[quote author=“gotolam”]

you can still have infected files on the 2nd partition if you have a real bad case virus infection.. it depends on what virus you choose.

Isn’t that what i just said?  I’m not for or against parititioning, i was just saying it’s a matter of personal preference. 

And i am the kind of guy that reformats evey couple months….it makes me feel like i have a new computer all over again…    When i do, i just plug in an external drive, copy the My Documents folder (and a few other things like PST files) and then reformat away.  After i’m done, i just load back all the files to My Documents.

My point was that the second partiiton is no different than using a particular folder that you store everything in.

Point taken… I guess my next project is to save money to buy external hard drive for backup.. in terms of transfering files from external hard drive, is it fast by your experience?  I did it before but man it’s slow.. better if I put it all in CDs hehe that’ll be ridiculous.. thank God for DVD disc.. now it’s 4 to 1 per disc..  but anywho I’ll try getting external hard drive..

and they’re reasonably fast…anything USB 2.0 or firewire will do you good.  There are several comparison studies between the two technologies but they boil down to immaterial as far as i’m concerned.  That being the case, i always go for the USB option b/c its more ubiquitous. 

Also, I would go with a roll-your-own solution…much cheaper.  Go to http://www.newegg.com and search on hard rives and external enclosures.  The enclosures are about 30-40 apiece for 3.5” hard drives and you get get a HD for around 75cents a GB.

Much cheaper than some fancy all-in-one you can get at best buy.