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partitions

post #1 of 9
8/2/05 at 3:09am
Thread Starter 
what are the practical uses of partitions? what guides or info can i read about making them?
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post #2 of 9
8/2/05 at 4:03am
I have two different partitions on my desktop 200gb hard drive. The bigger of the two are for storage so I can reinstall windows without looseing all my data. Link
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post #3 of 9
8/2/05 at 11:11am
separating OS from program files is always a good thing to do

if the OS is ever corrupted, you can reformat without losing all your data
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post #4 of 9
8/2/05 at 11:12am
also, for installing multiple OSs...or if you want to keep your page file on a seperate partition so it never gets fragmented
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post #5 of 9
8/2/05 at 11:19am
How big of a partition should we make for just XP?
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post #6 of 9
8/2/05 at 11:22am
I have a total of 6 partitions on my drive:
[hidden system] OS installed for testing programs, etc
[system] My stable running OS
[data] For storing all my work and personal data files that I frequently access
[data] For storing mainly drivers, manuals and program installers
[hidden system] backup of OS installation with drivers only
[hidden system] backup of OS installation with drivers and some programs

It's very handy that I can separate my OS and data for less clutter and more reliability. I use PartitionMagic PQBoot for Windows to boot between my stable OS and test OS (which both have PQBoot installed). And when I re-install my OS, I don't actually have to install it. I just delete my current OS partition, copy over the partition with OS and drivers and all I have to do is install my programs. It cuts a solid hour or two out or reinstallation!

As far as making partitions, if you haven't installed an OS yet, you can just use FDISK, which is a simple free DOS program, but this will work only if you are making FAT32 partitions (Windows XP usually likes NTFS).

I believe the Windows XP installer has its own partition manager that can create/modify/convert/delete partitions.
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post #7 of 9
8/2/05 at 12:02pm
How big of a partition did you leave for the XP OS?
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post #8 of 9
8/2/05 at 12:28pm
Here is a good guide on partitioning strategies:
http://partition.radified.com/

Note that is is not a good idea to put the paging file on a seperate part of the same HD as the OS. But locating it on the first part of a seperate HD is optimal.
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post #9 of 9
8/3/05 at 8:23am
Another article worth looking into at aumha.org:

http://www.aumha.org/a/parts.htm
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