Partitioning problem

[Ebert]

AMD 2500+ Barton
Abit NF7-S
ATI 9600pro
2x 80Gb Western Digital HD (one is SE and the other is reg)
Win XP

Now the problem:
I wanted to start from scratch after installing a DVD burner and new HD so I decided to format all my drives, except 1 partition that I use to backup files. During Windows XP installation the partition drive screen showed up so I formatted the other 3 partitions.

Turns out that somehow I formatted the drive with my data backup files. I have 2x 80Gb drives, each partitioned in half (40GB). So the drives are:
80Gb WD Special Edition = drives C: and D:
80Gb WD non-SE = drives E: and F:

In the Windows installation screen where you can partition drives it shows 2 rows....first row drive C with drive E below it and the second row drive D with drive F below it. From what I understand each drive should be together, as in C with D below it and E with F below it.

So now, my D drive is actually the E drive where I put my backup data because when I formatted drive D the backup data is now gone. I want to fix this problem. My system seems alot slower since the new format.

Should I start from scratch and format both drives, then partition both drives with some 3rd party program once Windows is installed?

 

[jfunk]

The letters are largely irrelevant, you can change them to whatever you want.

Your performance has nothing to do with how you partition your drives, (assuming you have your OS installed on the SE drive and didn't install it on the non-SE drive, which would have less cache), it's probably just the software setup side of things.

Have you installed all of the appropriate chipset patches etc... ?


j

 

[Ebert]

I installed drivers provided by the mobo disc only. Everything was faster before this format.

chipset drivers as in driver for nforce2?

 

[jfunk]

Go to nvidia's site and download the latest nforce drivers and install those. Get all your windows updates. See how it goes then. Your CD from the mobo may not be new enough (probably isn't) to include the nforce IDE drivers.


j

 

[vietofmars]

Usually in DOS, drive letters are assigned primary partition first, then logical.

That's why your drive letters were all changed around during XP setup.

1st drive primary(C, Logicial(E

2nd drive primary(D, Logicial(F

http://www.felgall.com/part.htm