New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

(stupid?) windows partition / setup question

post #1 of 12
10/12/04 at 11:48pm
Thread Starter 
ok, I didn't know where else to post this question - basically, i just got a new asus m6bne (i'll write a mini review in a few days...) and I set up XP pro today and partitioned the 60GB HD following advice from mmarkin...:
10 NTFS - XP system
35 NTFS - XP apps/data
1 FAT32 - to share between linux and windows
10 - linux

my question is basically how do you seperate windows apps from windows system files? e.g. if I install firefox or nero or a game or whatever, I want them in the apps/data partition, but the default is always going to be c:\program files\... (which is the small partition I want to keep just the xp stuff and drivers, etc.) , and I think if i just move the whole program files directory to the other partition everything will go to hell...is there some simple way to manage this?

so basically, how do you keep it seperate? I really have no idea, the last time i owned a computer the HD was 4GB and I made two partitions - 3GB for windows and 1 for linux..lol.

thanks.
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 12
10/13/04 at 12:11am
Why do you want to keep them seperate? If you had two seperate drives it might make sense (but not much unfortunately) for performance reasons. Otherwise, I'd just make one primary partition 40GB Primary partition, secondary partition 15GB for downloaded files/storage (maybe a 30/25 if you have a lot of music/downloaded program files) and 5GB for Linux.

To answer your question though, when installing programs, just change the default drive letter (normall c: ) to the second drive letter (normally d: ). The program is still going to install some files to the c:\winnt directory.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 12
10/13/04 at 1:23am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Melodis
Why do you want to keep them seperate? If you had two seperate drives it might make sense (but not much unfortunately) for performance reasons. Otherwise, I'd just make one primary partition 40GB Primary partition, secondary partition 15GB for downloaded files/storage (maybe a 30/25 if you have a lot of music/downloaded program files) and 5GB for Linux.
Well honestly it just seemed like a good suggestion, to have things neat and seperated, and have the main xp stuff away from the rest...but perhaps windows just doesnt work well like that. If it really is a bad idea I guess I will start from scratch tomorrow and reinstall windows, making the partitions like you suggested...

anyone else have any thoughts?
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 12
10/13/04 at 2:04am
I keep windows and apps on c which is a 20gb partition me thinks (out of 80). Then I have a 4gb partition swap file only. Then one partition for games only and lastly one partition for music/downloads and documents etc.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 12
10/13/04 at 12:16pm
Thomas B has the setup. Put the 4gb swap in the "middlest" part of the drive.

To answer the original question (How to change the default location of Prog Files) get TWEAK XP. There you can change all the locations of stuff (My Doc, Prog, etc.).

It's all in the Windows Registry, so be careful. Also, remember that many crapily-written (there's a phrase) programs will still look for or only work with C:\Prog Files...

I'd do a decent C: with apps/system, temp, then games/whatever. I have external storage (1TB) for music/videos, etc.

-myrkat
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 12
10/13/04 at 12:23pm
I don't see the reason for having the swap file on a seperate partition on the same drive. I assume this is to help with fragmentation? Otherwise, the only way you'd see a performance increase is by having the swap file on a totally seperate drive.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 12
10/13/04 at 3:30pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Melodis
I'd just make one primary partition 40GB Primary partition, secondary partition 15GB for downloaded files/storage (maybe a 30/25 if you have a lot of music/downloaded program files) and 5GB for Linux.
yeah, after thinking about it some more i think i am going to go with something like that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by myrkat
I'd do a decent C: with apps/system, temp, then games/whatever.
I thought about this too, and i just spent a few hours reading all kinds of stuff about page file / swap whatever....it seems like everyone has a different opinion or doesnt know what they are talking about ...it seems there is no obvious proper way to do it if you only have one HDD..., so i think i will just let windows handle the page file stuff...
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 12
10/13/04 at 4:43pm
I'd just go with one partition for Windows, apps, and games, and another partition for file storage. Which right now I only have one partition for everything. I'm very organized though, so I don't mind that. And there's no real performance gain if its all on one drive (or RAID 0 Array in my case) anyway.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 12
10/13/04 at 4:48pm
Quote:
I'd just go with one partition for Windows, apps, and games, and another partition for file storage. Which right now I only have one partition for everything. I'm very organized though, so I don't mind that. And there's no real performance gain if its all on one drive (or RAID 0 Array in my case) anyway.
At this point however, it's a simple matter of 'uh oh, windows just crashed. I can't format my primary partition because I'll lose everything'. I use to even store the windows installation files on my backup partition, however, that was in the days of a boot floppy. Thank god for bootable CD's.

I think when I get home I'm gonna set up a second hard drive in my machine and put the swap file there and see if I notice any performance increase.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 12
10/13/04 at 4:58pm
Yeah, the one bad thing is losing everything if you need to format, which is why I plan on buying another hard drive for backup sometime soon. But I backup most of my apps on CD, and I don't have anything that's really important. And I can always install XP again without formatting just as a temporary measure to save my stuff. But again, once I get another HDD for backups I won't have to worry that much.

And also, with only one HDD you'll lose everything on all its partitions if it fails as well.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 12
10/13/04 at 5:33pm
The logic behind the swap-in-the-middle-of-the-drive is because the drive heads pass that area the most, and therefore, there *should* be an increase in swap file performance.

That's why I would do (on a 60gb):
25gb + 5gb + 30gb
(C: + swap + games/misc)

Of course, if there is a gain, what could it be? a couple HUNDRED nanoseconds? Would anyone even notice?

The splitting of the music, etc. from the C: (system) drive is a smart thing, as Melodis mentioned: if C: goes down or windows craps out, all is lost.

Plus, if you regularly defrag and such, it's quicker with smaller partitions.

-myrkat
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 12
10/13/04 at 6:11pm
There isn't likely to be any noticable performance gain. Keep in mind that you won't know physically where the data is on the drive, since it isn't nice and linear like the defrag analysis representation. There are multiple platters with the same number of heads per platter, so there would be more than one "sweet spot" for performance on a single drive (the middles of the platters).
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home