So I thought this would be a reasonable place for the question. So, What is the best size partition to put windows 7 on, and windows 7 only. So if my computer messes up, I can just format that partition.
Depends how much space your applications/games take up. What size is your hard drive? how much data do your have? I set aside 120gb of my 1tb drive for windows, only using 50gb or so.
Well I have a western digital Caviar Black and its 640GB. My steam folder, where all my games are is currently 168GB, but will grow a fair bit I reckon. Also my apps don't take up a great deal, and my music/videos are about 25-35GB, maybe upto 50GB. Also, I have a Samsung spinpoint 250GB, which I could either use or just not bother!
Well it depends how old the samsung is, look at the specs online and see if its faster than the WD one or not. Having all your data on one drive and system on the other may improve performance a little, as the system can access both at the same time.
I have a 2 partition setup: - Considering that I have all my applications, including Steam on my D:\ drive. - My C:\ drive where I have Windows 7 and only WIndows7 is 100GB. - I also link Document, Pictures, and Videos to my D:\ drive. SO that I don't have to worry about them when I re-install Windows (as only the C:\ drive is formatted, and I don't have anything personal in it). 100GB is very safe. I am actually consuming ~40GB. I left so much room, for Service Pack (in this case SP1, and possibly future Service Pack's), Windows updates, applications settings and temporary files, internet cache, and so on, with extra room to allow defragmentation. Technically speaking Windows only needs 16GB as the pure minimum (free clean install, 0 update)
*chokes* ...and there's me with a 9-month old system using just 1.5GB on its Windows (XP) partition. WiryRocketeer, you'll need to relocate the Program Files folder and Users folders which are non-trivial but do-able, especially on a fresh installation (without doing this, there isn't much point in dual partitioning though). You also may want to consider relocating the pagefile and hibernation files - not so necessary but these tend to be large. I'll wager that Picky88's figures are due to one or other of these folders being in his Windows partition. With that done, you only need to worry about how much data will end up in the Windows folder (with the \WinSxS and \System32 subfolders having the most data - even on a 64-bit system ). I would suggest that 20-30GB + pagefile size + hibernation file size (if you are not relocating these files) should provide plenty of room for expansion without wasting too much space.
You don't need to re-locate these folders. You can install program where ever you want, they don't need to be specifically in Program Files. App Data is few MegaBytes, you can copy that to the D:\ partition when you are about to re-install if you want to carry out your programs settings.
I decided to use 50GB, which is fine as long as I don't forget to install something on my programs partition
That's what I've been doing anyway GoodBytes installing programs where ever I like lol, not necessarily in the program files/x86 folder
Most well-behaved installers will let you do this - but relocating it saves having to select the new folder specifically for future installs. Many games store their saves in AppData, which can easily involve hundreds of MB (or even a few GB).
Right, I've formatted my B drive, is there anything I need to do before I install windows on a 60GB partition? And if it all goes kaput, I have my C drive still waiting! Thanks, Wiry
That is why you make that partition 100GB. or 150GB if it makes you sleep better. We all have pretty much 1TB HDD... why is this even a question. Make 200GB, if you wan, it really doesn't mather, size is not an issue. But make it too small at first.. then it will be complicated and very very time consuming to expend that C:\ partition and risk data corruption.
Windows drive is always C:\, even if you make D:\ or A:\... it will be C:\ when you are inside. Microsoft had to forces this, because many programs don't use monikers to jump to right location. Example, instead of using: %AppData%\My Software, to get the path of AppData path, to store stuff for my software, they use: C:\Users\GoodBytes\AppData\My Software (or the Legacy Windows path). I suggest to make C:\ for Windows, D:\ for your Data. Skip A:\ and B:\ which are commonly use for floppy drive. Why? Well the same reason we still have scroll lock, and pause/break button on our keyboards: Legacy.
Well what I'm trying to do is format my B drive which I will change to C, then change my C drive to D. But I don't want to change the C to D yet because I'm not formatting my C drive until I am sure that my new install of windows works. What letter shall I change my "going to be C drive to"...and then if I'm changing it to C, then will that mean changing my C drive's letter to something like D for the meantime..All confusing!
Windows WILL make it C:\. No mater what you do, Windows will be C:\ weather you like or not. You can change it before or after you install Windows 7... it will come back to C:\ as you restart your computer. And I think it will make a mess at the end (2x: C:\ drive).
would It work by just unplugging my sata on my c drive and then booting as If I've never had an OS on this computer?
I did it and it came up with a horrible nasty error: windows failed to load because the system registry file is missing bearing in mind that I have no drivers or anything on the drive. What shall I do ?
