Running OS on its own partition?

I remember a few people saying they run their OS on a partition dedicated to just the OS and all their files on another partition.

I was wondering, how do you still get your files on the other partition and still get them to show up on the program files menu in the start button of Windows XP? Things like documents and settings still store on the OS partition as well.

If anyone knows how to do this that would be great. Thanks

Basically make two partitions. You probably end up with C: and D:
When windows wants to be installed, install it to the C:.
When you install regular proggrams and are asked what location/directory to install under, specify the D:.

But it is impossible to completly install programs to another drive as registry entrys and other system files will install under the windows directory on the C:.

I have no idea how to change the documents and settings location. I imagine if there is a registry entry then it should be possible.

cack01 said:

Basically make two partitions. You probably end up with C: and D:
When windows wants to be installed, install it to the C:.
When you install regular proggrams and are asked what location/directory to install under, specify the D:.

But it is impossible to completly install programs to another drive as registry entrys and other system files will install under the windows directory on the C:.

I have no idea how to change the documents and settings location. I imagine if there is a registry entry then it should be possible.

Click to expand...

Ok, cool. I guess that works Thanks!

@md0Cer said:

Ok, cool. I guess that works Thanks!

Click to expand...

i personaly use a partition for os+programs since it would me much more of a hassle to reinstall the os and configure the register so all programs in their partition work properly.

so, i use a partition for windows and programs and another one for my documents, where i put music, movies and any other stuff. this is quite easy, just right click "my documents" in the windows explorer and set the new location for my docs... obviously in another partition. It will automaticaly move your docs to the new location and stop using the docs and settings folder. Any proggy that wants to acces to my docs will go straight to the new location.

Its very confortable for me since i can reformat os without loosing my stuff or having to save to another hd.

If you are trying to reinstall windows just choose the partition of windows and it will ask you to format, be confy to say yes.

BUT DONT DELETE ANY PARTITION SPECIALY WHEN USING LINUX IN YOUR DRIVE, i once deleted winxp partition with the windows installer and it FUBARED the hds MBR, thus i lost all the info in my hd... if you just reformat partitions youll do fine, just dont delete em

My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\ProgramFilesDir - "d:\program files\"
My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\SFC - "d:\program files"
My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\Session Manager\SFC - "d:\program files"

Don't think you need them all, but its only 2 sec more work.

As several others here I have one part for OS, one part for Program files and documents and the rest on the drive for ... freeware & homevideo? (and four drives as mapped network drives from the server)

Also remember to defrag your c: often:
Here is my little tips:

http://www.morphasys.com/autodefrag/Files/v1.2/AutoDeFrag.exe
AT 22:00 /interactive /every:M,T,W,Th,F,S,Su "autodefrag c"

This schedules a defrag of c: 10 AM every day

PhobMX said:

i personaly use a partition for os+programs since it would me much more of a hassle to reinstall the os and configure the register so all programs in their partition work properly.

so, i use a partition for windows and programs and another one for my documents, where i put music, movies and any other stuff. this is quite easy, just right click "my documents" in the windows explorer and set the new location for my docs... obviously in another partition. It will automaticaly move your docs to the new location and stop using the docs and settings folder. Any proggy that wants to acces to my docs will go straight to the new location.

Its very confortable for me since i can reformat os without loosing my stuff or having to save to another hd.

If you are trying to reinstall windows just choose the partition of windows and it will ask you to format, be confy to say yes.

BUT DONT DELETE ANY PARTITION SPECIALY WHEN USING LINUX IN YOUR DRIVE, i once deleted winxp partition with the windows installer and it FUBARED the hds MBR, thus i lost all the info in my hd... if you just reformat partitions youll do fine, just dont delete em

Click to expand...

Wow good thing i read this thread.

I was thinking of reinstalling my Windows XP partition after 6 months of usage. If i have not read your post i'm sure i would reinstall Windows XP by deleting the Windows XP partition first using Windows Installer. Then reinstalling Windows XP again after the free space (9 GB) is recovered from C: partition. I didn't know until now that this method would mess up the HD MBR and my other D: & E: partitions of my total 80 GB drive.

