Partioning Drives + General Space Perfomance

Cheetah Designs

Cheetah Designs

Cheetah Designs

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10 Jul 2006
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Hi there,

I am coming to the end of my 80GB HDD and windows is getting rather slow. Is that because it's coming to nearly filling the whole hard drive, or the fact that its 80GB and if it was on say a 200GB HDD is would be the same?

I'm going to upgrading to a larger HDD and was wondering how i should partition the drive? I have a large percent of my hard drive which is music and backups so i was thinking of sticking them on a seperate partion?

Does partitioning actually help with regards to performance?

Thanks.
 
When the hard drive comes to it's last 10% (or so) of space, Windows will become drastically slow.

Partitioning the hard drive doesn't necessarily make it faster running, but it makes it faster when you want to reinstall Windows. ;)

With a 320gb, I'm having a 40gb Partition for Windows and the rest for media/games
 
Is it possible to change the default directory where things are installed?

Like instead of C:\Program Files\, make it D:\Program Files, so programs automatically install to there?

That would make things so much easier.
 
Yes it is, but it's not exactly simple. I think if you pre-prepare target partitions for "Documents and Settings" and "Program Files" (if you want to move that) up front, so they'll show up with the right drive letters during installation, you can get away with simply making a modified install CD with "nLite ", telling it to change the target folder for "Documents and Settings" and/or "Program Files" and then installing with it. That should be the simplest, providing it works. (The problem is basically that the Windows installer will only allow you to format one partition during installation e.g. the C: partition, and if you've modified the CD to try to target program files etc to another drive and that drive doesn't exist yet due to not being formatted, your installation will fail horribly, hence why I say to pre-prepare the other partitions.)

A slightly more involved sequence of steps, but that have obviously been tested by the writer, are outlined here: http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php/t20343.html

A shorter sequence of steps for moving "Program Files" is described in here as well: http://whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/388669.html

I've in the past (several years ago) managed to move Program Files with regedit hackery, copying/moving the files and several reboots, as well as later on Documents and settings with more jiggery pokery, so it's definitely possible. (IIRC I had to boot from a liveCD in order to handle documents and settings properly since normally the user registry hives are otherwise permanently locked.)

Hope that helps...
 
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2Thumbs said:
When the hard drive comes to it's last 10% (or so) of space, Windows will become drastically slow.

Partitioning the hard drive doesn't necessarily make it faster running, but it makes it faster when you want to reinstall Windows. ;)

With a 320gb, I'm having a 40gb Partition for Windows and the rest for media/games
Click to expand...

is that installing all your programs etc into the 40g partition.

i have just bought a 400gb samsung sataII and was wondering the best way to format it. i was thinking of going the route of installing windows and programs in a seperate partitions but after read your post bytejuggler im not so sure, lol. may be a bit complicated for me.
 
Cruiser said:
is that installing all your programs etc into the 40g partition.

i have just bought a 400gb samsung sataII and was wondering the best way to format it. i was thinking of going the route of installing windows and programs in a seperate partitions but after read your post bytejuggler im not so sure, lol. may be a bit complicated for me.
Click to expand...

I'm actually messing with my rig at the minute and am in a position to trial various things (since I'm reinstalling etc), so I'll try and come up with a simple step by step guide if you're interested, assuming a fresh install on a clean unpartitioned disk to begin with?
 
ByteJuggler said:
I'm actually messing with my rig at the minute and am in a position to trial various things (since I'm reinstalling etc), so I'll try and come up with a simple step by step guide if you're interested, assuming a fresh install on a clean unpartitioned disk to begin with?
Click to expand...

yeah, it would be a clean install. that would be cool thanks
 
Installing "Docs & Settings" and "Program Files" on seperate partitions to Windows

Cheetah Designs said:
Ditto :) I am getting my new 250GB drive soon, so ill wait a bit to see what your guide is like.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

OK, I've tried several things in the past couple of days, and by far and away the simplest way is to use the "unattend.txt"/"winnt.sif" method. Broadly speaking, this involves the following steps:

1. Firstly, create a text file using Notepad, with the following contents:
Code: 
[Data]
    AutoPartition=0
    MsDosInitiated="0"
    UnattendedInstall="No"
    AutomaticUpdates=no

[Unattended]
    OemSkipEula=Yes
    UnattendMode=ProvideDefault
    OemPreinstall=No
    Repartition=No
    Filesystem=*
    TargetPath=\WINDOWS
    ProgramFilesDir="E:\Progs"
    CommonProgramFilesDir="E:\Common"

[GuiUnattended]
    EncryptedAdminPassword=NO
    OEMSkipRegional=1
    ProfilesDir=D:\DocSet

[UserData]
    FullName=""
    OrgName=""

[Identification]
    JoinWorkgroup=WORKGROUP

[Networking]
    InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

Note the folder names and drives I've specified. Save it as "winnt.sif" and put it on the root of a floppy disk.

2. Next, partition your target disk into 3 partitions, C: (labelled System or Windows), D: (labelled Programs) and E: (labelled Docs). Your actual drive letters might be off by one initially (e.g. C, E, and F), due to the CD/DVD ROM. Don't worry about this. They should change during setup, but in any case (if they don't) just make sure that once you get to the installation screen (blue text mode screen during intial setup) that the drive letters match what you specified in the text file. If they do not match then you need to go back and update the text file to match the Windows installer's view of the world, and then restart the process.

3. Finally, boot from the Windows XP installation CD, and the moment the CD starts to boot, insert the floppy disk. It will be read and will affect the installation to install the "Program Files" and "Documents And Setting" to the specified folders. Continue to install Windows as per normal, and once complete you'll find that the Program Files and Documents and settings folders are now not on the C: System partition anymore. :) Thats it!

Notes:
This process applies to Windows XP (have not been tested to Windows Vista, I strongly doubt it would work.)

Step 2 (partitioning) may be accomplished in many ways, including with a bootable liveCD (such as this here: http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=28&front_id=12 , this is very good and probably useful to keep handy.) However, probably the easiest method (if it does take longer) is to firstly install Windows normally onto one partition, then use *it* to make the other two partitions. (Trying to keep it simple here...) Remember in the initial installation not to use the entire disk but to leave space for the other 2 partitions to be created later. Then, start the installation process again, format the C: partition again, and reinstall with the aid of the floppy.

Anyway, that seemed to me to be the simplest method. Let me know if this is not clear enough or if there's any other questions.
 
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