I have a 250 gig hd and am reformating today and was wondering how i shuold partition it. I was thinking maybe just two partitions, 1 20 gig for my xp and the rest for media. any suggestions? thnx
2 partitions are the minimum IMHO. one for windows and the other for what ever that way if windows dies you dont loose much. If thats the way you want to do it go for it.
yea i know i want 2, but not sure if its more conveniant to have more, or split other things up. 220 gigs of one partition is still pretty big so i dont knwo if i want to split that up too.
1 for each OS you have 1 for games 1 for misc stuff 1 for downloaded stuff Remember that the first part of the HDD is the fastest.
Hmmm, so maybe 20 gigs for xp, windows folder+program files wont get nay bigger than that, 80 gigs for games, 150 gigs for media & misc.?
That's pretty much an ideal setup above. I've got too many partitions myself: 120gb[5gb-Win2k][13gb-Settings/Temp][7gb-Programs][90gb-Games] 80gb[20gb-MyDoc][20gb-Dump][40gb-Music] 80gb[20gb-Shared][60gb-Video] About to format my main drive, and put on a quad boot. I don't know if zap-wizard still has his partition tutorial up on his site, but I followed that back in January and have stuck with it until now. Very good stuff it was EDIT: Just checked, and http://www.zapwizard.com/ still has his partitioning guide up, head to 'guides>super partitioning' as it may help you out.
wow that guide looks amazing, thnx now to decide how to break things up oh, this will work in XP right? just wanna make sure those programs will work the same on xp.
Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management There you can partition and format your HDD, but anyways, you can do all this from the WinXP install. Sorry if the names aren't exactly like that, my WinXP is in spanish.
You don't have to reformat to reinstall windows if it goes berserk... you can reinstall right over the old copy. Personally I went with a Windows, Games, Media, Backups and Other. Don't do like I did and give windows 5GB though, it's cutting it way too close unless you're really meticulous about installing those little 5mb bits of software (adobe reader and winzip and whatnot) and deleting the temp install stuff from catalyst drivers and whatnot. When I next reformat it'll be 8GB windows and the rest to games (1 36GB raptor, it's currently a RAID0 setup) and have another 80GB drive for everything else which I haven't decided if I'll partition or not.
OK, so I think I have it all set up, Systerm ( C: ), 10 Gb Programs (D: ), 15 gb Media ( E: )140 GB Work - Adobe premeire auto saves, school work, setups, themes, etc ( F: ) 45 GB Temporary Files ( G: ) 5 gb Settings ( H: ) 5 GB Games ( I: ) 30 GB "Even better would be make a Temporary Files only partition, speeding access to your Desktop and Startmenu." I wan't to do that, but I am not sure how exactly i would do it, being the first time i have used either of these programs. If anyone could explain this process step by step to me it would be greatly appreciated
To make a temp partition, you need to change the locations for the temporary folders. To move IE's temporary internet files, I think you can do that within IE itself. As for windows' temp, head to control pane>system>advanced>environment variables. Check out zap-wizard's guide as it explains in detail how to mount program files to a seperate partition, move system folders, sort out the temp thing etc.
ok, so now im partitioning my hdd. Whould i choose extended partition or primary partitions, im googling now but not getting any straight answers.
i have C:windows D:ISOs E:unused F:backupmusic G:backupdocs H:backupProgs l:games JSwapspace K:music L:documents Mrogs thats what you need!
You can have up to 4 primary partitions, so if you're going to have <=4 partitions, stick to primary. AFAIK you can only run an O/S from a primary partition. I've just installed XP PRO SP2 with Server 2003 dual boot, so having fun setting all that up
THIS IS SO ******* *****... im really p/o'd right now. I have all my partitions done butthere are still about 100000000 registry entries for all m$ programs to C:\Program Files. I cannot delete the folder because everything is running from it, and there is no way im changing them all to D:\. Is there something i am doing wrong? I partitioned my hdd like i said i would, and changed locations of everything i oculd through the two programs but im sure there are folders whos paths i deff. did not change b/c there was no option to change them Gah... so yea..im at a total loss and feel like an idiot for not being able to figure this out. hopefully someone can point me inthe right direction
If you're running xp, then this is a problem - I've just found out myself. Mounting and moving the Program Files doesn't seem possible in XP or Server2003 I've found. Though it was perfectly possible with 2000 (ala zapwizard's guide). Simplest thing to do is make sure every program is installed to your programs partition. Leave the original program files where it is. Unless someone else knows a way around mounting/moving program files to another partition.
whoa, thank god. i was getting more and more angry, i thought i was goind something wrong. lol now i feel 1000000x better time to rethink my partitioning, thanks lol but now i need to decide how i shuold do it. Maybe ill just do 2 partitions, one for windows and I would put "my documents" with al my media on the other the other. :walks back to drawing board:
If you're still wanting to move program files to a seperate partition, I found a solution: Install 2 versions of windows, boot into the secondary one to move the files across to your new partition, and also mount it to program files. Then boot into your main O/S and you should find everything runs, from your partition
