Drive formatting/partitioning

[JDowdall]

Im back with one of my notoriously long rambly questions again :D well basically im re installing/re formatting windows (xp) 2 get rid of alll the **** on my computer (trust me i have a lot) and so just a few questions. Firstly am i right in thinking that the maximum size of a partition on a hdd is 149gb? and so on my 160gb drive if i want to use all my space i will need at least two partitions? is there a program 2 do this or can i use the xp install cd or wat. Also i want to make 3 partitions if possible 6ish gig (for the OS so i dno wat size this shud b) urr about 34gb (for games judging that the OS is 6gb) and about 120gb for all the other **** i've got (trust me i have a lot) so basically i want 2 know

1) is the maximum hd partiton 149gb in xp home?
2) How will i go about creating multiple partitions using xp or wat programs will i need
3) Is that partition strategy good or what
4) and could someone make or point me in the direction of a dummies guide to multiple partitioning

[Taxation]

I have a 268GB partition for xp
I would say to make a 15GB partition for xp, because all the updates etc take up room, and not all programs can have theyre install location changed from the windows partition.
Partitions have to be done in the windows install phase.

I have a 10% disk space for xp
and the rest for programs etc
the reason it says only 149GB is because thats its actual size
80GB drives only have 74GB space on them
320GB drives only have about 290GB
its marketing

[JDowdall]

ah ok so would you reccomend 15gb for OS 25gb for games and performance apps (corel draw photoshop etc) and then 109gb for random **** does anyone have a guide or a step by step for multiple drive partitions

[Taxation]

That seems okay for what you need.
And as for multidrive partitioning, i would just fiddle around with it tbh.
because i dont know, and seeing that there is no info on the drives anyway, because they will get wiped, your not really losing anything

[JDowdall]

k but wouldn't i have 2 put **** on them 2 check the speed or will i not reli see much of a speed difference between a 10 and 20 gb partition? and thats all dun with the xp cd?

[Taxation]

there wont be a noticable speed difference between the partition being either 10GB or 20GB
Are you going to do this with RAID, if so then only one drive will appear while setting up windows
Have you ever installed windows before??
You partition the drives while installing windows

[JDowdall]

I have installed windows b4 but i wasnt concentrating im hopin 2 go raid but will need 2 get 2 sata 40/80gb drives first and a 5 1/2 inch 2 3.5 inch drive adaptor or perhaps i get 2 2.5 inch drives 2 go in the 5 1/2 inch bay?

[teknokid]

wot u wanna do is when u install windows make the 15gb partition, then once its installed you create the new partition in admin tools.
i wouldnt recomend it though, it involves a lot of skippin around for the hard drive between partitions and ultimately slower.

[JDowdall]

r u sure cos it cant b slower than a 149gb partition i have atm nd its guna b faster cos its lookin at a smaller part of a hdd on the same 1 instead of searchin thr u all of it

[teknokid]

i dunno, but thats what i was told.

[Taxation]

well, i have a 320GB hard drive
a 30GB windows partition and the rest is for files
runs fine and i see no slowing in performance

[JDowdall]

well its dun and dusted now and i can see a performance difference (yes ther was that much ****) but i think i've been 2 organised and mite end up goin down 2 2 partitions cos im guna b bored of searchin thru multiple drives 2 find random stuff

[teknokid]

haha, i got 3, windows n drivers, programs n docs, back-up.
what did u do?

[JDowdall]

wat u mean? i just made 3 partitions in windows boot then it partitoned 1 wher i installed xp then i started xp and formatted the other 2 drives

[teknokid]

yeah, lol, so you got 3 partitions, correct?
thats what im going for :D

[JDowdall]

yh i got 3 atm and stuff is goin well :D

[JDowdall]

scratch that things "were" going well but now it seems to have got worse... yay rite firstly we have the reference error (memory at *insert big number here* cannot be accessed ) or something like that however i believe that is a hardware error (or RAM to be more precise) secondly we have the MOM dependancies that are linked to the ATI drivers and i dont know about that error thirdly i have an "error" witht he windows/microsoft update website, whenever i try to use it it just loads half the page then pops up with a box offering me an option on whether i want to end task or debug of which debug doesnt work. Finally we have the error resulting in a lack of boot, this happened with my previous OS install so i have come to believe it is hardware based, basically, the comp will go into BIOS then go into the black screen after witht he white underscore at the top left, then to the boot list (safe mode etc.. (oh and safe mode doesn't work btw)) :lol: as you can tell this is not fun and can anyone please help me with any of these errors

[teknokid]

that sounds like dying ram, or a flaky windows install. i had this on an old rig, and i never found out if it was mem/mobo/windows.

[JDowdall]

if that is the case then could someone point me in the direction of a testing tool for my memory etc

[teknokid]

download memtest.

[JDowdall]

kk will doo does anyone else have any possible reasons?