Partitioning Hard Disk

[Juan]

If I want to create a separate parition on a hard disk to install Win XP on how big does it need to be? Is 10GB enough.

Also can I install all the programs on another partition so that if I ever need to reinstall windows, I won't need to install the programs again, or doesn't this work?

Finally the hard disk is 160GB can I just use a Win 98 boot disk and use FDISK to create the partitions, bcoz I can remember reading an article that FDISK wouldn't recognize a disk upto this size.

Thanks in advance 4 replies.

[Florence]

yes 10 gig is enough I have used 8gig but find 10 gig better.

I set up a program files on a D drive and this worked well with the OS on C. I have been told the other way is best but it does work.

[swoop101]

Yep 10 gig is good, that is what I use.

Boot up with CD as first boot device and put in XP cd. Take it from there.

[Charlie_Bubble]

10Gb, should be plenty, maybe a bit much.

You'll still have to install again. If you completely re-installed windows from new it wouldn't have any of the registry entries in it from all of your previously installed apps. Best install all your basic apps to get a baseline and then take a backup of windows and your other apps.

Not sure about the last one. Long time since I dealt with FDISK.

[Juan]

Originally Posted by swoop101

Yep 10 gig is good, that is what I use.

Boot up with CD as first boot device and put in XP cd. Take it from there.

Haven't I got to sort out the partitions b4 I install XP though or does XP allow u to do it after its installed?

[Jonboy]

get a copy of partition magic and all your problems will be over can do it all from within windows

[Charlie_Bubble]

XP will let you do the partitioning on install. If you need to do more later on there is a utility in XP that allows you to do partitioning.


Or am I thinking about win 2k? Erm, not sure!

[Juan]

Originally Posted by Charlie_Bubble

XP will let you do the partitioning on install. If you need to do more later on there is a utility in XP that allows you to do partitioning.


Or am I thinking about win 2k? Erm, not sure!

I'm not even sure if the disk is formatted or not because its a new PC I've just got but I didn't get it with the OS as I already have XP Pro. Is there a way of finding out the current state of the disk i.e. formatted or not and number of partions b4 the XP install.

[Jonboy]

go to bootdisk.com and download the files to make a a bootable floppy etc
then you can run fdisk and see whats what

[ZrByte]

Originally Posted by Juan

If I want to create a separate parition on a hard disk to install Win XP on how big does it need to be? Is 10GB enough.

If you are not planning to install any of your applications to the drive with win xp then 10gb is probably too big, if you plan to install applications on this drive then I would reccomend about 18gb. Thats how I have my main PC configured.

Also can I install all the programs on another partition so that if I ever need to reinstall windows, I won't need to install the programs again, or doesn't this work?

You can install them wherever you like, though if you format your system you will need toreinstall your apps.
If you are willing to invest in a ghosting application such as Norton Ghost then you could make a ghost image of your system with basic applications installed, then later instead of reinstalling windows you could just restore windows from this ghost image wich would restore your basic settings and apps.

Finally the hard disk is 160GB can I just use a Win 98 boot disk and use FDISK to create the partitions, bcoz I can remember reading an article that FDISK wouldn't recognize a disk upto this size.

If the machine is using Win XP there is a very good chance that the hard disk is formatted in NTFS, a Win98 boot disk version of FDisk would not be able to read this partition never mind resize it.

Also im pretty sure that FAT32 (Win9x native partition system) wont support any higher than 120GB.