Yes....Partitioning again....

alonso

alonso

New member
Well. I just built my first DAW a couple of days ago and stupid of me, a have two 80G Barracudas that I didn't partition. Because I haven't installed almost anything, I am willing to format the HHDs again and partition this time. I use XP Pro. I searched the forum on threads about partitioning but several questions arose:

1. When I put the installation cd, it will prompt me if I want to format and partition. I say yes, ok, but can this installation do several partitions at that point, or do I have to make a partition first and then, within XP, make the other partitions?

2. How should I partition the main 80 ( about 75G actually)drive?
20, 20, 20 and 15? I guess all the OS files would be on the first partition, what other programs should I put in this partition?

3. How should I partition the second HDD, just like the first one?This HDD will have only audio files.

4. Within XP Pro, I can choose witin several types of partitions, mirrored, striped, extended, primary etc, and within making a dynamic disk or a basic one. I really don't have any idea which of these options apply to me, are useful, or will be needed by me in the future. Please shed some light on me.

Any tips and comments will be gladly apreciated.:)
 
Hi

Typically disks have one primary (c:, for example) and one extended partition. Some disks may be partitioned to have no primary partition, only extended partition. The system needs a primary partition to boot. Therefore these kind of partitions are good for storage volumes, data drives, or dedicated audio drives.

The extended partition contains one or more logical drives, which are known by the drive letters. An extended partition by itself is useless.

While partitioning, you make a primary partition and an extended partition. The extended partition usually spans the entire space left over by the primary. For example, if you have a 75 gig drive, you would make (or, at least I would make) a 10 gig partition for my OS. This would be a primary partition. I typically use Fdisk and am not familiar with the partitioning tools used by XP Pro.

The rest of the disk I would make one extended partitions, and split into three partitions/logical drives (I don't favour very small / large number of partitions, and like my partitions more or less equal in size. There are extremely scientific methods of doing this, with sector mapping for efficient physical movement), each roughly 20 gig.

My programs go on to d:, and e: and f: are used for regular storage. If you are so inclined, you could create two 32 GB drives instead of three 21 (or so) GB drives for the above. For a system that has truckloads of RAM, these are nice places to put a swapfile if you have one.

Since I use FAT32 for my system, I like to keep my partitions below 20 GB if I can help it because FAT32 is terrible above that.

For the second disk, you just need one extended partition and then split it into whatever you fancy. My audio drive is large partition, which is clumsy but since I have a CD-writer it isn't a problem to keep it nice and empty. Others may prefer two partitions, but a single large partition gets fragmented very quickly.

Sang
 
Hey Sangram.....

I have 1 gig of DDR pc 2700 RAM, so this is not a problem, what is a swap file?

During the installation, I am sure I can make a first 10 gig partition and I assume the OS will be installed here. I also know that I could make the other partitions with a tool called Disk Manager that can partition and format within XP. I can choose extended, primary and logical drives. What is the difference between an extended partition and a logical drive?

And what kind of disks should I make, basic, dynamic......:confused:
 
If you have 1 gig RAM, you will not need a swap file, so it is best to switch it off.

You can do this through - my computer, properties, advanced, virtual memory settings, and disable virtual memory.

An extended partition is a 'container' for a logical drive, if you will. The OS needs to see a logical drive, and a logical drive needs to be inside an extended partition. The OS cannot see an extended partition.

I think Basic disks will do just fine. Lemme just check the dynamic disk thing and get back to you.
 
"In Windows 2000, a dynamic disk is a physical disk that doesn't use partitions or logical drives. Instead, it contains only dynamic volumes that you create in the Disk Management console. This allows you to create fault-tolerant volumes such as striped, mirrored, and RAID-5 volumes. You can also extend volumes and make changes to the disk without rebooting the computer"


Yeah I think Basic will be the best for you.
 
Ok, so disable virtual memory ( I always wondered what this was for....) use basic disk....

What do you mean with "the OS needs to see a logical drive", that I MUST have logical drives in my system? Yesterday I tested the disk manager and I could make extended partitions, won´t these be recognized without logical drives?
 
You need to make the extended partiotion first. And then make the logical drive. The Disk Manager will not be able to create a logical drive (like, say a d: or e:, these are logical drives) without having an extended partition to put them into. XP (or any other OS) will need to see a logical drive to be able to use the disk space in the extended partition.

Think of it as a cabinet of drawers. The Extended Partition is the outer shell, without which the drawers cannot be very useful. The drawers are the logical drives. They need the Outer shell to allow the user to place socks into. OTOH, the user cannot put socks into the huge bin offered by the outer shell (they could, but really, that's beside the point).

In short, you have to do both, in the above sequence. Make the extended partition and then put a logical drive into it.
 
Hmmm, I see, now another question, let´t say I partition 10G primary and 20, 20 , 20 extended. To make logical drives, I have to do them within each extended, will those logical drives be the same size as the extended it is inside of?
 
One thinking about the partitions for audio files is to make the first partition on the second drive a little smaller than the rest, and use it for your data transfer drive. Then when the session is complete, you transfer the files to another drive and then defrag the data transfer drive. That way you aren't having to defrag a large partition each time you start a recording session. Also, making it the first drive puts it on the outer portion of the HD so that is in the fastest part of the disc.
 
The data transfer drive idea is cool. How big should this drive be? Any other tips on using a data transer drive?
 
partition magic

if you DONT want to go back and reformat and start over i believe partition magic will allow you to repartition without having to format and all that jazz. If you do reload winxp yes you can set up all of the drives right there in setup..it's best to make a small drive as your primary partition and then you can section off the logical drives however you want in the extended partition (which should be the rest of your drive)...
dlv
 
Yeah, but Partition Magic is about $60 that I don´t have right now...will the demo version be of any use?
 
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