active, a British PC magazine ran a promotion last year which was announced to expire on April 11, 2007. Users were able to download a special edition of  Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 and grab a free serial number for it as well.

Jawwad found out that the offer is still valid and that it is still possible to download the special edition and generate a serial number at the Paragon website.

All you need to do to grab a free copy of Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 is the following:

• Download the software from the Computer Active Website
• Register it at the Paragon Website

The serial number will be send to the email that you use in the registration process.

Copy Handler replaces and enhances copy and move operations in Windows by replacing the native software with an advanced version. This is done by registering the shell extension dll once which has the effect that all move and copy commands are performed by Copy Handler.

The author claims that it can speed up file transfers between different partitions of the same physical hard drive by a factor of 6 which is probably a bit to much. A speed difference is visible nevertheless.

The default Copy Handler window lists all file transfers with information such as filename, source and destination and status. Selecting a file lists even more parameters such as transfer speed, buffer size and the full path.

Buttons give you the option to resume, cancel, restart or pause transfers which is great if only a few of the transfers were interrupted. Instead of transferring all files again you only need to select the incomplete ones and click on resume.

The configuration lists an extensive number of settings that can be changed. The system can be shutdown after file transfers, buffer sizes can be changed as well as windows and information that are displayed.

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Copy Handler