Setup the hard drives please

[Dash1]

understood that for video editing I better Have a saporate HDD for
system and soft and another one for edit.I'm also adding a 3rd one for finished projects .
The computer will work for general use too on XP.

But, how specificly to set each HDD ???
Do I keep all Programs on the first drive ? Should I set any partisions ???
And I save ALL docs, Pictures and others [like office docs] on the second drive ???

[redwudz]

I would keep all programs on the boot drive, just to make it easier. That's usually their default location anyway. You can put program caches or temp storage on one of the other drives if you like.

I don't use more than one partition per drive myself. You can save doc files on the boot drive, then you won't have to look for your document, pictures folder, each time as that's the Windows default location. I put Video files or other large files on the other drives. I use three drives most times, Boot, Edit, and Archive. Boot is usually the smallest.

[Krispy Kritter]

I agree. Just use a single partition on each drive. Keep all of your programs and normal files on the primary (C drive) and use the other two drives as you outlined above, one for working and one for finished projects.

[Dash1]

Sorry but I am not shure if you mean no partition or one ???

Maybe, one on the System drive only ? Should I keep the XP in one
partition and all the rest of the softs in the other ?
Or do I keep the docs saporate from all the softs in that system drive ?

[Krispy Kritter]

Format all of the drives as a SINGLE partition.

[redwudz]

Every hard drive has to have a partition to be able to format the drive and be able to use it. But I only use one partition per drive.

Most software wants to be installed on the boot drive. I usually keep my Document, Pictures folders on the boot drive also, mostly for convienient access as that's where Windows expects them to be. But you can relocate them if you really want, but I wouldn't bother. If you have a lot of photos or documents, then you may want them on a different drive and just put a shortcut on the desktop to them.

Video I always keep on separate drives from the boot drive. It takes up a lot of space and gets moved around a lot. If I edit or encode, the video gets edited or encoded from the 'Edit' drive to the 'Archive' drive or reverse.

[cyflyer]

Every hard drive has to have a partition to be able to format the drive and be able to use it. But I only use one partition per drive

This 'single' partition, does it get installed automatically when you install windows xp on a blank HDD, or when you format/install windows xp over the old one ? I've never knowingly 'partitioned' when I've re-installed win Xp in the past. Just curious.

Oh yeah, another thing, when I tried to install win Xp on a friend's once, it would only see 'half' the hdd because there was a partition half way along. You couldn't format the hdd unless the partition was removed separately by using 'fdisk' program. it was such a hassle, that I didn't see the point of creating another partition.

[jagabo]

If the drive is blank (no partitions) Windows will ask if you want to use the whole drive for the install. Answer yes and it will create the partition, format it, and install.

[redwudz]

Oh yeah, another thing, when I tried to install win Xp on a friend's once, it would only see 'half' the hdd because there was a partition half way along. You couldn't format the hdd unless the partition was removed separately by using 'fdisk' program. it was such a hassle, that I didn't see the point of creating another partition.

When you use the XP disc to boot from and to install the OS, it will show all existing partitions. You should also be able to select any partition and delete it till you have none. (I have rarely needed to use 'fdisk' for that.) Then you can create a single new partition, then go ahead and format that.

One warning: You may see a 'hidden' partition of a few GBs or so on a existing drive. That may be a 'Restore' partition that the OEM for the computer uses with your recovery discs. If you never plan to use the OEM discs again, you can delete it, but you may never be able to use your discs again. I leave them most times, as they don't take that much space.

You will also see a few MBs of 'unpartitioned' space. That's normal for HDD 'housekeeping' on all drives.

I generally advise a full format instead of a 'quick format' of a used HDD, as that remaps the drive to block bad sectors. All drives will have a few.

New drives aren't generally partitioned or formatted, but the XP OS disc will do that almost automatically.

[ahhaa]

Just curious from comments in another thread about Vista constantly indexing... does that change how you'd setup the partitions?

Also, external USB drive a re recommended for 'laptop' video; but Googling them shows a lot of people having problems accessing and formating them, especially Western Digitals...

[Krispy Kritter]

Just curious from comments in another thread about Vista constantly indexing... does that change how you'd setup the partitions?

Also, external USB drive a re recommended for 'laptop' video; but Googling them shows a lot of people having problems accessing and formating them, especially Western Digitals...

You should start a new thread when not answering/asking questions directly related to the original OP.

As for partitions, unless you are extremely anal about having certain file types on their own "drives", there isn't really a need any longer to create a bunch of partitions on a single HDD. In general, more than a single partition increases seek times (slowing the drive).