What To Do With A New Computer

I thought it was only fitting to use my first post to explain what a person should do when they get a new computer.  This does not apply to new computers only though—this is also helpful for anyone putting a fresh install of Windows on their computer or just using the same computer they always have in the same Windows OS.  However, this will be most beneficial for those who are starting with a fresh Windows installation.

This post will give a walk through of partitioning your hard drive to have a spot for the operating system and a separate place for personal files and documents and how to back up your partitions using Macrium Reflect.



First thing, I mean the very first thing before you do anything else, when you turn on your computer after Windows is set up and your account is created, the very first thing you should do when you get on your account is partition your hard drive.  To do this, open up the computer manager (if you are installing Windows yourself, you could even do this before you install, assuming you are already running a different version of Windows, or you know how to do this some other way prior to installation).  To open that, if you are running Windows 8, you can simply open My Computer and in the ribbon, there is a button that says "Manage," click that.

 Another way would be to press the Windows key + X (I'm going to call the Windows key "Win" from now on), then click "Computer Management" (or for what we are doing, you can click "Disk Management").  I don't know for sure if that way works in any version other than Windows 8, but I assume it would.  Still another alternative way would be to open the command prompt (Win + R, then type cmd.exe and hit enter), then in the command prompt, type compmgmt.msc and hit enter

When it opens, click on "Disk Management" under "Storage."

In the Disk Management, find the disk that contains your operating system (OS).  If your computer is new, this probably shouldn't be too hard because there is probably only one hard drive (or disk) in your computer.  While some computers come with the hard drive already partitioned, most do not.  If you're one of the people who have a partitioned disk already, then you can skip this section.  A partitioned disk will look something like this:

Here's an explanation of what a partition is: in short, it's just a section of your hard drive, a part of your disk. That's all it really is.  A normal hard drive can have up to four partitions (as you can see, I have used all four of mine).  A partition acts almost as a separate disk or drive that a computer can see.  You can assign a drive letter to a partition, much like how a drive letter is automatically assigned when you plug a flash drive into your computer.  When I open My Computer, I see two separate drives, one on F and one on M.  I didn't assign letters to the other two partitions because those are system reserved and I will never need to look at them (hopefully).

Depending on the computer manufacturer and brand, you may have a couple partitions already.  Mine had three
originally, the middle two, OS and Documents, were combined into one.  If you see a partition that says "System" or "Recovery," leave those alone.  The system one you should probably never touch unless you know what you're doing and the Recovery one you should only use if you absolutely need to.  If a partition like that is assigned a drive letter, I would suggest you remove it (you can right click on the partition and that option is available).  Now for the main reason I brought you to this step, find the partition that contains your OS, mine was helpfully named "OS," but it could also be something like "Windows" or "Toshiba," usually labeled as the C: drive (in my case it's F because I manually changed it).  Right-click that partition and click "Shrink Volume..."  It may take a minute for the Window to open; be patient.

The purpose of partitioning the drive is so you can have one partition completely dedicated to your OS and then have another partition completely dedicated to your documents, files, and other data.  This is very helpful when it comes to keeping your data safe.  For instance, if your computer got a virus, it would generally (not always) only affect the drive with the OS, so your files are safe from harm.  Another example would be if you got the Blue Screen of Death at some point and had to re-install Windows, your files would still be safe on that separate partition.  Anyway, when shrinking the OS partition, I like to leave about 150 GB for the OS.  This includes space for programs that get installed and also for miscellaneous files I need for only a short time.  If you're a person who uses a lot of heavy programs, such as Adobe products, Latex, Matlab, SolidWorks, you may need to give the OS partition some more space.  However, if you are someone who doesn't install much and all you really need is MS Office, you will be fine with 150 GB or maybe even 100.  Either way, keep in mind what you want to shrink that to and the rest of the space will go to a Documents partition.  Remember that you are not entering the amount you want to shrink it to, but you are entering the amount to subtract from it, look at the 4th box, where it shows the total size after the shrinking.  Since computers count on a non-exact base-ten system, 150 GB does not mean 150,000 MB.  If you want yours to be exactly 150 GB, you should probably go with 153,600 MB—that is how big my OS partition is and according to the disk manager it is 150.00 GB.  When you've decided on the size to shrink it by, click Shrink.

