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[Ecrofirt]

OK, so my Dell is coming with a 160GB hard drive. I'd like to partition the drive so that it's got a windows drive, and a data drive. My questions are as follows:

1)Is this a good idea?
2)Assuming it is, how big should the windows drive be?
3)If this is a good idea, is it still usually recommended to install programs to the program files directory?

 

[shoplifter]

This is exactly what I did.

I created a 30GB partition for Windows, then several other drives to house everything else. I just created a program files directory on the other drives. Pretty sure that shared stuff will likely default to C:, but the rest of it should be ok iirc.

I've been thinking of adding a little to the size just in case, but so far, it's been fine. My wife doesn't delete her emails, so that's taking up a little more space than it should, and I save far too much stuff to my desktop.

 

[xsarien]

OK, so my Dell is coming with a 160GB hard drive. I'd like to partition the drive so that it's got a windows drive, and a data drive. My questions are as follows:

1)Is this a good idea?
2)Assuming it is, how big should the windows drive be?
3)If this is a good idea, is it still usually recommended to install programs to the program files directory?

1) Yes. If you only have one drive, partition it into an OS/data setup. In the event that you need to reinstall Windows (more "when," not necessarily "if") your data will be preserved even if you choose to format the installation drive.

2) Out of 160? Eh, set aside 40GB for Windows, just for kicks. Just make sure you map the "My Documents" folder to something on the data drive.

3) Regardless of where you install programs, a reinstall of Windows is going to break most of them thanks to lost registry entries. I have two physical drives, one is dedicated to Windows and applications, the other to data. It's working out well.

 

[Bregor]

I would assume that a Dell would come with the HD already partitioned and Windows installed. If that's the case, you will need a special program (such as Partition Magic) in order to re-partition it without erasing everything.

Opinions on how to partition the HD vary, but I prefer dividing mine up. Here is how I have my HD set up:

C: 4 GB Operating System only. This way if something goes wrong with the OS, I only have to restore it, and not my Apps or Data.
D: 2 GB Fixed size Page File only. Prevents drive fragmentation and speeds up access for the virtual memory.
E: 24 GB All Apps. Normal apps in the E:\Program Files folder, Games in a Folder of their own.
F: 35 GB All Data. Easier to back up and restore on a partition by itself.
G: 4 GB Temp. Windows creates hundreds of temp files during various operations (i.e. installing programs, patches), by assigning the Windows temp directory to a seperate partition, it cuts down on fragmentation on the OS partition. My browsers cache is also on this partition.

Edit: Also, I assign my CD/DVD drives the drive letters X,Y, and Z so that they aren't dependent on the number of HD partitions that I have.

 

[Spectral Glider]

I'm not an expert on this, but for a year now I've had my windows partition in just 5.3GB of space. I still have 2.5GB of that free. Depending on how many programs you install, you may want to go bigger. Portions of stuff still get thrown on the C drive no matter what.

Then I have seperate partitions for programs, games and music. The reason I have a seperate one for music is because I tinker and edit wave files a lot. And that tinkering can fragment the crap out of your drive, this way it doesn't interfere with my other programs.

As for the program files directory, I install very little there on purpose. I think the only things I personally put there are my graphics and sound card drivers.

 

[Ecrofirt]

I would assume that a Dell would come with the HD already partitioned and Windows installed. If that's the case, you will need a special program (such as Partition Magic) in order to re-partition it without erasing everything.

Opinions on how to partition the HD vary, but I prefer dividing mine up. Here is how I have my HD set up:

C: 4 GB Operating System only. This way if something goes wrong with the OS, I only have to restore it, and not my Apps or Data.
D: 2 GB Fixed size Page File only. Prevents drive fragmentation and speeds up access for the virtual memory.
E: 24 GB All Apps. Normal apps in the E:\Program Files folder, Games in a Folder of their own.
G: 4 GB Temp. Windows creates hundreds of temp files during various operations (i.e. installing programs, patches), by assigning the Windows temp directory to a seperate partition, it cuts down on fragmentation on the OS partition. My browsers cache is also on this partition.

OK, a few questions:
1)So what's on your OS partition? what folders?
2)How do I go about creating a partition for the page file and getting Windows to use that partition for the page file?
3)How do I get Windows to know my temp file partition is for temp files?

2) Out of 160? Eh, set aside 40GB for Windows, just for kicks. Just make sure you map the "My Documents" folder to something on the data drive.

Care to explain how to map the My Documents folder?

 

[xsarien]

OK, a few questions:
1)So what's on your OS partition? what folders?
2)How do I go about creating a partition for the page file and getting Windows to use that partition for the page file?
3)How do I get Windows to know my temp file partition is for temp files?


Care to explain how to map the My Documents folder?

The icon on your desktop is just a shortcut, go into its properties and just point it to wherever you like.