So your saying that i should just select my Windows partition C: and press 'Enter' and it will prompt me to reformat by clicking 'Yes'? Will it allow me to choose NTFS quick format or full format?

But another question is i want to delete my current 9 GB Windows XP partition C: out of my entire 80GB HD. And instead, install Windows XP onto a seperate smaller primary HD (4 GB).

I'm guessing this will also screw up and ruin all my data in the 80 GB HD if i deleted the Windows partition? I wanted to put Windows XP to smaller HD so it would be better to make a ghost image, faster to restore and much safer. Then i could merge the free 9 GB to my other partitions.

But after reading the problem of the MBR what should i do without messing up the MBR and still keep the data on my D: & E: partitions?

thanks in advance

Ry said:

Wow good thing i read this thread.
So your saying that i should just select my Windows partition C: and press 'Enter' and it will prompt me to reformat by clicking 'Yes'? Will it allow me to choose NTFS quick format or full format?

Click to expand...

its weird man, sometimes i try that way and it does ask to format, others it just wants to "install ove the old install", which is a big nono... maybe we can find a disk manager that formats the win partition so we get rid of the buggyness of the winxp installer.

note that mbr will be fubared ONLY if you have linux or any strange file system along with windows xp. I have 3 partitions, all ntfs resized by partition magic and sometimes i delete winxp partition without any problems.

In short, winxp install will fubar the hd only if you have linux installed, otherwise feel confy to delete winxp partition

I'm a noob at this stuff because this is my first time creating seperate partitions and till now i never did reformat/reinstall any partition to see how it went.

Ok, since i don't have a Linux partition i will delete my Windows XP partition and install it onto another HD. But after installation will Windows XP be automatically labelled C:? I just need to have the 4GB HD set as master on the primary IDE and then set the 80 GB as slave on the secondary IDE?

And i can merge the free 9 GB to either my D: or E: partitions without losing data?

thx!

Ry said:

I'm a noob at this stuff because this is my first time creating seperate partitions and till now i never did reformat/reinstall any partition to see how it went.

Ok, since i don't have a Linux partition i will delete my Windows XP partition and install it onto another HD. But after installation will Windows XP be automatically labelled C:? I just need to have the 4GB HD set as master on the primary IDE and then set the 80 GB as slave on the secondary IDE?

And i can merge the free 9 GB to either my D: or E: partitions without losing data?

thx!

Click to expand...

if you want to merge without worries (and without linux installed) try partition magic. As for the data im not sure, just back it up and give it a try

i wouldn use the 4gb drive as master since that hd must be slow as hell, better sell it for a couple of bucks and set the 80gb one as master and partition it.

Yes, winxp will set its own partition to c: all the time

JohnDoemakt said:

My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\ProgramFilesDir - "d:\program files\"
My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\SFC - "d:\program files"
My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\Session Manager\SFC - "d:\program files"

Don't think you need them all, but its only 2 sec more work.

Click to expand...

And if you don't feel like editing registry entries, TweakUI will also let you let you change these, as well as other* folder locations.

*The list o' folders you can change: CD Burning, Desktop, Document Templates, Favorites, Instalation Path, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Video, Program, Send To, Shared Documents, Shared Music, Shared Pictures, Shared Video, Start Menu, and Startup

JigPu

Just keep in mind that the more partitions you create, the slower disk access is going to be. Setting up your system in that manner may have a few advantages, but is going to cause your drive alot of unnecessary head movements across the disk.

Jon said:

Just keep in mind that the more partitions you create, the slower disk access is going to be. Setting up your system in that manner may have a few advantages, but is going to cause your drive alot of unnecessary head movements across the disk.

Click to expand...

it would be the same than having a badly fragmented drive imho

JigPu said:

And if you don't feel like editing registry entries, TweakUI will also let you let you change these, as well as other* folder locations.

