3 Partition Install For More Speed! Less fragmentation, beter recovery, more

[QuantumFlux 0]

3 Partition Install of Windows XP

 

This is a way that I have formated and setup my computer for better performance. Its a bit complicated for beginers, but I think its worth it. Below I will outline all the steps required to complete this type of setup. Read it all below once before you attempt it, I am not responsible (and neither is this forum) for any issues that arrise from following this guide.

 

Description:

This is a setup where the hard drive is formatted into 3 partitions. The first one is for the operating itself and I usually make it about 10GB. The second partition is made for the virtual ram and I usually make it about 2GB plus an additional 128MB so that windows doesnt bring up the low disk space warning. The last partition is where program files and documents reside. This does require some registry hacking to make it work, but its well worth it as it keeps the drive more organized by seperating the operating system from the rest of the files.

 

Step 1:

The first thing you need is a copy of windows XP. Once you have found a copy I would use the program nLite for creating a new cd which would include all the latest service packs, drivers, and some of the settings changed. This step is not really required but is suggested, since its not necessary I will not get into details but checkout that website to learn more about creating updated copies of windows.

 

Step 2:

For this step make sure there are no files on the hard drive that you would like to keep as this will destroy them all. Also for this to work well I suggest a hard drive of about 20GB or more. Ok, for this step reboot the computer with the windows install cd in the drive and get to the part where it shows you the partitions. Once there delete all the partitions on the drive, remember this will delete all your files so make sure their backed up. Now you will create the 3 partitions. Create the first partition and make it 10GB (thats 10 * 1024 = 10240MB). The make the second partition about 2GB + 128MB (2 * 1024 + 128 = 2176MB), and finally make the last partition the rest of the free space. Once you have that done select the first partition (the C drive) and install windows on that, I recomend you do a full NTFS format.

 

Step 3:

Just go through the rest of the installation the way you normally would.

 

Step 4:

After windows has started for the first time, go ahead and format the other two partitions. I normally label them as follows WinXP (10GB), VirtualRAM (2GB), Program Files (**GB).

 

Step 5:

In this step you will move your virtual ram to the second partition. Right Click on My Computer and goto properties. Then goto the Advanced tab and click on the Settings button under performance. After that click on the Advanced tab and click on the Change button in the virtual ram section. At this point select the drive with the 2GB and goto custom size radio button, in the boxed you should put in about 1.5 times your physical ram, when I had 512MB of RAM i actually put about 1024MB for virtual RAM and now that I have 1GB of RAM i have it set to 2GB of virtual RAm, I guess its up to you to see what works best with the main applications you are using. After you figure out a resonable size you want to put it in both boxes. This will limit the virtual ram from changing sizes constantly which slow down the system a bit. Next goto the C drive and remove the virtual ram from there by selecting the No Paging File option. after that click ok and it will ask to reboot the system.

 

Step 6:

This step requires you to make a copy of the Program Files directory in the C drive and mobe it to the 3rd partition. This is so that the common files work.

 

Step 7:

For this step you need to run the registry editor.

Go into the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

and change the drive letter for the following keys:

CommonFilesDirProgramFilesDir

After that reboot the computer, from now on the default install drive and directory should be that.

 

Step 8:

Another optional thing you can do is move the documents folder to the 3rd partition, to do this simply right click on My Documents and click on the Move Folder option and create a new folder on the 3rd partition.

 

Thats it for now, its not a real in-depth guide but it might help some. Be carefull because if you dont know exactly what your doing you can easily mess up your system, in that case just install windows the normal way you would usually do it.

[iGuest 3]

I actually recommend making your Virtual RAM/Paging File/Swap Partition FAT32 .It uses larger blocks (usually causes more wasted space for smaller files that leads to fragmentation), but for this, it's perfect, the larger block sizes means more chunk data and avoids some of NTFS added information and error checking/correction (if you're worried about corruption, then make sure you don't access this partition, make it only accessible by the system), what NTFS offers you, is not needed for the partition.Apart from that everything else you have done is similar to how I created my system, although I have more partitions to seperate my music, downloads, programming, my documents, etc.Cheers,MC

[abhiram 0]

Wow ... this is the first time I've come across something like this. Sounds very interesting. But unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to do that with my 160GB harddisk as it's got stuff that's been accumulated carefully over a year and a half .This method of using a swap partition looks similar to Linux. Does it really give a huge improvement in Windows performance?

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

Woow awesome dude - that's exactly what I do to my hard-drive.. except that NONE of my partitions are above 20 GB. As a result I have this whole bunch of drives - which rather turn out to be an advantage, coz I can then split my applications into separate partitions like Games, Graphics, Web-Design, Development etc. and have all neatly organized.

 

I don't do it through the registry way though. I let windows installation take it's own course on C drive, and make that around 15 gigs - so it has enough space for the swap file there..

 

The rest of the hdd i split up according to application groups - with partitions never going beyond 20Gigs, coz beyond this size, I've noticed a marked drop in access speeds. I really don't care how many partitions I have as a result of it - it really helps me housekeep my files

 

Also, as for My Documents - I move to it another Backup drive - so whatever I save there goes to the backup drive by default. Whenever I have to reinstall Windows, I don't loose ANYTHING - not even old installed application settings or documents - coz they all reside on separate drives Great to see someone else follows this too.

[Quatrux 4]

I have made a lot of partitions too, on Windows have 4 partitions, two are NTFS and other two are FAT32 that I could access them on Linux. I can access NTFS partition too, but it is slow and writing is even slower.. that is why I don't have anything for Linux in the NTFS partitions, it is Windows XP installation and Windows installed software on other. The others are for different Multimedia stuff.I agree, that having more partitions is better, you can easily reinstall windows or other OS without loosing all your pictures and music etc. the defragmentation is faster, you can move the files to other partitions, make it almost empty and defragment and move the files back. I got use to archive the files I don't use to a .tar archive, in that way there is only one file and if I need something from it, I just use 7 Zip file manager and copy it as one file, that is useful for a lot of installers in my opinion.

[QuantumFlux 0]

Yes thats also a thing I do, keep all my installer files in a single compressed file, I have been using WinRAR of course, and I came up with a naming convention so I can keep all my files organize nicely. Its good to hear that there are other people out there that know about using multiple partitions for easier maintenance and some speed increase. Also, the reason for the registry is just so that when you run an install program it automatically points you to that other directory. If anyone knows any other nifty registry tweaks that might help in this situation please post them, as I would be very interested in hearing from you.

[wutske 0]

I've had almost the same idea, not that large, but only putting the swap file on a seperate partition.If you realy want the fast possible, I'd put the 'swappartition' in the beginning of your hdd, because it's the fastest part of the hdd. If you realy have a lot of RAM in your system, this will become less important, because more ram = less need of swap. I also think that 10Gb is a bit much for windows alone, the windows folder of a messy xp is like 3Gb alone, so I wonder how you'll fill the other 10Gb Nice guide anyway, you should have put it in the tutorialsection