Partition question...

[soulcougher73]

Last night i put my new rig together and for the first time im going to partition my HD into a 20GB for the OS and the remaining 230GB for music, games, etc.

My question is would i install things like Yahoo Messegner and AVG on the OS partition or the data partition? Will they still start up at start up if on the 2nd partition?

Im new to the partition thing, but willing to learn

Thanks

 

[gerwen]

Put them where you'd like to. It won't make a difference to their functionality.

 

[soulcougher73]

What about things like Direct X and Video Drivers? Do those just automoatcially go to the OS side of things?

Another question as well: Is there a way to repath or redirect the "My Document" folder to the 2nd partition so it can access my music and pictures etc? I fiddled with it abit earlier and did not see a way to do it that was obvious.

Thanks

 

[Smilin]

Those are part of the OS. They'll be dropped into your Windows folder. (drivers go in system32\drivers and windows\inf for instance).


I would really suggest a single partition. It seems like a power user thing to do but it's really not necessary. The need for different partitions died long ago alongside the need to frequently reinstall.

 

[soulcougher73]

That is what i wanted to do at first, but when i installed XP it only showed 131Gb of my 250GB HD. But once XP was installed and under device manager i think it was it had like 114GB of free space. How would i go about adding that extra 114GB to the 131GB for the partion created on install?

 

[Smilin]

That is a side effect of 48bit LBA.

Apply sp1 or sp2 and the remaining drive space will be available. If you want that space available at install time, use install media with the service pack slipstreamed in.

 

[soulcougher73]

Wow that was like speaking another language to me LOL

What is install media and slipstreamed in?

 

[Smilin]

hehe dang!

ok. I'll simplify then come back in a sec with some links. Hang in there man!


When XP first shippped (many years ago now) those large drives were not available. To access a chunk of data on a drive you need the 'address' of that chunk of data. The address scheme used for this literally ran out of digits!

This has been corrected by the hard drive and controller manufacturers and a patch is now needed to make XP recognize the extra digits in the address. This patch is included in Windows XP service pack 1 and later.

If you have sp1 or sp2 installed you'll be able to see your drive fine. To see the drive fine at install time (instead of afterwards when you apply the service pack) you have to service pack the actual install files on your CD. Running the service pack with a special switch will do this for you. You can then use the patched media to install with.


links:
900871 How to integrate Windows XP Service Pack 2 files into the Windows XP installation folder
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;900871

There are also some 3rd party utilities that can automate this:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/?showtopic=188337

This looks like a good one:
http://www.msfn.org/articles.php?action=show&showarticle=49

 

[soulcougher73]

Wow that is interesting. Im not sure i will reformat right now and do that, but i think i will go ahead and make a new boot disk for future use to bypass all this. Ill just stick with 2 partitions on my drive for now.

Thanks for the help guys

 

[Smilin]

At the minimum, reinstall and resize that sucker.

20gig is going to be painful soon


Good Luck Soul!