Win2k: repartitioning the system for swap space

[dpajur]

Has anyone tried repartitioning a Win2k Pro system to create a small first partition to be used solely by the swap file - ie. fixed length file that would take all of the partition space, thus wouldn't get fragmented and would always be on the very beginning of the drive.

I have an existing installation of Win2k, and I can move it further up the drive with PartitionMagic for some 256megs that I intend to use for the swap partition and everything's fine. But at the point where I create the first partition things start going rapidly downhill
I've tried creating that partition from within Win2k and formatting it from there, and at the end of that I get a warning saying that the partition number where Win2k is located has now changed and that I should edit the boot.ini file or I wouldn't be able to reboot the system next time.. Fair enough... I edit the boot ini, change the partition number from (1) to (2) and reboot... and all hell breaks loose.

I'm thinking of trying a fresh install but just the thought of losing days getting everything to where I was is just sickening. There must be a simpler way of doing this. Anyone have an idea? Or maybe it just cannot be done? I don't think that's likely but after all this is Microsoft.

 

[stash]

Its a good idea, but you arent likely to see much in performance increases, since the partition is on the same physical drive as the OS. Moving the swap to a separate physical drive is the best for performance.