The best way to partition.

M@lice

Ok my new machine should be here very soon so i just want to consult with the those who have significantly more experiance with this sort of stuff than I do If they'll be so kind as to share their vast knoledge.

K I have 160gb to dole out between windows and a linux dist of some sort(probably mandrake). I was thinkin.

30gb ntfs of primary partition for win xp.

20gb fat32 for linux

and the remaining 110gb in ntfs for bulk storage.

I just want to know wats the best order to do this in and if its a good mix of partitions i've laid out.

I'm fairly sure that if the thing works after i put it together i could just lash in the win xp cd and it will format and partition the hd in one big lump which i would then have to change later but i'm not sure if thats the best way to do it.

Also would it be a good idea to install all my progs on the big 110gb partition? I know this would be advantageous if i had to reinstall windows for anyreason but i would imagine it would slow the day to day running of the machine as the hardrive would be continually jumping between the partitions to reference the main program files and the registry etc.

I have knoppix on cd and i intend on using the partition program on it to do the partitioning work.

All advice greatly appreciated. Cheers!

maxheadroom

M@lice wrote:

30gb ntfs of primary partition for win xp.

Do a bit more than this - 45is should be ok. Just in case you want to have lots of games installed (FYI, I just uninstalled perimiter, and noticed it was taking up over 3 gigs :eek: )

M@lice wrote:

20gb fat32 for linux

Linux doesn't use FAT32 - it uses ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, XFS etc.

M@lice wrote:

and the remaining 110gb in ntfs for bulk storage.

If you want to write to this space with linux it'll have to be FAT32, not NTFS.

M@lice wrote:

I'm fairly sure that if the thing works after i put it together i could just lash in the win xp cd and it will format and partition the hd in one big lump which i would then have to change later but i'm not sure if thats the best way to do it.

If you use something like partition magic you can carve the disc up at will from within windows. If not, you'd be best to use something like qtparted on the knoppix disc to create the partitions (you don't need to assign filesystems with it though).

What I'd probably do is create a blank partition at the beginning of the disc (45GB, for XP), a blank partition for your bulk storage, and leave 20GB empty space at the end. Then install windows into the first empty partition, use the windows partition manager to format the big partition, and let mandrake's install program look after your linux area itself.

M@lice wrote:

Also would it be a good idea to install all my progs on the big 110gb partition? I know this would be advantageous if i had to reinstall windows for anyreason but i would imagine it would slow the day to day running of the machine as the hardrive would be continually jumping between the partitions to reference the main program files and the registry etc.

The real issue here is that once you reinstall windows you need to reinstall the programs anyway to get all the registry settings etc.

M@lice wrote:

I have knoppix on cd and i intend on using the partition program on it to do the partitioning work.

qtparted is quite easy to use.

M@lice

The real issue here is that once you reinstall windows you need to reinstall the programs anyway to get all the registry settings etc.

Yes i see but settings and user files would be retained so it would be much easier to get things back to the way that they were. I'd still do it if i knew it didn't slow down loading times.

I reckon i'll have to give a bit more space for linux too if i won't be able to write to an ntfs partition, unless there's a format other than ntfs thats works for both windows and linux and works with large sizes.

So at the moment i think i'll go with

50gb for windows.

30gb for linux.

leaving 80gb for the rest.

let mandrake's install program look after your linux area itself.

Good call. Cheers.

Mutant_Fruit

I'd advise putting at most 7gigs in the windows partition. When you want to format, you don't want to have to be backing up 45gigs of misc files. You'd be surprised at the amount of stuff that you don't need to install that is on your computer, such as inportant word documents etc.

Then make a large data partition, where you install all games etc. Nothing else should be installed in the windows partition ither than stuff that has to go there, and windows.

M@lice

Thats exactly how how i was thinking but i'm still concerned that it would slow down the machine. I mean the registry and swap file and other stuff are always going to be on the windows partition but if you have a game installed on another it will have to traverse the partitions regularly which i imagine would slow it down. But i have no experiance with it so i'm just wondering if anyone can confirm or deny my suspisions.

Fenster

Interesting setup, Mutant, I have to try that when I manage to kill my system again.

Mutant_Fruit

M@lice wrote:

Thats exactly how how i was thinking but i'm still concerned that it would slow down the machine. I mean the registry and swap file and other stuff are always going to be on the windows partition but if you have a game installed on another it will have to traverse the partitions regularly which i imagine would slow it down. But i have no experiance with it so i'm just wondering if anyone can confirm or deny my suspisions.

I know what you mean, but no, there will be no performance change.

Think of partitions as little walls, seperating two rooms. If you had one big partition, imagine your windows swap file being by the window, on the left hand side, gazing out at the green fields of ireland. Then, imagine Doom3 skulking in the corner, plotting revenge on the swap file.

Once you run doom3, and it enacts its diabolical plan, your reading head will be traversing the harddrive anyway, so whether they are in the same partition or not really is irrelevant. If you stick up your partition "wall" its not going to affect the physical sectors the game is on (if you know what i mean).

EDIT: I decided to reword that, as "your harddrive will be traversing the harddrive anyway" made no sense

M@lice

Well the pc came today and having not read this thread since my last post i just set it up the way i had planned just before. Oh well maybe I can just adjust the partitions to mutant fruits way if its not too late. Or perhaps i'd be better off just doing the windows installation again. Its not like I'll lose alot after 1 day.

BKtje

Yer i also have it the way mutant fruit has it (tho it changed lsightly now with my new raptor).

Got a windows partition (7gb) a Games partition (about 35gig) a backup partition (i aps i use when i formated windows and need to install again) about 10gigs, a err movie/tv show preview partition and a music partititon (etc).

Basically i use the partitions as folders for all the stuff i want.

balkieb2002

B-K-DzR wrote:

Yer i also have it the way mutant fruit has it (tho it changed lsightly now with my new raptor).

Got a windows partition (7gb) a Games partition (about 35gig) a backup partition (i aps i use when i formated windows and need to install again) about 10gigs, a err movie/tv show preview partition and a music partititon (etc).

Basically i use the partitions as folders for all the stuff i want.

Yeah my 160gb hard drive will be here soon and what you said would prob suit me best [that backup partition seems like a very good idea] though i might throw movies and music into same partition.

I presume as mutant said there would be little to no slow down.

Just courious as to where you install your appz/program files or do you have a seperate drive for them too?

Thanx