Partitions

[Spudhead]

I've finally given up on my old Win98 at home and am about to put XP on it, but I'd like to do it on two partitions - one OS, one data. I have no idea how big a partition I need for XP. Bearing in mind I've just had to read an article on "how to format your hard drive", anyone got any advice?

[Dingbat]

I would suggest that your first partition be not less than 4000 mg. All other partitons can be any size.

Dingbat

[liorean]

About 4-5 GiB for the Windows partition is good, but if you wish you can make it smaller. The minimum lies at ~2 GiB for Win2k when you've installed some fifty programs or so, I'd guess WinXP is somewhat larger.. I'd suggest that the first thing you do when you've installed the OS is to create the folders you want on the data partition and then directly edit the registry entries for programs, user data, temporary files directory etc. locations, if you want them on the other partition.

[Roy Sinclair]

Size the data partition for what you expect to store in data plus room for growth then give the rest to the OS. It's not because the OS will need that but when you install a lot of programs there's no good reason to put them into the data partition since an OS reload will require them to be re-installed and by default all those programs will want to install on the partition with the OS anyway. Since many programs today take even more space than the OS (especially games) it behooves you to make enough room for them in the first place.

[liorean]

I'd personally make a set of partitions, one for games (large, allow for some expansion), one for OS (small), one ofr programs (medium, allow for some expansion), and one for the rest (large, allow for huge expansion). Then I would resize them if I see the estimated size or expansion being way off.

[oracleguy]

Just go with two partitions like you thought. And install all programs and the OS on one partition then store you data on a seperate one so if and when you wish to back it up, all you gotta do is select the drive and hit backup. And not have to worry about backing up stuff that doesn't need to be backed up like the OS and software.

[Spudhead]

Woah :) Cheers guys, I'll let you know how I get on...