Hard Drive partitioning

[Merlin]

I'm diong a system build and including one Mxtor 120Gb sata hdd as the only hdd. any suggestions as to how i should partition this? Thanks,
Merlin

[Ethos]

~8 gig for an Os
~10 gig for permanent software
~102 gig for data

[Alex]

Is there much point having a separate OS and programs partition? After all, wont it much up the program registry if you format one partition with out doing the other anyway?

[Ethos]

Nope.... some programs need to be reinstalled when you format the first windows partition but most don't. I generally keep all my software installs / game updates patchs on there too! Also temp downloads, as these are changing all the time.

[directhex]

my 80gb is split into 8Gb NTFS for Windows & any apps that INSIST on going onto the windows drive, 62.5Gb FAT32 for everything else (media, apps, junk), plus a 4Gb drive for messing about with other OSes

[TiG]

The general rule is OS + apps as one drive and Data as the other.

Personally i go 20GB partition, 40 ish Games, 40 ish Music, development, data etc.

It means that i loose the windows partition i don't loose the games saves (might need to re-install the game for registry keys etc) and i don't loose my data or development stuffs.

TiG

[DizMatt]

I used to partition my hdd's quite often but gave up as I always end up with 2 gigs here and 3 gigs there that is useless

if a HDD goes, it's often the whole thing rather than justa partition in my limited experience

however, you could have a seperate parition for your swapfile, a gig or two
and something for temp internet and tmp/temp files to decrease fragmentation

[Nox]

yeah, i kinda gave up on partitioning my latest drives (dual raptors) was only getting annoyed at my data partition not being big enough previously i know i should atleast have my swap file in seperate partition on this drive, but hmmm, oh well

Nox

[Enverex]

I use the following for my drives...

3-5GB for OS
Rest for Programs

That way I only need to format the OS drive and everything else stays intact even if it requires reinstalling or not. there are other bonuses, i.e. with Office, if it is not installed, but the files are in place on another drive then it will just install the system files and registry entries without actually having to re-copy all the files across. Makes things a bit faster.

NS

[Richie]

Originally posted by NightShade737
, i.e. with Office, if it is not installed, but the files are in place on another drive then it will just install the system files and registry entries without actually having to re-copy all the files across. Makes things a bit faster.

That the REPAIR function it uses ??

[Sibu]

I'm going to be doing the same thing in the near future. I think that having a seperate partition for at leas your OS seems sensible, and maybe another one for programs would help. Thats what im going to try anyways.

[Nox]

im relying on system restore for the repairs... prolly a very bad idea though

Nox

[Agent]

mine's around 3:1 in favour of windows:linux at the moment.
Although as im getting better wih Linux (its supprisingly easy ! ) - i dont see any reason to have the windows partition so big. Pretty much the only game i play (UT2003) has native Linux support, so its only the odd game of generals and such im using windows for now

[TooNice]

Right now I am too lazy to partition my 160gig HD.

But when the time comes, I will probably keep the application with my OS and use the separate partition for Data.

Alternatively I might Dual Boot (XP/98) and have 3 partition (NTFS/FAT32/FAT32), the third partion for the data.

Or I may go mad and Tri-Boot with Linux thrown in

(I have another 120gig HD to play with as well).

[quarryman]

quick question on this subject:

I have all my mp3s stored in the My music folder in windows. If I was to partition now and set windows in a 40 GB partition with separate programs and put my mp3s into the other 20GB can I stlll link it somehow through My Music? I want to be able to go through the Start Bar and access the music directly. I'd imagine this is a matter of shortcuts etc.

Can I partition now even though the OS is installed? sorry, my partition knowledge is limited.

[Richie]

If you partition the old way then you lose all your info on the entire drive OR, you could use Partition magic and try and keep all the info..... Just be ready to clench those butt cheeks