Hard Drive Partition

[phillyman36]

I thought i heard that when you do a clean install you should have 1 large partition. You should set aside a certain amount for the os etc etc. is this true and how do most of you have your drive partitioned?

 

[NightCrawler]

Mine is setup like this:

1. 6 gigs ( Windows XP )
2. 6 gigs ( Longhorn )
3. 15 gigs ( DATA )

The smaller partions are easier to create images of.

 

[CQuinn]

I'm not sure I understand you completely, but when you do a clean install (of 2000 or XP I assume)
the setup can prompt you to point out a partition that you want it to use. You can choose to have
setup create and format a partition, or create it yourself. And yes, you can have multiple partitions
already on the system when you install.

 

[phillyman36]

hey thanks night. Cquinn that part i understand i was tying to figure out if it is necessary to create a seperate partion for the os(and how big it should be) and if i should make other partion for say documents etc etc.

tyring to figure out any disadvantages of just making one big partition

 

[n7]

I personally like to have one smaller partition for the OS & programs & games, & the rest for storage, but it's up to you.
In the case of a major virus/trojan problem, it will hopefully be confined to that partition as well them, though that's never been an issue for me.
If you plan on ghosting or making a clone of the drive later, it's easier to do that with one smaller partition as well.

 

[Vee]

I prefer to keep only the OS and a few basic utilities, like antivirus, acrobat reader, monitor etc. on the C: partition. These days, with WinXPpro, I use about 10GB.

It may be mostly habit from the Win95/98 days, where this system had large benefits. But it feels 'cleaner' to me, keeps paths shorter and cleaner. And backing up the OS, and only the OS, is a breeze (major benefit with Win9x, but not perhaps now, with XP).

On one drive systems, I usually have 3 partitions. One small for the OS. One very large for applications. And one for 'storage', like media files, downloaded zips, etc.

 

[imported_MaK]

I do this, just so when i need/want to format its only windows on the small partition that needs to be deleted and no tedious backing up files you want to keep.