To Partition or not?

[silon]

yea, the main reason why we format is that theres a prob with windows/get bloated with fat and becomes *unfit* for duties LOL

hmmm i dont see whats the problem with using the windowsXP installation cd for formatting ur partitions... juz create a couple of partitions, format the C, and when u enter windows, go to 'My Computer' and right click on those raw drives and format them from there...

[BlueMagician]

...If you have two seperate drives and you put you Xp on one and your page file on the other it's quicker...

Was thinking through in my head, and having arguments with myself, as to which scenario would be more benificial:

Drive 1: Windows XP Installation (WINNT folder) & Program Files
Drive 2: Windows Pagefile & Personal Data

or

Drive 1: Windows XP Installation (WINNT folder) & Personal Data
Drive 2: Windows Pagefile & Program Files

Opinions?


Back on topic, the only benefits that I've ever seen of multiple partitions on the same physical drive, are that which have already been stated:
Easier, more manageable 'chunks' of drive, to backup & defrag - Windows XP will not suffer or benefit, as such, from using partitions.


S.

[Olly1234]

I use the first option myself, way I look at it if the data needs to be read into memory whilst loading a program, and XP is trying to page some data out to the page file that hasn;t been used for a while, then it'll be able to, whereas if you had programs and page file on the same physical drive it'd have to wait or divide half the time to read and half to write, and thus slow the whole thing down

[BenW]

I would do your option 1 Bluemagician. Keep windows and programs together and keep documents seperate

So if i prefer to have 1 drive as i find it easier there is no point in having more except defragmenting. That doesn't really bother me, just leave it on one night per week

[rob_65]

Partition magic is what I use, but it doesn't detect my SATA hard disks :|

Anyone found a way to overcome this?

[Olly1234]

What version do you have? Both my 120gb disks are on sata channels and it detects them without issue, long as you put your floppy with the drivers in during XP install when the F6 prompt comes up

[rob_65]

I've tried both 7 and 8...

They just dont get detected I don't see why the F6 thing is relevant cause the booting from floppy doesn't look for those drivers does it?

Also, i'd go with option 1 BlueMagician.

[RDL]

You need 3 partitions. A 10gb XP partition, a 30gb Data partition and a 120gb Apps partition. You can automatically make apps route to E: for instance, so this isn't a problem. Also this means you only ever have to defrag one partition which is always nice. Also, since you have a load of space, make yourself a fourth partition, a page file one of say 1gb, as that speeds things up.

[BlueMagician]

...the only benefits that I've ever seen of multiple partitions on the same physical drive, are that which have already been stated: Easier, more manageable 'chunks' of drive, to backup & defrag - Windows XP will not suffer or benefit, as such, from using partitions...

...So if i prefer to have 1 drive as i find it easier there is no point in having more except defragmenting...

Yes, IMHO..


And thanks to all with the feedback on the drive configs - sorry for the OT - but that's helped me get my head round it..

S.

[Olly1234]

They just dont get detected I don't see why the F6 thing is relevant cause the booting from floppy doesn't look for those drivers does it?

You have to install your SATA drivers from floppy at the start of XP install if you plan to have your SATA as your boot drive (at least on the NF7-S you do) otherwise Windows won't detect the disks on SATA during install, although on the AN8-SLi Deluxe I just built there was no need to do this as it the NVidia ports seem to have built in code.

[shiato storm]

forgive the newbie Q but whats the page file, and how do you configure windows to put it somewhere else?
i've got a 160gb drive on order and was definitely going to partition OS and progs.+files, but is a third necessary? and i wasn't too sure about the method explained on how to - when reinstalling windows - recover dll's and that sort of thing, no idea what HKCU/HKLM is either!
is there a good place (not that there are many after hexus ) where I can find out about this sort of stuff? cause as we all know XP inevitably needs scrubbing and reinstalling so any way of making this less painful can only be beneficial
i suppose the answer is to have two physical drives...

[Olly1234]

Page File - Area of disk set aside for windows to use as an extension of Physical system RAM. 32 bit systems can only address up to 2048 meg RAM so there would be no point having a gig or ram and 2 gig page file. Better to set a page file rather then let windows do it dynamically as otherwise your page file gets fragged, and hence slower

HKLM - HKey Local Machine
HKCU - HKey Current User

Have read of this for everything about page files http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle....tno=143&pgno=0

[shiato storm]

32 bit systems can only address up to 2048 meg RAM so there would be no point having a gig or ram and 2 gig page file.

hmmm...nope, lost on that one.

Better to set a page file rather then let windows do it dynamically as otherwise your page file gets fragged, and hence slower

...agree on that one!!

[Olly1234]

Sorry 32 bit as in the AMD XP series of processors running Windows, AMD64's as beings 64 bit (although you'd need the 64 bit build of XP to address more memory than 2 gig, the SLi Deluxe I just built can have up to 4 gig of RAM on the board )

[BlueMagician]

forgive the newbie Q but whats the page file, and how do you configure windows to put it somewhere else?

The pagefile is a 'snapshot' or dump of memory information that is either too big to fit, or not currently needed, in your physical RAM.

Whenever Windows uses the pagefile instead of physical RAM, 'memory' data is being accessed from the Hard Disc (a mechanical device with 5-10 millisecond latency), as opposed to from your RAM (solid state 2-10 nanosecond latency) - each response to a request by the OS for data is therefore slower, and results in a more sluggish desktop environment.

I suppose, from a "pagefile data not getting fragged up with loads of other data" point of view, sticking the pagefile in its own logical partition on the same drive, does have its benefits. However to see a real benefit of redirecting pagefile store, it must be to a SEPARATE physical disc, preferably one that is not being hammered for anything else on a regular basis.
But nothing is a substitute for huge gigabyte wedges of RAM, so that Windows rarely has to bother the pagefile in the first place (although it will do anyway )

Windows XP can be forced to store the pagefile in a different location, by going to System Properties > Advanced > Performance: Settings > Advanced > Virtual Memory: Change


Sorry for babbling, HTH,
S.

[BenW]

So if i was to create a 10GB (Windows), 512MB (Pagefile), 20GB (Apps) and 130.5GB (Documents/music/dvds etc) and found out after a month that i needed some extra space on the apps partition could i take a chunk out of the documents partition without messing up the partitions?

Thanks guys, very grateful
Ben