Partitioning a 120GB hard drive...

[Abos]

First off, for anyone who's read my most recent posts, there's been a change of plans... I'm no longer going to dual-boot Windows XP and 98. For now, only XP will reside on my comp. Though, in the future, I may decide to bild my own computer (in which case I will install 98).


Anyways, I'm going to install Windows XP Home on my 120gig hard drive. My question is: should I partition?... and, if so, how should I divide it up?

Up until now, we haven't really partitioned any computers in my household (biggest drive is/was 17GB, though), and we've never had any problems... so you could understand if I'm a little bit skeptical about partitioning.

Personally, the only reasons I can think of that would influence me to partition would be:
1) BIG performance gains
2) making files secure (I don't understand this one myself... is it possible for one partition to become corrupted and another not?)


Bottom line: I apologize to anyone who read this, but I really dont want to make the wrong decision.

Thanks... a lot... again.

[beeboy]

Its a great idea to set aside 5 gigs or so and put the operating system and programs there. Then, if or when you need to reinstall, your data will stay intact on its own partition. A swap partition for XP - sure, why not. Its how linux does it. I prefer to run lots of ram and set up the page file manually. Big ram decreases the need for xp to access the hard drive making for better performance, plus a longer lifed hard drive. Here is more info from old posts.
http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com...ht=partitio n
http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com...ht=partitio n
http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com...ht=partitio n

[Abos]

What about system restore?

Doesn't it automatically save images to the partition on which Windows is installed?

[beeboy]

It sure does.