Hard drives partitioning question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aradur
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A

Aradur

Been lurking in newsgroups and have just realised its a good idea to have
additional partitions on hard drives.

Glad to have opinion/ideas on how best to manage this.

I have two hard drives installed, neither of which have more than one
partition...and both only about 5% used at the mo:-

C: 120gb on which is Windows XP pro, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MS
Office, PaintShop Pro, Norton Utilities, Norton Anti Virus and a few other
minor programs

F: 60gb used just for backing up - data from My Docs, My pics etc

Was thinking changes along the following lines but would welcome comment
from experienced members:-

C: Partition into 1 x 10gb for Windows XP Pro,

1 x 50gb for Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MS Office, PaintShop Pro,
Norton Utilities, Norton Anti Virus and a few other minor programs and any
additional progs added from time to time

1 x 60gb for data for the above programs

F: Partition into 2 x 30gb for backing up - not sure why though :)

Notes.

1. I'm not a gamer

2. Will it be ok to keep the swap file on the XP partition or is it a good
idea to have dedicated partition for that?

3.Do I need to, or will it be best to start with a clean sheet - ie reformat
the drives, reload windows to the one and then allocate the partitions or is
it possible to/uncomplicated to add the partitions to the drives as they are
now? However I partition either or both drives I'd prefer not to use Fdisk
or other software prog as have had zero experience with - wish to use the XP
pro disc management that seemed to be user friendly when I fixed the two
hard drives a week or so ago.

Many thanks,

Pete
 
Oops, sorry Aradur i sent my original reply by email, I hit the wrong key!

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Well in my opinion, and that counts for nowt, I would only bother
partitioning the first drive into say 60/60.

The hassle of keep changing defaults for programs that usually write to c:
(and I don't mean installations, but OE and suchlike that are not easily
changed from default save locations) would not be worth the trouble.

10 gb for a Windows XP installation will soon be eaten up.

Partitioning eats up storage space that would otherwise be available, and
access times slow down on the partitions.

I haven't got any concrete evidence for any of the above, just what I have
found from experience.

BTW I would recommend Partition Magic, it is a superb utility that lets you
control resizing/partitioning from within the Windows environment, that does
its work from DOS on the next reboot.

Hope this helps,

Neil
 
Aradur said:
Been lurking in newsgroups and have just realised its a good idea to have
additional partitions on hard drives.

Glad to have opinion/ideas on how best to manage this.

I have two hard drives installed, neither of which have more than one
partition...and both only about 5% used at the mo:-

C: 120gb on which is Windows XP pro, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MS
Office, PaintShop Pro, Norton Utilities, Norton Anti Virus and a few other
minor programs

F: 60gb used just for backing up - data from My Docs, My pics etc

Was thinking changes along the following lines but would welcome comment
from experienced members:-

C: Partition into 1 x 10gb for Windows XP Pro,

1 x 50gb for Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MS Office, PaintShop Pro,
Norton Utilities, Norton Anti Virus and a few other minor programs and any
additional progs added from time to time
Click to expand...

I see no point in installing above mentioned software onto a
seperate partition.
a) Should you ever need to wipe, reformat and reinstall XP, you'd
need to reinstall those programs too.
b) The bulk of mentioned program files intergrate into the \windows,
\windows\system and \windows\system32 directories anyway, so
what's the point in seperating the remaining files?
1 x 60gb for data for the above programs
Click to expand...

Seperating data off the OS partition is always a good idea.
F: Partition into 2 x 30gb for backing up - not sure why though :)
Click to expand...

Good point - what for?. Below I have detailed my HDD partition
setup, but first .....
Notes.
1. I'm not a gamer

2. Will it be ok to keep the swap file on the XP partition or is it a good
idea to have dedicated partition for that?
Click to expand...

The XP swap file (or called virtual memory) does not vary in size like it
does in say W98SE. It's probably irrelevant where you situate the swap
file, just make sure the partition is formatted the same as XP (NTFS vs
FAT32).
3.Do I need to, or will it be best to start with a clean sheet - ie reformat
the drives, reload windows to the one and then allocate the partitions or is
it possible to/uncomplicated to add the partitions to the drives as they are
now?
Click to expand...

I've easily resized, deleted and created partitions with the OS fully
intact.
That does not mean the shit ain't gonna hit the fan though, so make sure
your data is safe (on the second HDD). In your case the existing partition
is virtually unused, so I'd not hesitate to downsize the OS partition and
then play with the rest to your hearts content. Do a defrag first though.
However I partition either or both drives I'd prefer not to use Fdisk
or other software prog as have had zero experience with - wish to use
the XP pro disc management that seemed to be user friendly when I
fixed the two hard drives a week or so ago.
Click to expand...

