Difficulty with Installation

[oscar6]

I just got a WD640GB drive. I also have a 500GB Seagate
I need some advice on drive partition setup.

Drive 1 (WD640GB)
-Partition A: XP Home
-Partition B: Vista 64 Ultimate
-Partition C: Programs and drivers?
-Partition D: Data

Drive 2 (Seagate 500GB)
-Partition A: 1.5x RAM Pagefile*
-Partition B: Data and OS backup

1. How does this look? I?m looking for maximum performance, dual boot, and reliability.
2. What size partitions for XP Home and Vista?
3. Should my programs and drivers be installed twice (once in each OS partition) instead of just in their own partition C?



P35 Gigabyte DS3R
E4400
4GB Ram
X1950XT

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: oscar6

Drive 1 (Seagate 500GB)
-Partition A Primary: XP Home (200)
-Partition B Logical: Vista 64 Ultimate (300)

Drive 2 (WD640GB)
-Partition A: Data and OS backup

This will give you the fewest headaches. Install the Programs in the partition with the OS they are for (same Program Files dir for apps in Vista 64 and XP will give you some grief at times). Install them twice as they use the registry in each OS during install and may have some different configs based on OS.

You have 4GB of memory, so don't worry about a seperate partition for a page file until Windows 8.

 

[Billb2]

That looks good.
I'd use 50gigs for each OS, don't worry, you'll fill it up.
Be aware though that whatever drive is the boot drive (Drive1?) will have the boot files (MBR/boot sector/boot loader) on it no matter where you put the OSs. If that drive fails ...no boot.
It may be a good idea to:
Put one of the OSs files on another drive (Drive2?, even though drive1? is still the boot drive)
or
Just wack another XP install onto a small (10gig partition on the second drive)
Doing either of the above will at least allow you to boot an OS (after modifying either Vista's boot loader or XPs boot.ini) and copy off what you need if the main drive becomes non-bootable. It's just kind of disaster preparedness!

As for duplicate program installs, that depends on the programs. If they are specific Vista or XP versions or specific x32 or x64 versions (like Av programs?) you'll need two installs. If they run under both OSs, then just do a second install right on top of the first install and both OSs will see them.

Drivers will automatically install to where they should be installed. You may want to store the actual driver installation programs into two folders (one XP and one Vista) to avoid confusion.

If you do put XP and Vista on separate drives, put the OS you'll use most often onto the fastest drive and then put their respective page files on the opposite drive.

Do not unplug one drive and install an OS there and the do the same with the other OS and the other drive. That leads to two boot drives, and while that is doable, it just becomes a big PITA to manage (for example, partition letters will change as the different OSs are booted).

 

[RebateMonger]

Personally, I think that's awfully complicated for limited returns. What will you do with the "empty" partitions when you dump XP or dump Vista, which you will at some point? You'll have a complicated partition system of limited usefulness.

Also, you'll have to install your programs twice anyway.

I'd just dedicate one drive to XP and the other to Vista. Make two partitions on each if you want. One Boot partition and one Data partition. You don't have to worry about managing boot partitions and can just erase a drive and start over (moving any data) if necessary or desired.

It's very easy to tell a motherboard which drive to boot from. Install XP and XP programs on (Drive 1, Partition 1). Install Vista and Vista programs on (Drive 2, Partition 1).

Store data on the second partiton of either or both drives. I imagine that you can put the pagefile on the second partition of both drives, too.

If you want OS and data backups on your internal drives, make them on the data partition of the "secondary" drive in each case.

No matter what you end up doing, make your System/Program partitions LARGE. You can always use them to store data, too. If you go too small, you'll make life complicated later on.

 

[Nothinman]

Less partitions is better, you should use directories for organization not partitions.

 

[oscar6]

I'm just a little confused. In this other link, I'm given a little different advice. http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2183499&enterthread=y

Any clarification?


So if I understand this right...

Start with two drives.
First Drive: Install XP Home + Programs and drivers. When in XP, make two partitions for Vista 64 Ultimate and Data. Install Vista on one partition + Programs and drivers.

XP Home Partition Size = 40GB
Vista 64 Ult Partition Size = 80GB

Second drive: Just for OS backup and data redundancy.


Drive 1 (WD640GB)
-Partition A: XP Home + Programs and drivers
-Partition B: Vista + Programs and drivers
-Partition C: Data

Drive 2 (Seagate 500GB)
-Partition A: 1.5x RAM Pagefile* Optional
-Partition B: Data Backup and OS backup

 

[oscar6]

I added the new hard drive (WD640). When I'm in the BIOS or booted into the WinXP desktop, the keyboard is fully functional. However when I try to boot from the OS CD, my keyboard is totally unresponsive and doesn't allow me to "Press a Key to Boot from CD". This is the case with both the XP and Vista disks.

Since I am unable to boot from the CD's, I believe I am unable to reformat and get rid of the OS on my current XP HDD... But I was able to format my new disk (WD640) within WinXP "My Computer".

When just booting to the new WD640 HDD with the other hard drive detached, I get a black screen saying that I have some sort of hardware issue and it will not proceed.

I have installed WinXP many times for myself and others and have never encountered anything like this.

Any thoughts?

BTW, I'm using a Logitech G15 and have never had any issues besides this one thing. Actually, I'm typing on it right now.

 

[gsellis]

Don't. That is inefficient. I gave you the second simpliest solution. The best solution might even be Disk 1 Vista (640), Disk 2 XP (500) 1 partition each.

Partitions create overhead that make the operations slower AND are harder to recover when things go really wrong. Forget all the partitions.

 

[oscar6]

I don't have any partitions yet and am unable to install.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: oscar6
I don't have any partitions yet and am unable to install.

You will need to press F6 at XP boot from CD and use a floppy with the SATA drivers on it.

 

[oscar6]

After a lot of tweaking from within WinXP using Partition Magic, I found that the WD640 was a logical partition. I changed it to primary and all is well. Vista is good so far. Thanks for the assistance.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: oscar6
... my keyboard is totally unresponsive

Try enabling "Legacy USB Support" in your BIOS.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: oscar6
After a lot of tweaking from within WinXP using Partition Magic, I found that the WD640 was a logical partition. I changed it to primary and all is well. Vista is good so far. Thanks for the assistance.

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