 

[Ecrofirt]

Holy hell. You'd think I'd have known something like that by now.

 

[Spectral Glider]

1)So what's on your OS partition? what folders?

Mine has:

Documents and Settings
Media (Which I don't use, but it's there)
Program Files
Windows

2)How do I go about creating a partition for the page file and getting Windows to use that partition for the page file?

Right click My computer, go to Properties, Advanced tab, click Performance settings, Advanced tab, and then click change under Virtual memory.

 

[Ecrofirt]

ok, so that answers the page file question.

I'm at school, so I can't really test it out well, but I'm assuming I could just change the drive that the page file uses?

OK, now on to the temp file stuff. Is there any easy way to set that as well?

 

[Bregor]

Be careful when changing your Page File settings. If set incorrectly, Windows will not work well (or at all). As a matter of fact, I only recommend you do it if you are confident you know what you are doing.

It has been some time since I set up the Temp directory, and cannot recall offhand how I did it. I think you have to set the TEMP and TMP Environment Variables, but there may be more to it.

 

[Spectral Glider]

I'm at school, so I can't really test it out well, but I'm assuming I could just change the drive that the page file uses?

Yes.

Can't help you on the temp file issue, don't know about that one.

 

[SyNapSe]

ok, so that answers the page file question.

I'm at school, so I can't really test it out well, but I'm assuming I could just change the drive that the page file uses?

OK, now on to the temp file stuff. Is there any easy way to set that as well?

It's necessary to reboot on the move of the Page File.

 

[Spectral Glider]

Be careful when changing your Page File settings. If set incorrectly, Windows will not work well (or at all). As a matter of fact, I only recommend you do it if you are confident you know what you are doing.

Yeah, I've researched it a bit on the web before and there seems to be very varying opinions on what to set it at. I have 512MB of ram and my virtual memory settings are 768MB initial and 1000MB maximum. I haven't had any problems with it that way. But I've read places that state the initial and maximum should be set the same, but I've also read that doing that was a bad idea. I've read that setting the maximum number too high was bad too. If anything, I guess you can just change where the page file is stored without changing the default numbers Windows sets up.

 

[DarthWoo]

Here's a page from a tutorial I used partially to set up my PC after my last HD change.

http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=review&dId=324&dPage=6

It has a section related to the Virtual Memory settings that you may or may not find useful. Perhaps there is other stuff in the tutorial that might help you, or perhaps not.

 

[SyNapSe]

If anything, I guess you can just change where the page file is stored without changing the default numbers Windows sets up.

Microsoft recommends 1.5x your total RAM. Some people suggest instead of having a Min-Max of 128-768MB (Assuming 512MB of RAM). That your basically better off setting min-max to 768-768. Your only giving out some hard drive space. The benefit being it doesn't slow your system down even more than paging does by itself as it dynamically reallocates more HD space to the page file.

The person in that guide recommends setting the paging file up to 2GB if you have 512MB of RAM. While in theory that doesn't seem like a bad idea.. You really need to buy some more RAM if you are paging to that extent.

 

[xsarien]

No one will make fun of you if you just let Windows throttle the page file to whatever it needs.

 

[Ecrofirt]

The PC has 2GB of RAM itself.

Bah, I'm wondering what to do now. I'll have to really look into this.

 

[Ecrofirt]

OK, considering that the Dell is coming with XP pre-installed, I won't have any problems using Partition Magic to make another three or four partitions on my HD, will I?

And should I defrag before I run it? I can't see how the HD will be fragmented right out of the box.

 

[Bregor]

If XP is already installed, I wouldn't go to the trouble of changing it. The benefits aren't big enough to justify the risk and time it would take to re-partition it.

 

[Particle Physicist]

I would assume that a Dell would come with the HD already partitioned and Windows installed. If that's the case, you will need a special program (such as Partition Magic) in order to re-partition it without erasing everything.

Opinions on how to partition the HD vary, but I prefer dividing mine up. Here is how I have my HD set up:

C: 4 GB Operating System only. This way if something goes wrong with the OS, I only have to restore it, and not my Apps or Data.
D: 2 GB Fixed size Page File only. Prevents drive fragmentation and speeds up access for the virtual memory.
E: 24 GB All Apps. Normal apps in the E:\Program Files folder, Games in a Folder of their own.
F: 35 GB All Data. Easier to back up and restore on a partition by itself.
G: 4 GB Temp. Windows creates hundreds of temp files during various operations (i.e. installing programs, patches), by assigning the Windows temp directory to a seperate partition, it cuts down on fragmentation on the OS partition. My browsers cache is also on this partition.

Edit: Also, I assign my CD/DVD drives the drive letters X,Y, and Z so that they aren't dependent on the number of HD partitions that I have.

i have a 4GB windows partition, and two other partitions (one for Programs.. and the other one for media files [waves/mp3/videos]), but this is a much better set up. then again, i only have 40GB.