Thread: Installing partitions

A lighter sized XP or Vista will start and load faster than a heavy one. So the next step in the hard disk check-up process is to install three partitions and separate the Windows system files from personal data and junk files. How you do this depends on the condition of your hard disk, If there is still enough disk space, then you may remove the existing infrastructure. But if you don't have an organized file system structure and have lost track of things, then it's better to reset the system completely, Don't worry, though resetting the system may sound complex, it's not.

INSTALLING A HARD DISK

Install and start Paragon Partition Manager and select 'Advanced partitioning and hard disk management' on the welcome screen. This will bring up the division of your hard disk. Most of the users are likely to have a main disk drive in which the operating system is stored, which has been sub¬divided into 'Expanded partition'. It is possible to accommodate up to 24 logical partitions in the main physical drive, each associated with its own drive letter.

Now install the hard disk as follows, allocate 50 GB for Windows XP and applications and 10GB for junk data. The remaining space can be used for documents, videos, music and other files. In the case of a dual boot system, install an additional partition for the second Window, around 80 GB for Vista plus programs. Linux is a special case, as it stores its Swap file in its own main partition and thus requires more space.

In order to expand an existing Windows partition, click it and select 'Redistribute free disk space'. A wizard guides you through the next steps. To create a new partition, click 'Advanced partitioning' and select 'Create partition'. Select a drive letter and specify the size in the dialog that follows. The partition manager automatically takes over the correct setting for' Logical disk drive'.



STREAMLINING WINDOWS

Once you have installed your partitions, first remove your personal data. Open up the folder that contains all your personal files, which might just be the 'My Documents' folder. Right click on 'My Documents' on your desktop and select 'Properties' from the context menu. Press the 'Move' button in the 'Target' tab and specify the destination folder as the partition and press 'OK' to start the transfer process.

Similarly, delete the Swap file and the bloated temporary and junk data. Create
a new 'Temp' folder on the junk partition drive. Then right click 'My Computer' and select 'Properties'. Click 'Environment variables' in the 'Advanced' tab. Change the hie path for both the user variables 'TEMP' and 'TMP' as well as for the system variables 'TEMP' and 'TMP' such that it refers to the folder created a while back. After confirming with 'OK', click 'Settings' under 'Advanced Performance' in the 'System properties' window, to get rid of the Swap file. Click on 'Change' in the 'Advanced' tab, select the junk partition and enter '1024 MB' in both the minimum and maximum fields as 'Custom size'. If you need a larger swap file size, then input a bigger number. By formatting the junk partition, you can henceforth remove all unnecessary files in one go.

SPECIAL CASE-DUAL BOOT SYSTEM

If you use both the Windows operating systems XP and Vista together on one hard disk, it's possible that XP might delete the recovery points captured by Vista during the boot-up process. This is because both systems 'see' the main partitions and thus access each other through a bug in the Vista boot manager, using which you select the operating system that is to be started. Paragon has,integrated its own Boot Manager in the Partition Manager program that should solve this problem.

Unfortunately, this program works too well. Once activated, one of the two systems is hidden such that it can no longer be found by its own Boot Manager. This causes a situation where you can always start only the operating system on the currently active partition. We didn't like the idea of installing Partition Manager on both the operating systems, especially since disk space is, after all, precious.