[basils57]

I would like some advice regarding the above, which seems a bit of a minefield that I want to get right.

I have just installed a second hard drive, and am about to create new partitions on both my existing(80Mb) and new drives(160Mb).

Am I right in thinking that the preferred way of arrangement would be to organise the partitions into 4 basic (main) partitions - System; Programs; Data; and Backup coupled with putting the paging file on the new hard drive in its own partition?

If this is ok, what is the best way to achieve this (apart from the paging file transfer, which I have instructions for) , ie are there any tricks to it, or just move each file manually, and do I just leave the Windows file in the systems partition?
Will I need to make any specific arrangements for file associations - if so what & how?

Thanks in advance, and if there are any other suggestions I would welcome them.

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If you already have XP installed you can't repartition the drive unless you use a program like partition magic.
I partition my drives when i install XP like this.

On an 80 gig drive

20 gigs for XP and any software that has to be installed.
20 gigs for linux or anyother OS i want to play with
40 gigs( or whatever is left) for data and the swap file.

Since i havent bought a drive smaller than 160 gigs lately i would still have 20 G for XP, 20 G for linux, and 2 80 G partitions. One for data and swap file and the other i leave blank so i could repartition later on or just use for more data. I don't keep so much data that i could fill up a 160 G drive but thats the size of the drives now so you use whats available.

After losing a backup HD, i no longer trust even hard drives for backup. I now backup everything to DVD's or CD's. It helps when i'm moving to a new computer also. I seem to build me a new puter every six months so its easy to transfer data when its on dvd's.

SRX660

[SRX660]

If you already have XP installed you can't repartition the drive unless you use a program like partition magic.
I partition my drives when i install XP like this.

On an 80 gig drive

20 gigs for XP and any software that has to be installed.
20 gigs for linux or anyother OS i want to play with
40 gigs( or whatever is left) for data and the swap file.

Since i havent bought a drive smaller than 160 gigs lately i would still have 20 G for XP, 20 G for linux, and 2 80 G partitions. One for data and swap file and the other i leave blank so i could repartition later on or just use for more data. I don't keep so much data that i could fill up a 160 G drive but thats the size of the drives now so you use whats available.

After losing a backup HD, i no longer trust even hard drives for backup. I now backup everything to DVD's or CD's. It helps when i'm moving to a new computer also. I seem to build me a new puter every six months so its easy to transfer data when its on dvd's.

SRX660

[warriorscot]

Programs should be installed on the C:drive same as windows otherwise some apps will come up with errors as they dont like being installed anywhere but the same partition as windows.

I usually have 50-60gigs on my main system partition(gamer need bigger system partition) on non gaming systems 20-30 is plenty. Then the rest for data this keeps it safe if a format is needed on the system partition, i dont keep a backup partition as they are redundant as the main need for a backup in a paritioned drive is if it fails and if the drive fails then both partitions are useless both main and backup, i burn my backup files to disk as its a safer medium for storage and safe backups.

[dsenette]

Programs should be installed on the C:drive same as windows otherwise some apps will come up with errors as they dont like being installed anywhere but the same partition as windows.

as a note here...when installing MOST software it will give you an option for the install location..you can choose any location for this install...MOST of the time if the program needs something installed on C: it will install it there and make sure all the internal links for the prog are correct...the advantage of this method is that only the required parts of the program get put in c: and the rest (readme's config files and what not) get put somewhere else

[basils57]

Thanks for this guys - incidentally, excuse my typo, it should have been Gb not Mb's.

Any other opinions out there?