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    Hard-drive partition upon clean install: Yay or Nay and *WHY???*

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by purplegreendave, Aug 23, 2008.

  1. purplegreendave

    purplegreendave Has a notebook.

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    Waiting for my Studio 15 to arrive and, as I'm gonna clean install nearly as soon as I get it, I might partition it.
    I was gonna try:
    C: Windows install, programs
    D: All files: Music, photos, documents, coursework etc

    What are the pros & cons of this?

    Also, what size should I make the partitions?
    What'll be on C:
    Windows
    Firefox
    Office 2007 Student/Home
    Messenger (Either WLM, Pidgin or both)
    JK Defrag
    Gimp
    Reaper (Or some other recording stuff)
    Maybe some other things that don't come to mind :confused:
    Maybe one or two games (nothing insane like Crysis)


    On a 250gig HD, would allocating 60Gib to that C: be enough/too much/skimping a bit?
     
    purplegreendave, Aug 23, 2008
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  2. dreamz

    dreamz Notebook Geek

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    partitioning is always a good idea. separate your personal data from your system to preserve them in case the system goes down.

    i personally keep my programs on my d:\ partition along with my personal data. why? that way, if i ever have to reformat windows, i don't have to worry about losing my applications. of course, i use only portable applications.

    also, my system partition is only 5gb. there's no reason for me to make it any bigger. i've nlited my xp installation heavily, and my windows folder after installation and drivers is less than 500mb in size.
     
    dreamz, Aug 23, 2008
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  3. Theros123

    Theros123 Web Designer & Developer

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    For vista, make your partition 20 gigs since they'll be a ton of updates. Plus Vista is quite large...something like 10 gigs already. Make the rest on D, you can also get Firefox, Gimp, and all other non-Windows essential affecting programs on that Data partition as well. Only install programs that actually affect Windows, like programs that affect the shell, in the C drive.

    In terms of speed, and whatnot...there's not much difference either way. However, IMO the biggest benefit is that you can reinstall Windows as many times as you want and not have to delete your other files on the D partition. Also, I like to use gPart to partition my harddrive before I install Windows so it goes by quicker.
     
    Theros123, Aug 23, 2008
    #3
  4. SmoothTofu

    SmoothTofu Inspiron 1420 Owner

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    I have my Vista partition at 50GB, the other files I keep seperately are my personal documents and videos.
     
    SmoothTofu, Aug 23, 2008
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