2 OS partitioning?

[cliffhucker]

I am installing XP PRo on my new build and have already partioned ~5GB for XP and made 3 ~50GB partitions.

I would like to know if I should create another smaller partition now in the event I want to add a second OS later?

Or will I beable to do this later just as easily.

And, should the second OS partition be near the start next to the XP Pro of does it not matter?

 

[turtile]

The closer to the inner circle the better. The seek times with be faster.

If you have partition magic, you can easily create another partition later.

 

[MrCoffee]

The closer to the inner circle the better. The seek times with be faster.

Outer circle of the platter though right?

anyway, I would make the partitions now, can be a headache later on.

 

[Nitestick]

if those 4 partitions you already have are primary partitions you will not be able to create another partition

 

[TheMajor]

You can modify your partitions with Partition Magic at any time without loosing data. It it safer to reserve a partition for future operating systems, though.

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

I have a question about this also... I am going to be installing Fedora Core 5 on my old system (AMD 2400 XP, ATI 9800 AIW,etc etc.) and was wondering about partitions.... I have only every used fdisk to make partitions, and I would only make 1 partition on a drive.

If a 200 Gig drive has 2 equal partitions on it, and Windows is installed, would Windows Explorer show them as 2 seperate 100 Gig drives?

Also, if Windows and Fedora are going to be insalled on the same system, is it recommended that each OS have its own partition, then create 2 additional partitions to hold files for each operating system (games, documents, images, etc. etc.)

 

[TheMajor]

I have a question about this also... I am going to be installing Fedora Core 5 on my old system (AMD 2400 XP, ATI 9800 AIW,etc etc.) and was wondering about partitions.... I have only every used fdisk to make partitions, and I would only make 1 partition on a drive.

If a 200 Gig drive has 2 equal partitions on it, and Windows is installed, would Windows Explorer show them as 2 seperate 100 Gig drives?

Also, if Windows and Fedora are going to be insalled on the same system, is it recommended that each OS have its own partition, then create 2 additional partitions to hold files for each operating system (games, documents, images, etc. etc.)

If you have Windows installed on a disk with 2 partitions of 100GB it will show both partitions as a 100GB disks/drives in explorer.
If you open up disk manager you can see which partitions your physical hard disk contains (start-->run-->diskmgmt.msc)

Here's what I recommend: Let's say you have a hard disk of 200GB. First delete all partitions. Create a partition of 20GB (or whatever size you prefer) for Windows at the beginning of the disk using Partition Magic or fdisk. Then leave a few gigs "unallocated" for a future OS. Then create a partition at the end of the disk for other files like music, video and documents. For Linux I would keep about 10-30GB of unallocated space between the Windows and "files" partitions.

Install Windows first. Then install Linux and let the Linux install wizard use the unallocated space. It will create its own partitions within the unallocated space and install a boot manager so you can choose which operating system to load when powering on your machine.

 

[MrCoffee]

You can modify your partitions with Partition Magic at any time without loosing data. It it safer to reserve a partition for future operating systems, though.

Very true, I've had nightmare problems with partition magic before, had to start an installation to another folder then copy the boot files across to my original installation to get the darn thing to load. I do use SCSI though which probably complicated the situation.

 

[TheMajor]

Very true, I've had nightmare problems with partition magic before, had to start an installation to another folder then copy the boot files across to my original installation to get the darn thing to load. I do use SCSI though which probably complicated the situation.

Did you do some benchmarks on your SCSI disks?

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

Thanks Major for the info....

Here is one last question for you.....

Can Windows and Linux (whichever distro) both use & save files on the same partition of a drive, or are the file structure's different, so each would need its own file space?