XP on a 120gig sata

  • Thread starter Thread starter modelingfrog
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modelingfrog

I understand that windows has its limitations with large drives, reason why
I needed the Raid drivers.

when purchased, the dealer mentioned that I should partition my Maxtor
120gig sata into 80 and 40 gig partitions.

My question,
is this actually required for XP to work properly and run optimally?
Are there any drawbacks/limitations if I only have 1 partition for this
Hard-Drive?

what do you guys recomend.
 
I'd have to check, but I *believe* that was dealt with in a patch earlier...

OTOH, seperating the drive into OS and Data partitions may be a good idea
anyway - if you have to reinstall WinXP, you'll have a smaller drive to (a)
back up and (b) reformat/reinstall, while your data partition would be safe.
 
In

No, it's not at all required, and there are no drawbacks to
having it as a single partition, except for the organizational
aspects of where you put your data. Most folks here will probably
recommend that you use at least two partitions. I'm something of
an iconoclast in this regard, and don't necessarily go along with
that.

But the important point is that it's your choice. Windows doesn't
care at all. The dealer is neither right nor wrong. If you do
make two partitions (again your choice) dividing it into 80 and
40GB isn't necessarily right; how to best divide it depends on
you and what files you have.
 
So its a matter of personal preference, I see! I know that having a second
partition on a drive to protect from disaster is ironic because it is still
the same drive. I have never used more then 6gigs up until now, and I guess
I will just play around with the sizes over time. so until I redo windows
again I will leave it at the 80 gig OS and 40 gig of whatever else. I will
start with the Single partition next time to test, and go from there.
 
The size(s) of your partitions are based on your needs. Personally I would
setup 20GB for Windows XP to reside in and 100GB for storage as that gives
lots of room for my programs and for the cache files needed when burning
DVDs and CDs. However for someone who has fewer programs 20GB would be
overkill as they might only require around 5GBs.
 
In
modelingfrog said:
So its a matter of personal preference, I see! I know that having a
second partition on a drive to protect from disaster is ironic
because it is still the same drive.
Click to expand...


Exactly! That's about the weakest of all backup strategies. It
leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original and
backup to many of the most common dangers: head crashes, severe
power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, even
theft of the computer.

That's better than no backup at all, but barely. There are
several reasonable arguments for multiple partitions, but that's
not among them, as far as I'm concerned.
 
modelingfrog said:
I understand that windows has its limitations with large drives, reason why
I needed the Raid drivers.

when purchased, the dealer mentioned that I should partition my Maxtor
120gig sata into 80 and 40 gig partitions.

My question,
is this actually required for XP to work properly and run optimally?
Click to expand...

No. And he is misleading you. It is not necessary to use RAID for
drives up to any available size. There may be 'breakpoints' in what
your BIOS will handle, notable ones being at 32 and 80 GB and most
importantly at 128 GB (137 decimal billion for nominal drive size). All
these relate to the *total* size of the disk, and partitioning it will
not help if the BIOS cannot handle the matter. And to go beyond the 128
(thus needing '48 bit LBA') needs XP with SP1. That might also need a
plug in auxiliary card to provide the hardware/BIOS support, but that
does not mean using RAID even if the card is capable of providing that

That said I would *not* install XP on a large disk in a single
partition. Keep one modest size one (maybe up to 20 GB at most) for
system and programs, and the rest for data. That makes it practicable
to use sensible backup strategies and methods - the two need different
approaches
 
modelingfrog said:
So its a matter of personal preference, I see! I know that having a second
partition on a drive to protect from disaster is ironic because it is still
the same drive.
Click to expand...

It is not so that you can back up one *to* the other. But a System
partition needs to be backed up externally (I do it to DVD) so you could
restore that partition quickly and accurately; and because the system
and installed programs do not change that much, it need not be done
daily. In fact I do it to a *separate* physical drive as well, about
weekly, with the major ones monthly. Keeping the partition compact
makes all this much easier and more economical too.

But data files are much more fluid, and need backing up on a file based
system, using incremental backup techniques. And you need to know that
if you are forced into using that system backup it is not in any way
going to compromise your data by erasing stuff changed since that last
system backup
 
My mobo is an 661FX-M which does have many features in the bios,(more then
the asus i had) and I have enabled a few features related to sata from
within the bios/cmos but durring the instalation of XP I could not press F6
(nothing happened) to add 3rd party raid drivers, but later was promted for
them because windows could not recognize a large drive being present. I did
install the drivers and continued but installed the OS on 80gig and used the
40 on the side. obviously now i understand that XP does not need 80gigs to
work, and after some listeneing and some mild research i now believe that
the two partitions are necessary but will need to get the OS on a smaller
partition say 15gig and change all of the defaults to point to the second
partion, taking into account the risks of conflicts (users folders and
settings and all being on the second partition)
so far I have found several MS KB documents regarding changing the default
locations and other such related articles and will study them for the next
time I do windows.
I thank you all for you wonderful insights and advice,
 
Why do you want all defaults to point to the second partition. 15GB is large
enough to house Windows XP and a whole lot of third party apps. The second
partition can be a logical partition and used to house data. Personally I
would change the location of My Documents to the second partition as well as
the Outlook Express Store but that's about it. I would also disable System
Restore from running on the second partition.

--

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp


modelingfrog said:
My mobo is an 661FX-M which does have many features in the bios,(more then
the asus i had) and I have enabled a few features related to sata from
within the bios/cmos but durring the instalation of XP I could not press
F6
(nothing happened) to add 3rd party raid drivers, but later was promted
for
them because windows could not recognize a large drive being present. I
did
install the drivers and continued but installed the OS on 80gig and used
the
40 on the side. obviously now i understand that XP does not need 80gigs
to
work, and after some listeneing and some mild research i now believe that
the two partitions are necessary but will need to get the OS on a smaller
partition say 15gig and change all of the defaults to point to the second
partion, taking into account the risks of conflicts (users folders and
settings and all being on the second partition)
so far I have found several MS KB documents regarding changing the default
locations and other such related articles and will study them for the next
time I do windows.
I thank you all for you wonderful insights and advice,
Click to expand...
 
Harry Ohrn said:
Why do you want all defaults to point to the second partition. 15GB is large
enough to house Windows XP and a whole lot of third party apps. The second
partition can be a logical partition and used to house data. Personally I
would change the location of My Documents to the second partition as well as
the Outlook Express Store but that's about it. I would also disable System
Restore from running on the second partition.

--
Click to expand...
(here is a bit of babble for ya)
Well you see from what im figuring out (nice and slowly) spliting the drive
into more than one will push each partition further within the HDD, so the
read/seek times become slower per partition. leaving the OS and any
filecash, (pagefile, burning files ect) on the first partition (regardless
of the size) will keep the c: drive quick and consistant. (there is a
dramatic change when burning from Partion 1 and 2, about 12x on my system)

(basic theory)
I am currently "only" pointing the my documents folder to the second
partition, but I am not interested in doing this for each and every user
account that gets created. Not only that but having all of the "temp
settings, and anything else user related" also point to the 2nd partion will
keep the OS partition less fragmented and/or disorganized. (We are
constantly altering Huge programs, files and data and keeping it all in one
place seems better).
 
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