Once it finishes shrinking, you will have a clump of unallocated space.  Right click on that and choose "New Simple Volume..."  A wizard will appear to guide you through the process, make sure you give your volume the Maximum disk space available.  Also, don't forget to give it a name..."New Volume" is pretty boring.

When you are done, you now have a place on your computer to store your documents separate from everything else.  Congratulations, you have completed the first thing to do when you get a new computer.

Second, download and install Macrium Reflect from here.  The free version is all you'll really need.  This program is a backup program.  It will back up your hard drives.  Now that you are starting with a completely fresh install of Windows, you should use this program to back up your OS immediately before you do anything else—even browse the web.*  If you can, download it to a flash drive from another computer.  Once you install it, you should immediately back up the partition that contains your OS.

When you open the program, you will again see your hard drives and partitions, very similar to the Disk Management, but with a different style.  Click on the partition that contains your OS and then a button that says "Actions" will appear under it.  Click that, then click "Image this partition only..."

Select a location to save the backup to; if you have a secondary or external hard drive, I suggest you store it on that, otherwise, just store it on the documents partition you just made.  Click "Next," then click "Finish."  This part will take a while, so just take a break.  I suggest you don't use your computer just yet because you won't know what changes you make will be saved to the backup.

While you are waiting for that to finish, think about what you want on your computer, what you want to install and keep forever on it, what you want to do with it when the imaging is done.

When the imaging process is completed, go install those programs you were thinking about and do those things that you want to be permanent changes to your computer (e.g. removing Internet Explorer from the taskbar and installing Google Chrome).  Only do those things that you want permanently done though.

The next step is to make another backup of your personalized new Windows OS; before it was factory new, now it's personalized.  Basically all you do now, is make another backup with Macrium Reflect just as you did before.

I suggest you make a "change log" for everything you do and save it in the same place you save your backup files.  This will help with determining which backup contains what.  About every one or two months, I restore my most recent image to my computer and sometimes I will make new changes I didn't think about the last time I made an image and make a whole new image based on those changes that way the next I restore an image, I don't have to do it again.  Every time I know I will be saving a new image, I make sure to download all updates to all of my programs that are available as well—I just restored something 1-2 months old, I need to install the updates that were pushed in that time.  Now, every one to two months, may seem excessive, but for me it works pretty well.  It keeps my computer running fast and keeps it clean like it's new.  I don't really have to worry too much about anti-virus software because I know I will have a fresh, clean, virus-free PC in a month or two, and if I get a virus, then I can make it clean right then if I need to.  Other people may only need to restore once or twice a year.  I would suggest at least once a year though, just to keep your backup worth keeping.

Please remember, when you are restoring a backup, to go through the whole drive that your OS is on, again that's usually the C drive, and make sure that you have saved everything you want to keep to your documents partition because when you restore, everything will be erased and replaced.  This is also helpful for me because I download a lot of stuff and install a lot of programs that I only use once.  Restoring a backup removes traces of the program from directories that could be missed when uninstalling and from the registry that always seems to get clogged up with junk from old programs (and the registry is a pain to clean).    This is another reason I only install programs I know I will keep forever when I am making a backup.

Tomorrow, I will try to write a post about the programs that I install for forever, why I like them so much, and why I think that everybody should have them.  Then the next day will be about the restoring process.

If you have anything you'd like me to write about or have a question on how to do something with a computer, I would be happy to help.  Just leave a comment or send me an email at michaelzicc44@gmail.com.  I like feedback, so you should comment on this and tell me if you liked it, found it helpful, found it boring, or whatever, let me know; thanks!


*The reason I say you shouldn't even browse the web before making a backup is because the current state of the computer is mint condition.  It's so clean, it's amazing and will never be that clean again until a format or reinstallation.  When you visit a website you get temp files on your computer which eventually become fragments (which is why people defrag their computers).  So basically, if you browse the web first, then your pristine backup has stupid frag files and those will come back every time you restore it.  However, this is just a personal preference; I like clean.

Links
Macrium Reflect: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx