some advice on partitioning...please

[DoctorCarta]

my new seagate 80gb/8mb sata hard drive comes on friday...should i installed programs/games/updates all on the xp pro partition? or make another partition for that?game installs on a separate parition?then what about a data storage partition?just need some advice on how to get the most performance out of this hard drive for gaming and so on...any webpages that help explain maxing out performance on partitioning would help(if there are any...)

Thanks!

 

[BlueWeasel]

It's all a matter of preference. Personally, I have my primary 80gb drive partititioned like this:

C:\ - 10gb - WinXP and applications/programs only
D:\ - 20gb - Games only
E:\ - 45gb - Data (downloads/documents/MP3/Ghost images)

If you only have a large, single C:\ partition, if you have to reformat and reinstall XP, you've got to move all the important data and game save files so not to lose them. With my setup, I'm only losing what can be quickly reinstalled from CDs, and I don't have to worry about moving the important data.

 

[DoctorCarta]

why do u have game installs on a single partition?if u reinstall or reformat xp dont u have to reinstall the programs...including the games?

 

[BlueWeasel]

Well, for some games there is no need to reinstall, and you can simply run the executable. Generally, though, for the most part, I do reinstall the games from scratch. But what is helpful is just reinstall into the existing folder because all dowloads, mods, maps, and save games are preserved.