60 gig hard drive partition

[olopbob]

I'm going to partition my 60 gig HD for the first time. After going through two total crashes,complete installs and reformats I want to create a small, second back-up O/S, to save down time, and allow me to have basic functions like a browser and email. I also want to create several small partitions for data backup (music, photos, program files and word documents). I'll be using Partitionmagic 7.0. My question is, how should I size these partitions? My main O/S will be Windows XP with MS Office 2000 Professional.I would like to use a smaller backup O/S and dual boot. I have a basic Win ME disk or should I use an open source O/S? I would like something very user friendly and I am familiar with ME (although it is a bit unstable). Perhaps someone knows of something smaller and easy to use.I would say Win 98 but I don't have access.

Also, what would be the best size for these partitions? I was thinking 20 Gig for XP, 15 Gig for second O/S and dividing the other 25 Gigs into 3-5, 5 to 8 Gig storage partitions. I may be totally wrong about this, so any help on the second O/S and partition size and setup is welcomed.

Note: Presently, I have 49 gigs on drive C, and 8 gigs on drive d, and both are ntfs which can't be changed back to fat 32 without format. Also XP is installed on drive C and one of the main reasons for partition is to protect it from a reformat or reinstallation.Manufacturer says I will get 60 gigs after part

[ErnieK]

hi olopbob
I have similar to what you are wanting.

I have set Win98 on drive C:\ with about 4GB (you could make it smaller or larger depending on exactly what you will be doing with the spare\emergency OS - I have a couple of programs that will not look at XP so use 98 and then drag finished product into XP) (98 is more stable than ME) I then partitioned (Using PM7) the remainder of the drive into two.

I then set a partition of 15GB for download storage and for the my document folders for both OS's (thus keeping Documents safe in the event of a needed re-install)

I then installed XP onto the last partition as the second OS and as FAT32 file sytem. (this means you can drg and drop between OS's) After you have installed XP you can set it as the primary boot choice.

Remember when you operate like this you will need to keep two sets of drivers for your computer. One for XP and the other for 9x

[Paul Komski]

I have a similar setup but WinME/Win2K (both of which have been extremely stable). If most of your common data is going to be on one or two FAT32 logical drives, then there is no need for huge partitions for the OSes, unless you will be storing many large applications, like Office, on the OS partitions.

There is no harm in starting off with a few "small" partitions and leave a significant amount of unallocated space; this can be redistributed later as needed and the smaller partitions will be more "efficient" meantime.

After fdisking/formatting, you could install Win98 or ME on 2GB as C: with say 10GB each for D: and E: (D: and E: as logical drives and all as FAT32). Then install XP into the unallocated space but only use say another 10GB for starters. Nothing wrong with making this FAT32 too but personally I would use NTFS for this partition noting that 98/ME can then never see it; this has both advantages and disadvantages; but if all your data files are on common partitions, then you can always see that data from either OS.

Once the dual boot has been setup, you can move common features like MyDocuments, MyMusic, OE StoreFolders, Favorites onto your "common data partitions" so they are always the same ones, whichever OS you boot into.

[olopbob]

I've decided to go with Linux for something a little different.I'm using Partition Magic which should help. Just wondering (I was told not to have more than 4 partitions) if I should setup virtual drives vs. partitions. With 60 gigs I would think I could have more than 4 partitions. Any ideas?

[Paul Komski]

If one of the four is an extended partition then that extended partition can contain numerous logical drives/partitions - hence extending the number over 4..