Installing Windows on a Partition

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Shando

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I should be building my new rig this weekend, and am curious about partitions. What are the advantages and disadvantages of installing windows on a partition, and how would I do this? Thanks

~shando
 
Windows will always be installed on a partition, to install an OS you always have to partition the hard disk, even if it is only a single partition; you would like to know the advantage of installing windows on a seperate partition and storing your data on another partition.

There are many advantages. In case of a system crash, you can format the Windows partition without having to worry about your important data (which you should save on the other partition).
It makes organizing your files easier.
You could save your torrents and partially downloaded torrents (or files you download with other P2P programs) on the second partition, and continue downloading after you re-installed your P2P client on your freshly installed operating system.
 
I've heard that if you have Windows installed on a smaller partition (like 10gb) it runs faster... presumalbly due to less HD space to sift through? Anyone know if this is true?
 
moisiss said:
I've heard that if you have Windows installed on a smaller partition (like 10gb) it runs faster... presumalbly due to less HD space to sift through? Anyone know if this is true?

When using the FAT32 file system on a large partition this is true, not with NTFS. The speed is more related to the file system and the location of the partition on the disk (better performance/lower seektimes at the beginning of the disk).

FAT32 performs better on small partitions, but it would be much slower than NTFS on large partitions, like 100GB or so.
Overall, NTFS is better.
 
so how much space should you dedicate to the os? when i did it i did like 30 gb bc i had 2 drives in there but i could/ will change ......
 
depends what you want to install along with it on the same partition. just calculate all of their sizes and then add a bit more space for extra room and system cache.

about 10 gig does me for my xp partition fine. because i like to put office and software i have on cds on the same partition as it isn't as important to back them up as downloaded things.
 
TheMajor said:
My XP partition is 20GB; I install all my software on there.

same, (but mines a little bigger because of BF2/BF2142/Steam). I installed my games/other software on my raptor with the small partition and i use my 250GB Caviar for Torrents/Files.
 
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