[davo57]

I have installed my new hard drive and partitioned it into 4 primary segments using windows disc manager. I gave the first segment 12gb on which to run a reinstalled windows xp (i will use my old hard drive as a second once windows is up and running okay on the new HD). Now i have just read on the internet that windows XP should have up to 25gb as its operating segment.
Its a 750gb drive so i have plenty of space but now i have partitioned it im worried that 12gb is not enough.

a) should i repartition it and make it bigger (no data on hard drive yet)
b) or is 12gb more than ok?

If i should make it bigger will it work to merge the first two partitions and then will i be able to create a new one? Or can you only create new partitions on unallocated space?
I dont really want to buy Partition Magic as i cant see myself doing this again for a while so windows it is!
Thanks to anyone that can help

Dave

[Dave Hybrid]

Why do you need 4 partitions?

[thingie2]

Yea, like Dave said, why do you need 4? and as for your question, I would say make the partition larger I would probably say 30-40GB, as you have plenty of space, you may aswell have plenty of room for the OS.

[serverguy]

One partition is a hell of a lot easier, trust me.

If you must split it for data and OS, make XP one about 150GB.

Or just use your old hard drive for the OS, and keep it completely separate.

[davo57]

i read a few sites that said partitioning the hard drive can make for easier disc defrag (due to smaller sizes) and easier re-installations of xp as you only need to reinstall the OS not all your programs. Hmm...now i dont know. Ive done it now so i guess its too late. The only thing im worried about is having made the os section too small! Perhaps sometimes you can read too much web info! haha! I now have one partition for the OS, one for video editing, one for program files and one for all the rest (music and photos). I guess if i dont get on with it like this i'll have to start all over again! (please god, i hope not!!!!)
Thanks for the replies

[Dave Hybrid]

Nope, if you do a full XP install all programs have to be done too, different partition or not.

Defraging is something done once in a blue moon and takes a while whatever size partition you have, so is normally something left to do overnight anyway.

Also very rarely do partitions go bad, 99.9% of the time a hard drive goes wrong it is mechanical and the whole drive is affected, not individual partitions.

One partition is much easier to manage and really makes no difference to performance or reliability.

[serverguy]

Originally Posted by Dave Hybrid Nope, if you do a full XP install all programs have to be done too, different partition or not. Defraging is something done once in a blue moon and takes a while whatever size partition you have, so is normally something left to do overnight anyway. Also very rarely do partitions go bad, 99.9% of the time a hard drive goes wrong it is mechanical and the whole drive is affected, not individual partitions. One partition is much easier to manage and really makes no difference to performance or reliability.

What Dave said is absolutely true.

Whatever sites you read that said you can reinstall XP without loosing programs obviously had no idea. When you install programs, its not only the stuff in the programs folder that gets installed. Theres lots of registry changes, new reg keys etc.

Just do it right from the start and reformat the drive with one big partition.