Partitioning questions

[Parrecho]

Hi: I am getting ready to partition my HD, (this is my first time), and I have a lot of questions: first let me tell you that this is a new system that I kind build myself.
I have 2 hard drives on my system, one is a 120-GB that currently is not partitioned, and has win XP PRO on it, and the second one is a 4-GB, that once had (still has Linux on it), and I am not currently using it.

Can I do this partitioning just using Fdisk?
How do I go about my second HD, I am planning to reinstall Linux on it, should I create an extended partition for the whole drive, and if so what kind?
Do I need to reformat the HD first, and the run fdisk? do I need to reformat the secondary HD as well?
Once I get ready to install win XP, will I have control of where to put stuff?
Is there any disadvantage to partitioning?
If I start partitioning with Fdisk, can I later on made changes to the partitioning using PM, or another application?/can they be made with Fdisk?

TIA
Miguel

[Budfred]

I can't answer all of your questions, but I can tell you that you can use the WinXP install disk to do the formatting and you may be better off doing so. I personally prefer to use a number of partitions to split my programs, data and storage up. I also like keeping the time to defrag the drives shorter. Defragging a 120gig partition would take hours.

[Paul Komski]

Planning your partitions (http://aumha.org/win4/a/parts.htm)

Suggest asking about Linux HERE (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=30)

Defragging takes a long time if a drive is very fragmented. The best way to improve defrag times is to do it regularly, use "3rd party" defraggers and have your virtual memory of fixed size and/or on a separate partition.

[Budfred]

So Paul,

Are you trying to say that a 5 gig disk that is heavily fragmented would take longer to defrag than a lightly fragmented 120 gig disk??? Assuming that both disks have at least 50% full??? I would be very surprised to learn that this is true.... or that even a heavily fragmented 20 gig disk would take longer....

I have also read reviews saying that the basic Windoze defragger works about a quickly as most of the third party defraggers out there.....

[Paul Komski]

No. The remarks were qualitative not quantitative.

What I was trying to say is what I said. (And 3rd Party was specifically in inverted commas such that the WinME Defragger would, for example, be included).

Other general qualitative remarks could include the fact that defragging is generally of much less importance using NTFS than FAT.

Defragging a small partition with a few files would be faster than a large one with many files just as defragging on a 33MHz CPU with little RAM would be slower than on a 2GHz one with loads of RAM. That should be obvious.

Regular defragging (especially on FAT) is important to keep your apps tuned up and has the additional advantage that the time for each defrag will be reduced. Just try defragging a defragged partition that was heavily defragged to start with to compare the difference. ;)