New computer questions

[Drumstik]

I have a new computer with a 120g hard drive and a 20g hard drive as a slave. I also have 1 gig of memory.

My question is this:

In setting up partitions for my computer, is it ok to have just one partition or should I make several?

For example, a friend of mine suggested the following:

20gig drive c (windows)
5 gig drive d (swap)
the remainder of this drive drive e (files)

Slave drive drive F (Backup)

I do nothing fancy on this computer as far as gaming or any type of designing. All I am interested in is just an easy way to setup and maintain my system

Any and all suggestions from the experts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[caperjack]

Im no expert ,but if i had what you have i would use the 20 for windows ,the 120 as slave for storage ,and with 1gig of ram i would disable swap file and use the memory for it ,it would make the swap faster .

[Drumstik]

Thanks will take that into consideration

[caperjack]

Thanks will take that into consideration

consideration is good, nothing i say is Gospel .:) hehe

[dlh6213]

I have a new computer with a 120g hard drive and a 20g hard drive as a slave. I also have 1 gig of memory.

My question is this:

In setting up partitions for my computer, is it ok to have just one partition or should I make several?

For example, a friend of mine suggested the following:

20gig drive c (windows)
5 gig drive d (swap)
the remainder of this drive drive e (files)

Slave drive drive F (Backup)

I do nothing fancy on this computer as far as gaming or any type of designing. All I am interested in is just an easy way to setup and maintain my system

Any and all suggestions from the experts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Personally, I would do as your friend suggested, or something similar. The smaller drives will allow faster defrags, searchs, antivirus scans, etc. Also, if one drive gets corrupted, most of what you have on the other drives shouldn't be effected.

I don't really think you need to dedicate 5GB to swap files, just dedicate a small portion of each drive and use some RAM as caperjack suggested.

Just something else to take into consideration :)

[condor117]

never use a partition for swapping always use the main partition for swap file u will reduce windows performance in doing this also keep in mind that most applications install in program files directory so keep the largest partition for operating system.
suggestion 80g for os and the rest for backup

[caperjack]

80gig for OS ,you must be planning on loading a log of programs on the computer .
I only done this once with one of my computers but i had a 4gig with OS and a seperat 500meg drive for swap and it worked just fine .
Also I have used OS on 5gig c:\ with all system files on the 5gig and changed the default install to d:\ and loaded all programs on D:\ partion ,this also made defrag faster .it all worked for me anyway .

[condor117]

well you should know as i told u before all software is installed in program files. then it is much better for windows to take whatever resources it needs it will not complain. By the way I've done this quite some time since it my job.

[dlh6213]

Also I have used OS on 5gig c:\ with all system files on the 5gig and changed the default install to d:\ and loaded all programs on D:\ partion ,this also made defrag faster .it all worked for me anyway .

How do you change the default install to a different drive?

[caperjack]

How do you change the default install to a different drive?

Go to Run.
Type: regedit

Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

On the right side, find the string called ProgramFilesDir and modify it to the desired
path.

Remember to create a program files folder on the other drive!
And don't forget to backup registry before making any changes ,also you will need to reboot for the changes to take affect .