Partitioning Hard Drive for Windows 7 Install?

[behelit54]

Hi, I'm building my first custom computer and need some help. Do I and should I partition my hard drive before doing a clean windows 7 home install? and if so what size should the partition be on a 500gb hard drive. I'm somewhat a noob so bear with me. I understand the basic concept of what a partition is, but what purpose does it serve in an os installation, what are the benefits / issues that may occur? Any information or links to pages that already discuss this topic would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Homerboy]

Assuming you just want the one, 500GB partition itself (versus splitting up the 1 HDD into a few smaller partitions... 1 for OS, 1 for DATA etc, there is no need to do anything before the installation. Win7 will automagically partition and format the HDD for you.

 

[lxskllr]

Ya, what Homer said. Some people like making multiple partitions for various reasons, but I prefer 1 partition. The best argument for multiple partitions, is to make reinstalling the O/S easier, and for speedier drive imaging. The benefits don't outweigh the negatives imo, and many times people end up partitioning themselves into a corner, need more room, but don't have an easy way to accomplish that.

 

[RebateMonger]

I used to generally oppose making multiple partitions on a disk except in very specific circumstances. But with today's common volume imaging backup software and "huge" disks, it probably makes sense to make a separate OS/Application partition. The size would depend on the expected size of the applications.

When sizing an OS/application partition, remember that you can always store "data" on spare space on this partition, moving it off if the partition gets full. It's better to oversize an OS partition rather than undersize it.

 

[behelit54]

Ok thanks. So I guess for me I'll just leave it at automatic when I install Windows 7. Don't want to cause more problems.

 

[VinDSL]

I understand the basic concept of what a partition is, but what purpose does it serve in an os installation, what are the benefits / issues that may occur?

Any information or links to pages that already discuss this topic would be appreciated.

The information above is accurate.

There's (generally) no benefit to partitioning Winders.

If you're running Linux, having separate partitions for root, home, swap, et cetera, has some ancillary benefits. For instance, if you run /home (roughly equivalent to \programs & \documents and settings) in separate partitions, you can do a fresh install of Linux and preserve 95% of your programs, configs, and data.

Like lxskllr said, you'll just be [painting] yourself into a corner...

 

[Modelworks]

If you leave it blank windows 7 will create a 100MB partition at the beginning of the drive where it will store its boot files and some recovery information. Then it will create another partition after that for the OS and files.

Benefit to having the boot partition ? It allows you to run system recovery without using a OS DVD, lets the OS boot from a partition that is not a primary but can be a logical drive, allows you to boot a vhd instead of the main OS, OS boot files are no longer tied in with the file system of the boot partition.


On reason you may want to add more partitions yourself is for backup. If it is the only drive in the machine and you want to use recovery programs that can restore changes from things like virus or malware they usually prefer to use a separate drive letter.