partition strategy please

Perris Calderon

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one hundred gig drive on this laptop

I would like to install both the 32 bit and the 64 bit vesrions of vista, I think I will also include a lenox 64x

I'll be putting all my files on "c"...I'll use partition magic to create the drives

give me a clue please how big to make each partition, which to go after the original iinstall
 
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It really depends on what other software you'll be adding on top of the OS. Previously, I've only allowed 10GB for WinXP (1GB of RAM = 1-1.5GB of page file). The disk space gets consumed quickly if you add stuff like Office, security softwares, media players etc etc on the same partition.
With Vista (32-bit), the OS alone takes anything up to 12GB alone (+/- 2-3GB for page file depending on amount of RAM).
I guess that if you're only running the OSes for testing purposes then you could allocate 25GB for each OS/Partition (however you layout your files).
 
well, I'll be running them as much as possible, so it remains to be seen if I'm only running to test

25 gigs each?

even though I'm putting all ms files on "c"?

I'll create a separate file for each os, but everything on c...I'll have a file that says "32" and a file that says "64"

I might even share the pagefile though I know performance will suffer, I am after all going to be looking for disc space, that's a start
 
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I think the x64 version is about a gig larger. I'd use the 32-bit version on your C drive, as it has (from what I can gather) better driver support etc at the moment, so I'd put maybe 60BG on this partition if you're using plenty of other stuff. I'd then give D over to the 64-bit version, with about 25GB of space and the Linox would go on E with about 15GB.

Actually, it might be best to put Linux on D, and Vista x64 on E, as that way the last one you install (Vista x64) will manage the boot file, and I reckon it would be better than having linux manage the boot sequence.

So there you go:

C - 60GB x86 Vista
D - 15GB Linux
E - 25GB x64 Vista

I hope that's of some use mate!
 
I always store my files on a non OS partition or network drive, saves ALOT of hassle if you need to re-install. You could then reduce the size of your C partition to 15-20 gigs and add a fourth partition for all your files at around 40-45 gigs.
 
I'm gonna keep running the original 32 bit xp as well, that's going to be on "c"
 
divide available space by the number of OS'es you intend to use. If one of those happens to be linux, shave space from the rest tpo make a decent sized fat32 transfer partition unless you dont mind rebooting to get a file in linux/vista/xp as the case arises.
 
Ah, in that case I'd go for:

C - XP - 50GB
D - Linux - 10GB
E - Vista x86 - 20GB
F - Vista x64 - 20GB
 
Perris, I can't remember Windows giving me an option to select which folder I can install my OS to. You might end up messing up some of the system files if you install all your OSes on 1 drive.
But as I mentioned earlier... 25GB of disk space for each OS or partition if you install on separate partitions.
 
It will ask you what partition you want to install into, as well as letting you create partitions during the install.

Since you want three OS's and a shared fat32 partition. I am not sure if Vista needs to be installed into a primary partition, no other WinOS ever have had to be, but I can't guarantee it, so I would create the partitions as follows.

Primary -> XP 20GB
Primary -> Vista x86 25GB
Primary -> Vista 64 25GB
Extended partition -> Remaining
--> 5GB shared Fat32
--> 1GB swap partition
--> Remining disk for linux

Linux really only needs ~10GB for everything and a 1GB swap partition. My slackware and gentoo installs, which have tons of **** installed are less than 8GB each.
 

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