large drive question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rob
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Rob

Back in the old days when you installed any Windows OS with a swap file, it
was wise to create a separate partition just for the swap file
so it didn't get fragmented. I'm just wondering with the giant drives of
today what the philosophy is. I'm replacing the two smaller drives in my
current system (they're dying) with one large 300 gig drive and trying to
figure out the best way to set it up. Should I do three partitions? One
for the OS, one for swap, one for non executable data such as doc files and
mp3s? One for applications? Beats me, perhaps with Diskeeper running every
night it doesn't matter all that much.

One other question I have is can I avoid doing an XP w/sp2 slipstream to
install XP to this drive? I have it mounted on a system and can partition
and format it, obviously that doesn't help XP recognize it out of the box.
Just wondering if there were alternate tricks to this. Thanks!
 
It matters not where you put the swap file if you have only one drive
divided into who cares how many partitions. The best solution is to have two
drives so that the swap file can be created somewhere on the second drive.
That is the most efficient method.

To recognize drives larger than137Gb you will need XP w/SP1 or SP2.
Slipstreaming is in your future.
 
Back in the old days when you installed any Windows OS with a swap file, it
was wise to create a separate partition just for the swap file
so it didn't get fragmented. I'm just wondering with the giant drives of
today what the philosophy is. I'm replacing the two smaller drives in my
current system (they're dying) with one large 300 gig drive and trying to
figure out the best way to set it up. Should I do three partitions? One
for the OS, one for swap, one for non executable data such as doc files and
mp3s? One for applications? Beats me, perhaps with Diskeeper running every
night it doesn't matter all that much.

One other question I have is can I avoid doing an XP w/sp2 slipstream to
install XP to this drive? I have it mounted on a system and can partition
and format it, obviously that doesn't help XP recognize it out of the box.
Just wondering if there were alternate tricks to this. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Rob,

Jerry already gave you good information.

Just a few remarks on the sidelines.

Putting the swapfile in a separate partition is not a very good
idea, because you want it near you other active files, ideally
in the middle of them and nearer the outer area of the disk for
best performance.

Just installing, setting the pagefile to a good, not too small,
size and using a good defragmenter, like Perfect Disk by Raxco,
will give you the best performance. But have a look at
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDefrag.htm for a critical view. I
don't know how well Diskeeper works.

I personally would have just one partition, unless I wanted to
have several operating systems installed on the disk and unless
I had a very good reason for more than one partition.

And, as Jerry already remarked, I think you should embrace
slipstreaming, rather than avoid it. It's a good thing.

Hans-Georg
 
In all your comments gentlemen: you forget that NTFS is a completely
different file structure and that Windows XP manages the virtual memory
better than earlier versions.

By default, the virtual memory paging file (named pagefile.sys) that is
created during installation is 1.5 times the RAM on your computer.

You can optimize virtual memory use by dividing the space between multiple
drives and by removing space from slow or heavily accessed drives. To best
optimize your virtual memory space, divide it among as many physical hard
drives as possible. When you select drives, follow these guidelines:

• Try to avoid having a paging file on the same drive as the system files.
• Avoid putting a paging file on a fault-tolerant drive such as a mirrored
volume or a RAID-5 volume. Paging files do not require fault-tolerance, and
some fault-tolerant computers experience slow data writes because they write
data to multiple locations.
• Do not put multiple paging files on different partitions on the same
physical disk drive.

For more read:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308417
 
All good advice, however the advice given to me was based on my
system configuration, which is only one drive. Off to install, just burned
the slipstreamed CD.
 
Well, for some reason the first time I installed this drive, the PC booted
up fine,
it was just that XP didn't recognize the drive. Now, I get one long beep,
two short beeps. AMI BIOS says this is a problem with the video card,
but as soon as I pull the new drive off and put the old two back on, it
boots
up fine. I don't get it, it's a drive, it's not like it can have
conflicting IRQs.
 
Is your BIOS correctly identifying the new drive? To see the larger drive
your BIOS also must be capable of 'seeing' drives larger than 137Gb. Check
the motherboard manufacturer's web site for any BIOS updates.

Also, harddrive manufacturers provide software that does help you install
and setup their drives.
 
Well, for some reason the first time I installed this drive, the PC booted
up fine,
it was just that XP didn't recognize the drive. Now, I get one long beep,
two short beeps. AMI BIOS says this is a problem with the video card,
but as soon as I pull the new drive off and put the old two back on, it
boots
up fine. I don't get it, it's a drive, it's not like it can have
conflicting IRQs.
Click to expand...

Rob,

apart from Jerry's correct advice, check also the master-slave
jumper on the disk drive and the cabling. You need the
appropriate IDE cable, 40 or 80 leads, etc.

Hans-Georg
 
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