hard drive partitioning

Hi,
When installing xp on my system I am always at a loss when asked to choose a number for partitionimg my hard drive not knowing whether to choose the lowest or highest number or even if partitioning is necessary. I have always chosen a high number but have noticed that my system is very slow and games that I could download and run from my favourite site now seldom work. My sister in law's problem is the same as I installed her xp in the same way. I have been told that I should have used a low number ( something to do with how the hard drive uses the memory ) Can anyone advise on this and if I have dropped a clanger is there a way to repartition without starting installation from scratch?
Both computers have around 600 memory and plenty of space on hard drives.
thanks in advance maginty

 

Agreed with MA, but I've found through the years that with most users it's perfectly fine to allow Windows to chose its own defaults, and to not bother with setting up extra partitions...sure, there may be performance advantages to having a static pagefile on a separate partition, but the perks are miniscule, and the potential for confusion and problems increases...

Having one simple C: drive sure makes troubleshooting a lot easier...

 

Sorry - didn't mean to step on any toes...

 

Hi,
thank you for your response but I still would like to know if partitioning the hard drive was necessary or of any benefit? Also, how to undo this if it is not? I have a 20 gb hard drive and 640 mb memory and as I said, on this computer I never had any problems but since a couple of occasions when a serious virus necessitated a complete wipe and reinstall it has not performed as well as before. I do regular cleanup and maintenance and use an external hard drive for everything that can be stored there to save room on the main hard drive.I also use driver max to keep the drivers up to date My own installed games work fine ( with the odd sticky bit ) but some downloaded ones install but won't open and I often have to use restart to get them off my screen. So, there you have it chaps... I am at a loss. Hope you can help me further?
thanks and regards maginty

 

Hey guys,

Just to add to this querry, is it not true that its harder for malware to cross to another partition?

Therefore having your C:\ windows and E:\ user data on different partitions not a good idea?
If C:\ is turned to toast malware or whatever... one can use virtual OS and from DVD etc and recover user data to flash drive or external drive or just toast the C:\ windows reinstall install or reload from backup.

The other thought is that the more partitions the more page file...well ok cool some may think..but no... you still have the same set of heads reading multiple sectors doing double time as it were on multiple page files...would this not affect the life span of the Hard drive...

Interested on others opinions on this...not trying to hijack this thread.

later :wave

 

And a 20GB drive doesn't leave much to work with if partitioned.

 

The other thing to consider with this one is that the drive if a 20GB, with possibly 2Mb of cache, is probably around 5-ish years old. It maybe starting to get a bit tired and the seek time will probably be a little slower...wear and tear.

So you may consider upgrading to improve system performance. May I suggest upgrading to another larger Hard drive with an 8Mb cache and 7,200rpm or faster for your new Windows Hard drive.

Many people / geeks, like the Windows Hard drive C:\ by default, to be the fastest drive in the - P.C. Opting for a Hard drive around the 10000rpm and a 16MB+ cache, you may consider this option if its within your budget...

L8r guy:wave