*The list o' folders you can change: CD Burning, Desktop, Document Templates, Favorites, Instalation Path, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Video, Program, Send To, Shared Documents, Shared Music, Shared Pictures, Shared Video, Start Menu, and Startup

JigPu

Click to expand...

its not even that difficult under properties in the My Documents folder change target to D:\My Documents and it will even move files already saved to C:\ over for you if you like (xp pro). other folders are similar

Jon said:

Just keep in mind that the more partitions you create, the slower disk access is going to be. Setting up your system in that manner may have a few advantages, but is going to cause your drive alot of unnecessary head movements across the disk.

Click to expand...

I thought it was the opposite! I have like 8 partitions on my 120gig But it reads faster than with only 1 partition.

synchronomous transfers are slower, but in sandra my smaller partition is faster than my larger one.

PhobMX said:

if you want to merge without worries (and without linux installed) try partition magic. As for the data im not sure, just back it up and give it a try

Click to expand...

I would stay away from partition magic. PM messed up my HDD.
I have an 80G Hitachi SATA and wanted to dual boot WinXP & Linux. Tried using PM to make extfs3 partitions. Seemed to work, but Knoppix spat out all kinds of errors. So I tried Mandrake/Suse and Yoper . Same result. Then I wiped out my Linux partitions and reconverted them to NTFS. No-go. PM spat out error after error. So I said O.K lets cut the Win XP drive C: from 20G to 8G. PM Spat out more errors. I asked around and ppl told me PM isn't as reliable as the make it sound. Like an idiot I didn't back my stuff up so I ended up reinstalling Windows. I partitioned my HDD during the install leaving out unpartitioned space for Linux. Ran Mandrake 10.1 and chose auto partition . Worked great! Now I'm dual booting.

Moral of the story: Avoid PM.

@md0cer..dude I liked your earlier avatar better. who cares for I.M.O.G's neat work

I prefer my OS and programs partitions separate.There are some obvious reasons and others that may not be so obvious.The first is separation of Windows and installed software.They just work better on their own,sure the programs need the dll's stored within the windows installation but once loaded there is no noticeable amount of slowdown in any program as far as I can tell and some things actually seem much faster like my anti virus program and photo deluxe.I can actually run a full system scan on all 320 gigs in less than 20 minutes including an IDE backup drive with a copy of all my other partitions.I should also note that I cannot remember a BSOD that hasn't been hardware related since I first started using this setup,even when I had Win 98.

Secondly,size matters to me as I like a deliberate backup strategy.I can Ghost all three of my important partition to an IDE drive in less than 30 minutes or back. keeping them lean I can also backup all three to separate DVDs in case of IDE failure(or stupidity).I can also defrag any drive within minutes as well as two at once if I like.This can save a lot of time when installing and uninstalling software or games.

I should note that this is most likely only beneficial to a system with two drives whether they are in a raid0 array or separate IDE's the speed increase would most likely be negated by the seek times as Jon noted during load and page file access.Ideally the OS and program partitions should be on separate drives with their own page files for full throttle operation,but I have seen no noticeable difference within a raid0 array because the size of the fastest part of the disk is doubled.

Super Nade said:

I would stay away from partition magic. PM messed up my HDD.
I have an 80G Hitachi SATA and wanted to dual boot WinXP & Linux. Tried using PM to make extfs3 partitions. Seemed to work, but Knoppix spat out all kinds of errors. So I tried Mandrake/Suse and Yoper . Same result. Then I wiped out my Linux partitions and reconverted them to NTFS. No-go. PM spat out error after error. So I said O.K lets cut the Win XP drive C: from 20G to 8G. PM Spat out more errors. I asked around and ppl told me PM isn't as reliable as the make it sound. Like an idiot I didn't back my stuff up so I ended up reinstalling Windows. I partitioned my HDD during the install leaving out unpartitioned space for Linux. Ran Mandrake 10.1 and chose auto partition . Worked great! Now I'm dual booting.

Moral of the story: Avoid PM.

@md0cer..dude I liked your earlier avatar better. who cares for I.M.O.G's neat work

Click to expand...

thats exactly why i said without linux... pm does well with windows, i dont know any other partiton managers though