part magic 8 counselling

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

hi Jbirdie, i would use partiton magic to create a new partition on the drive. the new partiton should show up in explorer and you could drag/drop the files there. ive only used part. magic to partition my hd in order to install linux on it. linux did the formating. what i would do is create a small partition like 2-3gb. most likely part. magic will do the formating and drive lettering. see how it works out, if all goes as planned delete that part. with magic and create a new larger one for all you files. it is possible to mix sata and ide drives also. i run my os off a sata and have a 120gb ide for audio/video and other files i dont want to lose. its on the secondary ide channel as the slave. one advantage of this is that if the main drive croaks, you still have your files. on the other. shelf life

tks for the reply but you left me a bit confused. how can i plug in an ide connector to a sata connector??? do you mean use one of the optical drives for my hard drive? if thats what you meant, thats the first thing i thought of but i use both optical drives heavily, so i had to shelve that idea. do you know if somebody makes an adapter that will go sata to ide and back to sata??? i have worn google out as well as a few other hardware sites and cant find that specific config…i can find adapters that go the other way but not sata to ide and back. if you know plz be a hero and tell me.btw i got the partitioning done with no probs, now i'm tryin to figure out how to xfer 70+gb of free space on drive c to new drive f…oh well it will dawn on me . tkz again for your help, aloha

hi Jbirdie, your mobo has two IDE channels, a primary and secondary. you can put two devices on each one. put a hd on the secondary ide channel as slave. on my set up i have a 80gb sata drive with linux and windows. on the secondary ide channel i have both a dvd burner and my 120 gb hd with the jumper in the slave position on the hd. my primary channel is empty. you have two optical drives? add the hd to the secondary channel as a slave. you can plug two devices into each channel/ribbon cable. shelf life