New XP Pro Inst Partitioning

  • Thread starter Thread starter JA D
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JA D

My son will be installing XP Pro on a 120 GB HD.
What is the best way to partition the drive. (How many, what size for what
use)
We are thinking of a 4 partitions (Operating system, applications, Data,
files & documents, music)
Is it better to install directly from the CD or is there a good way to copy
the CD to a HD partition and install from there?
Thanks
 
JA D said:
My son will be installing XP Pro on a 120 GB HD.
What is the best way to partition the drive. (How many, what size for what
use)
We are thinking of a 4 partitions (Operating system, applications, Data,
files & documents, music)
Is it better to install directly from the CD or is there a good way to copy
the CD to a HD partition and install from there?
Thanks
Click to expand...

I strongly support the division between OS and data but I see no
merit in installing the applications in their own drive. Some will,
in fact, install parts of themselves in drive C:, no matter what you
select.
 
The partitioning can be managed by the XP installation process. Better to partition at installation, otherwise you'll need to buy 3rd party product to perform this function afterwards.

Further to Pegasus's comments, don't bother separating Op Sys from Applications: you can also create an image file of your 'system' partition with all apps installed, good for fast recovery should you corrupt the Hard Drive / Partition at some point in the future.

As to your last point, XP installation copies all the files from CD to HDD: now if you copy the CD to HDD all you do is dupliate this process and waste time.

After you finish the installation, you can make a copy of the :\I386 folder [XP installation files] such that you won't need to insert the CD when installing devices or extra items in the future.
 
I have never seen any merit to more than one partition. Use
appropriate folders for your data, etc. and then you know what to
backup. I do see merit to having two 1/2 size hard drives rather than
one huge hard drive. I keep copies of those important folders on the
second hard drive.

hawk
 
On a "normal" system I would make it 5 GBytes. If you
intend to install lots of applications then I would make
it 10 GBytes. If unsure, make it 10 so that you err on
the safe side.
 
If you have never seen any merit in having more than one
partition then you have never used drive imaging. Consider
this:

- It takes a lot of time and effort to install an OS and the
various apps, and getting everything just right.
- It is a fact of life that installations get damaged or are
completley lost.

Taking a snapshot of the system partition with an imaging
product such as Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost allows
you to restore a dead machine within half an hour. It has
saved my clients enormous amounts of time and money.
However, to use imaging effectively, you MUST split your
OS + apps from your data, hence the need to have two
partitions. JAD alluded to the same technique in his reply.
 
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