Partition an 80GB hard drive

[Suhas]

I just got a new Dell with an 80 GB hard drive. Considering my old
computer had 13 GB, 80 is a lot; at least for me.
Anyway, I have Partition Magic 8 already installed. I have Windows XP
with 1GB of ram and a 2.8Ghz P4 processor. I also have Microsoft
Office 2003 Basic Edtion.
I need to know how many partitions to make and what partitions to
make.
I am a student so I do write frequent documents. I also play 2-3
games. I don't have any music on my computer.
With that in mind, what partitions should I make and how big does each
one need to be?

Thanx
Suhas

 

[Rod Speed]

I just got a new Dell with an 80 GB hard drive. Considering
my old computer had 13 GB, 80 is a lot; at least for me.

Anyway, I have Partition Magic 8 already installed. I have
Windows XP with 1GB of ram and a 2.8Ghz P4 processor.
I also have Microsoft Office 2003 Basic Edtion.

I need to know how many partitions
to make and what partitions to make.

I am a student so I do write frequent documents. I also
play 2-3 games. I don't have any music on my computer.

With that in mind, what partitions should I
make and how big does each one need to be?

There is a lot to be said for just one partition even with a drive that large.

The main exception is if you choose to ghost your OS and programs
partition for safety just before installing anything or allowing any online
updates to be done, so you can restore the image if things go pear
shaped. You clearly need somewhere to put that image, it cant go
into the partition you are imaging. And in that situation you can make
a case for a separate partition for the stuff you create or save from
the web, just so the safety image of the OS and programs can be
done as quickly as possible so you are more likely to do one before
installing something or applying an update.

The main problem with more than one partition is that its hard to decide
what sizes they should be and dangerous to the data in them to change
the sizes later. And you cant easily predict what sizes you will need too.

 

[Joe]

I just got a new Dell with an 80 GB hard drive. Considering my old
computer had 13 GB, 80 is a lot; at least for me.
Anyway, I have Partition Magic 8 already installed. I have Windows XP
with 1GB of ram and a 2.8Ghz P4 processor. I also have Microsoft
Office 2003 Basic Edtion.
I need to know how many partitions to make and what partitions to
make.
I am a student so I do write frequent documents. I also play 2-3
games. I don't have any music on my computer.
With that in mind, what partitions should I make and how big does each
one need to be?

Thanx
Suhas

Well, you may not want to take advice from me bearing in mind the
disaster I've just had, but I like a 4 gb or thereabouts for a system
partition. This fits nicely on a DVD-RW(I have a DVD-RAM), so backing
up and restoring your sytem is trivial(which means you actually do
it). Your remaining data partition can be anything you like.
I have(had) 3. 1 small system, i medium size, say 10-20 gb for large
but non critical installations such as games etc, and a large
partition for my data, in my case video files.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

.....I like a 4 gb or thereabouts for a system
partition. This fits nicely on a DVD-RW(I have a DVD-RAM),
so backing up and restoring your sytem is trivial(which means
you actually do it). [.....]

How long does it take to transfer 4GB to (your) DVD-RAM?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Barry OGrady]

I just got a new Dell with an 80 GB hard drive. Considering my old
computer had 13 GB, 80 is a lot; at least for me.
Anyway, I have Partition Magic 8 already installed. I have Windows XP
with 1GB of ram and a 2.8Ghz P4 processor. I also have Microsoft
Office 2003 Basic Edtion.
I need to know how many partitions to make and what partitions to
make.
I am a student so I do write frequent documents. I also play 2-3
games. I don't have any music on my computer.
With that in mind, what partitions should I make and how big does each
one need to be?

One partition of 80 GB.

Thanx
Suhas

-Barry
========
Web page: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~barry.og
Atheist, radio scanner, LIPD information.
Voicemail/fax number +14136227640

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I just got a new Dell with an 80 GB hard drive. Considering my old
computer had 13 GB, 80 is a lot; at least for me.
Anyway, I have Partition Magic 8 already installed. I have Windows XP
with 1GB of ram and a 2.8Ghz P4 processor. I also have Microsoft
Office 2003 Basic Edtion.
I need to know how many partitions to make and what partitions to
make.
I am a student so I do write frequent documents. I also play 2-3
games. I don't have any music on my computer.
With that in mind, what partitions should I make and how big does each
one need to be?

Why make partitions at all? The cost of hard drives has gotten
so low that it's practical to put in a 2nd hard drive to act as a backup
medium. You don't have to decide if something is data, temporary
data, an app, a download, a seldom-used utility, an update, an old
version, part of the system, etc. You just clone the entire disk image
periodically to the 2nd hard drive. And since imaging utilities such
as Drive Image, et. al., can be instructed not to transfer empty sectors,
your backups should go quickly. If you have to restore a single file
or an entire disk image, you can do it easily and quickly without
futzing around with keeping track of stacks of CDs, Zip disks, DVDs,
or whatever. You could even keep multiple backups of the primary
disk on the 2nd disk if you use the compression feature, or... you
could just get a 2nd disk larger than the primary disk for your
multiple backups. Initially, though, since you now use only a fraction
of your primary disk, a 2nd disk of the same size would be plenty.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Tod]

Making the drive as one big partition would work fine.

On my 80GB drive, I made 2 partitions.
Primary partition is 40GBs
then made the second partition with what was left over, which is about 35GBs
I have Win XP and all programs on primary.
I use the second partition as a data dump.
Also keep copies of the latest drivers for my hardware on the secondary.
If my operating system ever gets messed up, I can just completely wipe the
primary partition,
reload Win XP and my programs and reload drivers from secondary drive.

 

[Suhas]

Well, you may not want to take advice from me bearing in mind the
disaster I've just had, but I like a 4 gb or thereabouts for a system
partition. This fits nicely on a DVD-RW(I have a DVD-RAM), so backing
up and restoring your sytem is trivial(which means you actually do
it). Your remaining data partition can be anything you like.
I have(had) 3. 1 small system, i medium size, say 10-20 gb for large
but non critical installations such as games etc, and a large
partition for my data, in my case video files.

I would do that but unfortunately i don't have a DVD burner. I only
have a CD-RW burner

 

[Suhas]

There is a lot to be said for just one partition even with a drive that large.

The main exception is if you choose to ghost your OS and programs
partition for safety just before installing anything or allowing any online
updates to be done, so you can restore the image if things go pear
shaped. You clearly need somewhere to put that image, it cant go
into the partition you are imaging. And in that situation you can make
a case for a separate partition for the stuff you create or save from
the web, just so the safety image of the OS and programs can be
done as quickly as possible so you are more likely to do one before
installing something or applying an update.

The main problem with more than one partition is that its hard to decide
what sizes they should be and dangerous to the data in them to change
the sizes later. And you cant easily predict what sizes you will need too.

How would i ghost my OS? Do i need special software like norton ghost?

Thanks
Suhas

 

[Rod Speed]

How would i ghost my OS? Do i need special software like norton ghost?

Yep, the two main ones are Norton Ghost and PowerQuest Drive Image.

Ghost is amazingly cheap if you buy SystemWorks Pro off places like ebay.

 

[Joe]

I would do that but unfortunately i don't have a DVD burner. I only
have a CD-RW burner

Don't matter too much....you can still backup. A compressed Ghost
image of a 4 GB partition , say half full, comes to about 1gb tops.
You'd only need 2 CDRW's to backup your OS and important docs and
things like firewalls, browsers, WP, etc.