<< <<You can format C without destoying the data on D, but you would lose the linkages
from the OS that was on C to your stuff on D.
Is that what you were asking?>>
i dont know what you mean by linkages, I thought that having a secondary partion with my backup files would work just in case of my primary c: had a hardware problem.
but i guess that BOTH partions would be affected right? >>
OK, first of all, if your first partition (c🙂 has a "hardware problem" then most likely the whole drive will fail, including the second partition (d🙂. What the second partition would do is give you some storage space that would be untouched if you were to, say, wipe your Win98 installation to clean out the junk that accumulates in there over time. That's not really a "hardware problem" per se.
As for "linkages," I think tenoc means that if, for example, the OS were on c: but you installed a game to d:/program files/gametitle, you would have registry entries and other windows references on c: referring to files on d:. That's kind of bad, because if you wipe c:, any programs you installed to d: probably wouldn't work properly, if at all.
So you don't want to actually install a program to the second partition. But you can store *static* data there just fine - stuff like MP3's, backups of downloaded drivers, pr0n, etc. That kind of data doesn't require any modification to the OS files on c:.
But, um... flexy has a point, especially if your data is important - you need to learn a lot more about disk management and this may not be the best way to do so. I would suggest shelling out the money for a burner.