"Bootit" is easy as pie, but use what you're comfortable with. I like the
fact that the OS is not running while I'm shifting partitions, but XP may
have mastered that - as it has many other things compared to previous
windows versions.

Here is my setup - for what it's worth:

Primary drive, 120gig into
c: - 30gig with XP and ALL installed software and OE data
e: - 60gig for other data files, CD images, downloaded software,
CD burning projects and personal stuff like photo's and movies.
That partition also has a folder named 'Program Files' which contains
stand alone software that doesn't integrate into windows.
f: - 30gig originally intended for a second OS (linux), but I currently
use it for my own backups as well as intermediate client backups
while I work on their machines.

The second drive (6gig) is my old machine's HDD and (still) has two
partitions. One still contains parts of my old OS which I suppose I
could wipe now and the other I use to additionally backup
irreplaceable stuff on a seperate physical drive.

Long story short is that no matter how you organise your partitions,
you'll find room for an alternative and better arrangement within a few
months .... or whatever. Give careful consideration to the format you
wish to use. In my case I've formatted NTFS to the OS partition
(c: drive) and FAT32 for the rest.

Just my 2c .....
Cheers.
 
I would agree with the other poster that installing the default file system
for the OS of your choice on the OS partition is the best idea - e.g., if
you have win xp or win 2k, put on ntfs. Next, in a few years time you may
want to dabble with a different operating system and might not want to
reinstall everything again, so its important to choose the right partition
sizes and the right formats.

Personally I always store my data on several partitions (duplicating where
necessary as well) and always in fat32 format. This is simply because all
versions of windows can read and write to it and linux / unix can do too.
The problem may come if you want to use *nix to C_write_ data to a non fat*
partition. Hence my main partitioning rule of thumb, always use fat32 for
the non-OS partitions.

Apart from that choose as you see fit. Partitioning should really be about
organising data centered around you as the user and protecting data from the
OS. By putting say a partition with photos on them, helps you to organise
the data as well as keeping it away from the OS when it finally sinks,
needing a reinstall. Reinstalling your OS after you've partitioned wisely is
great - reinstall back to the original OS partition and bang, there's your
data on the other partitions as they always were. That's the main benefits.
Swap files, etc are the next concern and where to put them, but a general
rule is put about 100MB min and max on each partition and with a good stock
of memory, your machine's performance will be fine.

Hope that helps.
 
You need to repartition the harddrives first, which will erase everything on
them. Then format the C partition and install Windows on it. Then, while
in Windows, format the remaining drives. Then reinstall all your other
software.
 
Aradur said:
Been lurking in newsgroups and have just realised its a good idea to have
additional partitions on hard drives.

Glad to have opinion/ideas on how best to manage this.

I have two hard drives installed, neither of which have more than one
partition...and both only about 5% used at the mo:-

C: 120gb on which is Windows XP pro, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MS
Office, PaintShop Pro, Norton Utilities, Norton Anti Virus and a few other
minor programs

F: 60gb used just for backing up - data from My Docs, My pics etc

Was thinking changes along the following lines but would welcome comment
from experienced members:-

C: Partition into 1 x 10gb for Windows XP Pro,

1 x 50gb for Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MS Office, PaintShop Pro,
Norton Utilities, Norton Anti Virus and a few other minor programs and any
additional progs added from time to time

1 x 60gb for data for the above programs

F: Partition into 2 x 30gb for backing up - not sure why though :)

Notes.

1. I'm not a gamer

2. Will it be ok to keep the swap file on the XP partition or is it a good
idea to have dedicated partition for that?

3.Do I need to, or will it be best to start with a clean sheet - ie reformat
the drives, reload windows to the one and then allocate the partitions or is
it possible to/uncomplicated to add the partitions to the drives as they are
now? However I partition either or both drives I'd prefer not to use Fdisk
or other software prog as have had zero experience with - wish to use the XP
pro disc management that seemed to be user friendly when I fixed the two
hard drives a week or so ago.

Many thanks,

Pete
Click to expand...
What makes you think you need more than one partition per drive? If you
don't understand the way things work why bother confusing yourself even
more? Learn file management to see that all these PARTITIONS are not even
worth the troubles they themselves can bring on. Multiple partitioning is a
thing of the past.
 
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