Mobile Partitions

What is partitioning - Freecom Mobile External Drive 250gb?

Have just purchased the above external drive with the purpose of providing a back-up for my files held on my Windows XP desktop. The software manual helpfully describes how to delete a partition, then it describes how to create a partition. That is all very good but it doesn't explain the nature and purpose of a partition but seems to imply I need to delete one or create one before I can proceed with using it. On my desktop there are two account users and I am wondering whether partitioning has something to do with facilitating the backing up of files in different accounts which share the same name such as "my documents" or "my pictures".

Public Comments

1. simply put a partitioning is a way of splitting a drive....a 100 gb drive can be partitioned in to to 50 gb drives,... i do this for saftey on every pc i build... windows goes on the first partition...once its fired up there will anso be a 50 gb ''d'' drive...all importand stuff goes in there,so on the off chance Windows buggers up,or the c drive isn't accessible everything on the d drive is still safe....
2. Be very careful with partitioning! It wipes the disk completely. If you make a mistake and partition you existing drive, your Windows will be gone. Most new drives would be partitioned with a single partition so that it would should up with a single drive letter, like D: drive. Most drives come partitioned, if not, you should first use 'Disk Management' to familiarize yourself with what you have already prior to installing the new drive. Just so you know, once a drive is partitioned, it is blank. Then it is 'formatted'. If you are using Windows, I suggest NTFS, quick format. Then you are ready to store stuff. You usually simply create a seperate 'folder' to save another persons files. That is enough to keep them seperate and not overwrite each other.
3. Another point to consider is that if you partition a drive with NTFS and then try and conenct it to an Xbox 360 to view the music or videos you wont be able to.
4. There is no need to partition your external hard drive.I would simply advise you to create an organised system of folders.This will maintain a sense of order & allow fast location of data in the future.Do not be confused by the technical jargon,your drive is simply plug & play.