Practical Partitioning for PC Practitioners

[Whyzman]

I didn't know into which Forum to put this...but I guess it has to do with performance...

I found this to be an excellent concise read on Partitioning:

http://partition.radified.com/

The dude has some other stuff equally as concise. The information I read so far deals with practical application...the kinda stuff I really dig!

[david eaton]

Good find Whyzman Lots of USEFUL info. Thanks for posting it.


David

[sleddog]

Yup lots of good partitioning ideas there. I'll throw out another idea, which is mentioned there...

I create a primary partition for the OS, less than 8gb -- as discussed at that site. But then I create another, small partition immediately after it, about 250-350mb in size. Its labelled "TEMP" and is used for:

- System temp directory (D:\temp);
- All web browser caches (e.g., D:\cache\netscape)
- All downloads (D:\download)
- And misc other "temp" things.

All this stuff is transient data. If it was all to disappear in the next minute it wouldn't really matter.

Web browsers write large numbers of small files to cache. These browser caches are beneficial, but play havoc with your drive fragmentation. I just let them do what they want on the temp D: drive and never defragment it. And defragmenting drive C: is vastly easier without this myriad of cache files.

Lots of other programs write temp files to the system temp directory as they work, and the same thing applies as with browser caches.

Why place downloads on this small drive? I do it because it forces me to do some file management, else the small partition will fill up! For example, I'm always downloading and evaluating software. When I find something I like and want to keep, I'll move it from D:\Download to E:\Software. Everything remaining in D:\Download is destined for deletion when the partition is, say, 50% full. If I simply downloaded to E:\Software then I would accumulate a whole lot of clutter that I really didn't want to keep, but forgot to delete. And it's really hard to identify what's what months later....

[Whyzman]

Sled, that is some excellent advice!

It seems like anything in DOS is a "road less traveled" scenario for most folks...well, that is true for me...

Secondly, when someone first gets involved with computers as more than just a passing fancy...there's so much "other stuff" to occupy ones time than how the initial foundation of one's system has been laid.

However, the outcome of most jobs has to do with the proper preparation...and not much thought is really given to the "Road to Partition!" Okay, I'm a Tom Hanks fan....hehe

This article has really opened my eyes to the pitfalls of not prognosticating proper partitioning!

A build I did for my Father last fall is beginning to have some problems with a faulty download of a 128 bit encryption capable browser..I didn't partition the drive into at least two and if I have to reload I will of course lose all data...

If I would just be looking at reloading the Operating System...boy would that be sweet! Why is hindsight always 20/20?

Just working with files is an art form...I appreciate the practical, such as you're discribing what you are actually doing...and that it works!

[LadyGrey]

Just awesome whyzman, what a help to someone like me! It's plainly written without alot of computer speak. I'm so glad you posted it!
Thanks! LG

[malcore]

Nice link Whyzman .

Sound advice sleddog .

My question:

Is it a good idea, and is it possible to create a small partition just before the primary active partition with the OS and use this for a Swap File?

[Sylvander]

What I’d like to be able to do [and I have not yet figured out how to do it], is to put all the stuff you don’t want to lose when you reformat the c: drive onto another partition.
That way, after you reformat, the c: drive and restore a good backup you haven’t lost things like:
The latest up to date version of your e-mails, your address book, Internet Explorer Favourites, Family tree Databases.
I keep some of this stuff in “My Documents” and would like to put this folder off the C: Drive [but cannot in Win98].

I already have a lot of other things in other partitions.

[mjc]

Sylvander, you can use TweakUI to change the location of MyDocuments.

[Sylvander]

Well!
It was NOT the simplest of things to do,
BUT
I got it done in the end and if there are no nasty side effects it will be absolutely BRILLIANT !

Here’s what I did.

1. Made a folder on the D: drive named “My Documents”.
2. Used “TweakUI” to specify this as the new location for the “My Documents” folder.
3. Re-started the PC.
4. Discovered that the folders and files had not automatically been moved there.
5. Used Cut & Paste to move them from the old location to the new.
6. Deleted the old empty “My Documents” folder.
7. Redirected things that pointed to files in the old location.
E.g. My favourite sounds for certain events. I use a small, high pitched, voice which says “leave me alone” as my default sound. This means that when anyone hits a keyboard key that is ineffective, or clicks a button not available they are told “leave me alone”.
Asterisk = “Oops”, Critical Stop = “Oh Dear”, Exclamation = “Uh-oh”. Try it, it’s fun.
Open program = [a beep], Close Program = [a whoosh]. This means that even though the PC appears to be doing nothing, if I want to hear what’s going on I turn up the sound and can listen to programs opening and closing.
I also see processor usage displayed; so a beep followed by usage jumping to 100% gives an idea of what is happening unseen.
The Family Tree program needed to be told where to find it’s files.

This is SUPERB, because now when I reformat the c: drive and restore a backup I no longer lose the latest changes made to information kept in the “My Documents” folder.

THANK YOU MJC.

Now all I need is to keep:

E-mail Folders
Address Book
E-mail Account Settings
Web Browser Favourites
Microsoft Word Templates

on another drive also.

[Sinch]

Whysman,

My thanks also for pointing us to the Radified web site. Great site for those of us into multibootable OS/multipartitioned systems.

Also very enlightening discusion of present day SCSI.

My old legacy P2 (Pentium Pro 200) system has a 2 to 3 generation old 68 pin UW SCSI IBM hd with an Adaptec controller. (It was state-of-the art for a short time) It is set up with 4 primary partitions to multiboot 4 OS's. I tried to temporarily install the IDE\ATA hd for my new P4 system as a slave so I could image copy it with PM's partition copy feature. (I have done this for IDE to IDE hds on another computer) On the SCSI computer the IDE hd is not recognized by the BIOS when jumpered as auto identify, master, or slave in either the primary or secondary IDE mobo slot. The mobo is Intel VS440FX. I would not expect it to work as a master. Any thoughts?

Sinch

[drdan]

I'm actually working on this as we speak. I copied My Docs and my Download folder and My Drivers etc to a CD before I reformated. Sylvander, the address book and favorites both have an import/export function which works well. Just export the latest version to a file on another drive or to a CD and import it back in after reinstalling the OS. I'm still working on fixes for the others myself. One thing I'm going to do is make a clone of my operating system once I have all updates and drivers where I want them, before I start adding programs. I will store that on another partition so I can start over pretty clean without so much work to get the system working properly again. Then all I have to do is pick which programs from my saved Downloads folder I want to reinstall.

Oh, and thanks for the radified link!