What is adequate size partition to install Windows 2000?

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
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9,231
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My main desktop (Beauty in sig) has 3 OS partitions, 2 for Windows 2000 and one for Win98SE. I normally boot to one of the Windows 2000 partitions, which are 6 GB. I thought the size more than adequate when I partitioned the drive but now I wonder. Windows reports only 1.2 and 1.1 GB free space on those partitions. I almost always elect to install applications, programs and utilities on a different HD, but a lot of stuff doesn't seem to give me an option to do so and snuggles itself onto the OS partition. There's a ton of such stuff, and I could delete some of it. Anyway, I plan to reinstall Windows 2000 on those partitions soon but could repartition the OS HD (using Partition Magic), to allow more room for the Windows 2000 partitions. How much room is adequate?
 

Smilin

Diamond Member
Mar 4, 2002
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Go with a single partition if at all possible. You obviously need a separate one for Win98 (or better yet a f'n .VHD file :p ). There just isn't a great reason to partition up the drive. The really old thinking about "easier to reload that way" stems from Win95/98 days when that was an issue.

As a minimum you need: ~2GB for the OS and some stuff + 2x (Your memory + ~50mb) for pagefile and enough freespace for a memory.dmp. This would be the minimum and frankly I would never use that little.

Make it a biggy!
 

timzak

Member
Feb 23, 2007
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Also, run CCleaner on your Win2k partition. It found a bunch of old Quicktime cache files on my drive that freed up hundreds of megabytes. You might have more free space than you think once CCleaner gets done. I use an 8GB partition for my Win2k install and have about 4.5 GB free. I install everything I possibly can on another partition.

FYI, I agree with the other poster: my next install I am moving to one partition for OS and program files. The only separate partitions I will make are to hold my image files and for the swap file (on another physical disc in a 1GB partition at the front of the drive). Basically, archives or other seldom-accessed files could go on a separate partition, but all programs and games should go together with the OS to minimize seeks.
 

Pirotech

Senior member
Jul 19, 2005
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i think 10-30Gb will be enough for system partition. as for me i have 30Gb on my current system. Before i'd upgraded my comp, i had 10Gb system drive, and all was alright.