Partioning a harddrive??????????????

[NcBaller1985]

I got WAY to much ish on my 80gb Seagate Barracuda so i am going to erase everything and do a clean install of Windows XP Home Edition. I read somewhere that it is good to create a seperate partion for Windows XP and then another one for all your other stuff like non-windows such as AIM, Norton System Works, etc. Is this true????

If so how much space do I need to make the partion for Windows XP???

Also, will games work and load faster if I make a seperate for them to?????

I need to know the answer to these questions ASAP as I want to begin the long a$$ process of a clean install tonight.

[sangapski]

i only have a seperate partition for the important files (docs / mp3s / downloads)

i have 80gig drive
30 for OS and progs
50 for my important files

[cack01]

Partioning a HDD is mainly for organizational purposes, or to install multiple operating systems.

Your system performance will not change. If the OS is written on the faster part of the platter (which I think is the inner) than the OS may run faster but the difference is almost negligible. I say just keep it as one physical drive.

[allen337]

i always partition my hard drive out, but i also use fat 32 for xp/2000 also, i found if you use around 10 gigs for your operating system and you can use whatever else for storage, just seems to run better. ALLEN

[Ravsitar]

Here's my setup for the 80GB harddrive I'm usig at the moment

10GB for windows and a few programs (drivers, directx, office)
20 GB for programs
20 GB for My Documents and important data
~10 GB for Extra (this is where I don't load things to to keep the other partitions from fragmenting too much)

This is how I'll setup my new computer too. I really like the layout. Another reason to do this is for faster reinstalling. All I have to do is copy anyhting important to the Extra partition (program settings updates and such), format Windows and Programs partitions and reinstall. I also had a bad experience with a program's unistall feature. Instead of just removing it's \program files\prog folder it removed the \program files\ . So basically all my prgrams were deleted. Man that sucked. I was glad it didn't try to remove c:\ too!

[NcBaller1985]

I tired doing the partion thing but when I installed something on the partion I wanted to use for programs, it still took up space on partion for windows. Why is this????????

[Ravsitar]

Which programs? Some programs will place files in the Common Files folder in the Program Files folder. Meaning the folder Windows thinks is the program files folder. As long as the majority of the program is on the partition you want I wouldn't wory too much about it.

[Disputant]

I partition mine like this...

20 for Windows
20 for all the install files and documents
40 for all movies and other media

This way if you computer ever gets trashed, you can format C: and reload Windows without losing your data, hopefully.

[Southpaw]

My partition-

10 - XP and associated files
20 - programs
20 - games
70 - decoding/encoding (NTFS)