Hard Disc partitions in win98

[RobUK]

This seems a little strange to me but in a pc mag there was an article about the perfect windoze instalation. One of the pointers was to partition a hd over 6GB into TWO or MORE sections. This is supposed to optimise the system and make windoze find/write things faster. Is this true and is it worth doing?

Thanx - Rob

[qball]

Absolutely!

For years I've been begging people to create a 2gig active FAT16 primary partition, for ANY OS. Then you can partition the rest anyway you please (one big partition, NTFS, FAT32, linux). This way the OS sits in its primary partition and the programs and data sit elsewhere.

This make troubleshooting and reinstalling the OS much easier.

[NDC]

This is how my hard drives are setup:

HDD-1 : Seagate Cheetah SCSI Ultra160 18.4GB 10,000rpm

(1) 1.99GB NTFS = Win NT4
(2) 15.0GB NTFS = Win NT Applications
(3) 1.00GB NTFS = Win NT Page File

(1) Win NT4 OS is installed alone in this partition, to make reinstallation more convenient.

(2) I have all my applications installed in this partition

(3) I have isolated my Page file to a seperate partition to minimize fragmentation on my Page File.

HDD-2 : Western Digital EIDE UDMA66 15GB 7,200rpm NTFS

For all saved datas ONLY.

HDD-3 : Western Digital EIDE UDMA66 13GB
7,200rpm on Mobile Rack to transport data.

(1) 11GB NTFS

(2) 1.99GB FAT16 (to be accessible in Win98 because Win98 will NOT recognize NTFS. FAT16 can be accessed from Win NT4 and Win98 which makes transfering datas to either OS convenient)


I know this doesn't have to do with Win98 Partitioning, but thought I'd share it with you to get some ideas on the setup.



[This message has been edited by NDC (edited 09-01-2000).]

[Ygor]

I'm with you, qball. Put the OS on it's own partition! I just use Win98, my C drive is 1 gig.

[NDC]

In your case YGOR, that would be BAD idea!

[Win_98]

If you have only 1 drive, no it would not make it any faster. Having 2 drive would sped thing up much more then 1 drive. Making C drive small say 500meg, 1gig, 2 gig etc will make it much easier for you to backup windows because windows is more likely to screw up.

[rmanet]

Hey guys

Just went thru the process myself, bot a new maxtor 20 gig, partitioned into 3 drives, then planned to copy my old 1 gig (fat16)into the first partition. Having a working knowledge of fdisk (thanks to this board) - had no problem with partitions and formatted all 3 fat32.

Also got a copy of Drive Copy (RobUK take note,it's a good little program if you're just gonna replace instead of do a clean install of win98 and apps).

Drive copy copied the old HD onto the new as a new primary fat16 for 1 gig, deleted the first partition but left the extended, so now I have a bunch of unallocated space that is (I presume) still fat32 so I'm still screwing around, much to the chagrin of my wife, who is convinced I'm going to lose her work files.

At any rate - my advice:

read up on both fdisk and drive copy before you start, I have 3 hard drives on the system so I didn't worry much as I backed up my files, but knowing about active partitions, etc. is important.

go slow, use scandisk, and don't assume the partitions, formats etc. have worked until the new one boots and everything looks ok, and your apps run

even when you think you're done, boot on both HDs to compare stats, files, etc.

stay away from beer and wine during the process