Installing on a new HD

[torhu]

I'm getting a 250 MB harddrive today, a Samsung Spinpoint p120. It'll be my new main HD, and I'm going to install winxp on it.

So I'm wondering how I should partition it. I want to make reinstalling windows as easy as possible. And the fastest way of reinstalling seems to be a clean install, ie. letting the windows installer just wipe the partition and start over. And before a reinstall, I can just copy anything I'd like to keep somewhere else.

I'm thinking of maybe:

C: (10 GB) + free (10 GB )+ D: (230 GB)

The 'free' part can later be used for installing linux, or for enlarging C: if it's needed.

On C: I will install windows, and some apps that probably need reinstalling after a windows reinstall. Like MS Office. 'Documents and Settings' and will also be there, since I don't keep that much in there anyway. And I don't know if it can be put on another partition. I'll just back it up before a reinstall.

Big stuff that I don't want to reinstall along with windows can live under D:\Program Files. Like games. And maybe utilities that will continue to work after the registry is wiped, like Total commander.

Both C: and D: will be NTFS.

And I think I'll try putting the page file on my old HD, a maxtor diamondmax plus 9. Since my mainboard only supports ATA 66, I don't think the new samsung will perform that much faster than the maxtor anyway.

Ok, does anyone think any of this isn't a good idea?

[4days]

aye. in addition to windows accumulating files, your profile will build up quickly too - even if you're not using it yourself, a lot of the games/apps you install probably will - so 30 to 40 sounds safer.

have got my home machine split into 3 bits:
1. os and core apps.
2. apps i'm not going to lose any sleep over losing.
3. things that don't use the registry/random shite.

[SoM]

on that 250 i would do

c:\ 50gig
d:\ 50 gig for games
e:\ 75 or 150 storage
f:\ 75 if ur not gonna use 150 on e:\

[torhu]

My current, 2.5 years old xp install only uses about 6 GB for Windows, Docs and settings, and Program Files. That excludes games, of course. I guess the reason it's so small is that I have had to clean it up to make room for new stuff occasionally.

So I think I'll go with 20 GB, plus 10 GB unallocated, just in case. That should even be enough for Vista. But then I need to upgrade everything else in my PC first...

[Tormentius]

My current, 2.5 years old xp install only uses about 6 GB for Windows, Docs and settings, and Program Files. That excludes games, of course. I guess the reason it's so small is that I have had to clean it up to make room for new stuff occasionally.

So I think I'll go with 20 GB, plus 10 GB unallocated, just in case. That should even be enough for Vista. But then I need to upgrade everything else in my PC first...

20GB isn't a lot for Vista considering the base OS install is over 6GB and profile data and temp files grow fast. Go for 30GB.