Advantages of Vista on Its Own Partition?

I don't know if I'm not searching for the right keywords but I'm trying to find out if there are any advantages of installing Vista on its own partition, specifically regarding boot time. That would be the only OS installed so it would not be a dual boot setup.

I did a clean install and with only the OS and the updated drivers (no programs installed), I'm getting a one minute bootup on a T9300 processor, 3GB RAM with a 120 GB 7200 RPM drive. I've got a second 120GB drive installed but it's not a RAID setup.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

From what I've read, it's best to give Vista the whole drive.

 

Hmmm. Shucks. I have it on a separate partition. Such is dual-booting, eh?

But seriously, follow the tweak guide, if you haven't already.

 

my old hp used to only take 65 seconds...single core amd sempron 1.8ghz, 1gb ram, 60 gb 4200 rpm hdd............

 

With Vista?

 

yes...vista ultimate 32 bit......HEAVILY tweaked though.

 

My startup is around 35 seconds.

Not even tweaked or anything.

 

Wow. I've already tweaked and that's my boot time. Can't imagine what's going on. I don't even have any of my programs installed yet. This is fresh off a clean install.

 

try install new drivers, might help

 

Dotn expect to get quick boot times straight away after a clean install.

Windows still needs to get used to it and optimizations can take a while. It gets faster and faster everytime you restart

I used to get 45 seconds boot up time. Its probably over 1 minute now since i installed all these programs and stopped taking care of my system. Im due for a clean install soon thats why

 

To answer the original question, a separate partition will do absolutely nothing with regard to boot times.

 

What? How would Vista even know if it was given the whole drive or not? Or why would it even care? Having more than one partition has absolutely NO effect on Vista what so ever.

Gary

 

More likely you are due for a defrag of your bootfiles. See the link in my signature below.

Gary

 

It has something to do with the way memory and the page file are managed in Vista. Giving Vista the whole drive is what the experts I've read from suggested.

 

Sorry, I don't buy it at all. If I have a 120 GB drive and partition it with the OS having 80 GB and another partiton having 40 GB. How could it possibly be ANY different than having an 80gb drive in the first place? You may have read this somewhere, but I am suggesting that these "experts" have no clue what they are talking about. Can you provide any links so I can read what it is they are suggesting?

Gary

 

I'm just sharing what I've read on the topic, from people more qualified than either you or I, that's all.

 

I have to agree with you there!

 

Like all things with Vista resource usage, apparently the more the better.

 

More likely "superfetch"

 

I am not challenging YOU. I really do want to see what you read. Please do share it with us so I can see first hand what is being said. I have been heavily involved in microcomputer hardware and software since 1976 and I am a developer and a Microsoft Certified Solution Provider. I really want to read these messages you are talking about, because as I said before I think they are hogwash.

Please, don't take offense. I am NOT saying YOU are wrong. I just want to read what you have been reading.

Gary

 

No offense taken. It was awhile ago and I can't remember where I read it, I just remember what I read, and it was more than one place. I may have read it once while browsing through a mag at the book store for one example, and somewhere online for another, I just don't remember where. I'm just sharing what I remember reading FWIW.

 

If you partition, you won't loose everything if the comp crash and you need to reformat


end of discussion

 

If you read the OP, you will see that the question is "specifically regarding boot time".

 

Please, if you do come across it again post a link. I am VERY curious as to what possible "benefit" these experts think there might be.

As to the OP, who was concerned about boot times, again I see absolutely no way it would have any affect. Well actually a dual boot system will take SLIGHTLY longer to boot because it first has to load the boot manager and the determine which of the two (assuming two) OS's to boot. But beyond THAT specific overhead there will be no difference in boot times.

Gary

 

From what I remember, like I said, it had something to do with the way Vista manages memory and the page file. As for partitions, I've read that 30 gigs is good for Vista, so go figure.

If I do come across it again, I'll be sure and post back. I hope it wasn't just in a magazine I browsed, because then I'll definitely never see it again.

 

i dunno about boot time but with the system drive in its own partition UAC wont be so troublesome

 

How in the world does partitioning affect UAC? Honestly I don't know, but that really seems like something out in left field.

 

Yeah, this makes no sense to me either.

 

so if i partitioned say 12gigs as C/: and installed vista and put everything els on another partition all i would have to do to recover my system is to reinstall vista. sorry about the hijack:twitcy:

 

Actually, it seemed to me that the OP wasn't referring to a dual boot system but to a system with Vista on its own partition.
That is with data on other partitions.
So, there would not be the need for any boot manager.

As for the boot time, I do not know if there could be theoretical benefits from separating the OS. If there are any, they should be negligible and could possibly be due to checking the integrity of certain system files whose dimensions and position on disk depend upon the size of the partition Windows is installed into.
I am thinking about the paging and hibernation files and the MFT stuff. I do not know if they are checked, validated or written on boot, but if they are in a 25 GB partition near the other system files (instead of being at the middle or at the end of a 400 GB disk) it is possible that their access be faster.

Theoretically.

 

Even better than that: if you image the partition with tho OS after installing and tweaking, you could copy it back without affecting your data.
Five minutes and you are back to work (or play, or surf the internet for porn.. that's up to you )

 

Ford7379trucks: this depends on what you mean by "everything else" if you are including programs in that category then no, it is NOT that simple. If you ONLY install Vista on one partition and programs and data on another you would have to reinstall all of the programs after Vista was reinstalled because the programs all update the registry when they install and reinstalling Vista would put you back to a fresh registry. Because of this I do, and recommend, the following: Put Vista and the programs on the C: drive and all your data, i.e. My Documents, My Favorites, My Music, My Pictures and your Outlook PST files on the D: drive.

Sredni Vashtar: it will take a bit more than 5 minutes but you are right, creating an image after the OS is installed and tweaked and the apps are installed does allow for a quick and easy recovery. I actually have a third partition to store my current image file(s).

Gary

 

I realize that the OP was not talking about a dual boot, but I was pointing out that a dual boot system would be the ONLY circumstance where partitioning would have ANY effect on the boot time. As far as the physical positioning of the files of the drive having ANY effect on boot time it would be so minuscule as to be unmeasurable by any human means. As you said, theoretical. Now the RELATIVE positioning does matter a lot. The defrag of boot files under Vista not only defrags the files but it also puts them in the order used.

Gary

 

Didn't mean to spark a debate with my question!

Just wanted to thank everyone. I went ahead and gave Vista the whole drive after everyone's advice.

Thanks for helping the Vista newbie!

 

Glad to help!

 

totally agree that's true and great advice. I use acronis11 for backups.

 

Oh, good. Thanks for clearing that up.