What would you recommend as a guideline for partitioning a 100GB H
for use with Windows XP? Also, should applications be installe
alongside the OS? If so, how big should the OS/Apps partition be

AP <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote

> What would you recommend as a guideline for
> partitioning a 100GB HD for use with Windows XP?

There's a lot to be said for a single partition for the entire drive.
The main advantage is that the free space doesnt get scattered
across the partitions and you dont need to decide what sizes to
make the partitions and you dont need to do a full backup of the
entire drive before changing partitions sizes if you get that wrong.

The main advantage of a separate OS and apps partition is that
its quicker to do a safety image of that before doing any install,
update or reconfig, in case the XP restore point doesnt work.

> Also, should applications be installed alongside the OS?

Yes, basically because with a modern OS like XP, if you have
to reinstall XP again, you will have to reinstall the apps too.

There is much less need to do that now with XP tho, because you
can do a repair install, you dont need to do a clean reinstall anymore.

> If so, how big should the OS/Apps partition be?

Really depends on what apps you have.

20G is pretty adequate unless you have lots of games installed.

Well I have 80GB and first thing I said is how much does windows need,
I guessed about 10 GB including service pack 2, swap files, temp files
etc. Then the 70 that was left I split down the middle one drive for
applications and games the other for storage like word docmunts,
pictures, music etc. Hope that helps

AP wrote:
> What would you recommend as a guideline for partitioning a 100GB HD
> for use with Windows XP? Also, should applications be installed
> alongside the OS? If so, how big should the OS/Apps partition be?
>

One single partition will you give you better performance. Sometimes I
partition only if I am using one single drive so that I can keep
downloads separate if I have to do a format and reinstall of the boot
partition. With two HDD's though I just make one a single primary boot
partiton and the other HDD a single extended logial partiton. 300gb + 160gb.