Partition arrangement

[griffinspc]

You may remember from a previous post I was checking to see if a new drive (30GB) was compatible with my BIOS. It is and is recognized. Now the new question. I've searched the past threads and found a lot of good info however not exactly what I need.

I have a current 6.4 GB drive, WD 5400 60 seek. I'm adding a 30GB Maxtor 7200 100 seek. I want to make the new Maxtor my boot drive with these partitions.

Maxtor
C main boot with W98 & apps - 10GB
D swap file 1 GB - 2 swap files (C's & D's) 500 each
E bootable WindowsNT - 3GB
F storage 16GB (burn WAV's, etc)
WD original
G BeOS - 2GB
H secure backup partition all drives - 4GB

First, does this organization have merit or do any of you have a better setup?

Second, have any of you used the MaxBlast software that comes with maxtor drives and if so does it work as advertized. It promises a perfect image of my original "C" to copy to the new "C".

It also says that it can partition this drive into whatever logical extended drives I need.

Last, do you think that creating the NT partition will work with MaxBlast and do you think the separate 500mb swap files on D is a good idea?

I'll await your expertise with a cold one.

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"Finest Kind"

[DrMDJ]

Before anything else, are you planning to use a boot manager and something like Partition Magic to create these partitions? And is that an NT 4 or Win2k partition you refer to as Win NT? Which of these is going to be fat16, fat32? Any NTFS?

Depending on the answers this whole scheme may be undoable from the standpoint of the OSes you plan to install and have bootable, at least on the first (30 gig) drive. Regardless, it looks like some changes may be in order.


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[This message has been edited by DrMDJ (edited 04-17-2001).]

[stev-rey]

In my opinion, your C: drive is too large and will have a lot of free space between C: and D:

I'd make C: smaller, say 5 gig.

Only my opinion, no law against it.

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It's either that or it's into the woodchipper

[griffinspc]

As usual doc you have good questions and I haven't even got my cold one yet.

As for NT it's NT4. As far as the FAT I had expected all 32's because mainly I hadn't thought it through enough.

I haven't setup my PC like this before as you may have noticed. I have added BeOS and Linux 5x. BeOS was and is simple, Linux 5x was not but I did it. Worked with it for awhile but didn't see a reason to continue so it's gone.

Moving 1 drive image to another and creating this type of setup I haven't attempted yet.

The MaxBlast disk readme says it will accomplish the partitioniing but that's one of my concerns, will it really do what it says?

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"Finest Kind"

[Train]

I would say C: 6 to 8GB and put difference in H:
H: will have you fussing before to long.

My C: was 6 and D: was 3GB Just my experience.

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[DrMDJ]

OK, well I'll throw the first couple gottchas out.

NT4 can't deal with fat32 partitions. But beyond that it can't boot off a partition that is physically (cylinder location) located as far out on the drive as you have designated for it. Ya need to rethink this some.

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[griffinspc]

I'm a little confused Doc.

NT4 can't deal with fat32 partitions. But beyond that it can't boot off a partition that is physically (cylinder location) located as far out on the drive as you have designated for it. Ya need to rethink this some.

Is E too far out? The fat32 I understand. What location would you recommend if not E?

To the others. I agree that the first "C" is probably too large. I forgot that I have half of the current "C" filled with burn WAV's which won't reside there anymore.

Train, do you mean you had "D" as a swap partition at it was 3gb?
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"Finest Kind"

[This message has been edited by griffinspc (edited 04-17-2001).]

[DrMDJ]

RE: NT4

In the configuration you show you've got NT on a partition physically starting 11 gigs out from the beginning of the drive. Because of certain limitations in the boot process for NT, there is a requirement that certain things lie within the first 1024 cylinders (physically) of a drive. While it's possible to get away with a 4gig boot partition, located at the front of a drive, you are actually better off with a 2 gig (or less partition) to cover all the bases (Note: Win NT, with FAT, can actually have a partition of 4gig, unlike DOS which can only have fat16 partitions of 2gig (confusing I know)).

There are also other limitations on NT4, but...

With products like Partition Magic you can manipulate partition locations (unlike with FDISK where they are sequential) to get them in certain physical locations on a disk. But the bottom line is your current scheme won't work as is. You can get all the bootable systems yu want, you just need to investigate the requirements more and rework your partitions (size and placement).

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[This message has been edited by DrMDJ (edited 04-18-2001).]

[griffinspc]

Thanks for the hand holding doc, or do you prefer DrMDJ?

Yeah this is something I haven't attempted before so who knows. I haven't seen any response to the MaxBlast software question but I now have a copy of PowerQuest Ver 4.0.

Given this, I'd like on the new drive, C imaged from my old C Win98, A separate swap file partition, unless you think it unnecessay, a partition for NT 4, and a storage partition.

On the old drive I want a small partition of maybe 2 GB for BeOS and 4gb for security of files on the first drive.

Maybe I should think about making the second drive the NT OS.

What would you recommend kind sir?

Maybe I should list the config for you too.
128 Ram
K6II 333
W98 / BeOS
Networked with my wifes machine W95.
All machines clean and working perfect.

Nothing fancy and won't be state of the art anytime soon ($$$$) so I'm trying to get the best out of this machine that I can.

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"Finest Kind"

[This message has been edited by griffinspc (edited 04-18-2001).]

[DrMDJ]

Hey, what's in a name? I've been called lots of things in my day

As for the maxblast, it should copy things over to the new drive just fine.

Recommend? Hummm. Well, while it is completely possible to set this all up manually, and a number of viable configurations that could be suggested, I might be inclined to say get something like Partition Magic (which also comes with a boot manager). It is a very good tool for manipulating and managing partitions and drives, offers a lot of flexibility, and is pretty straight forward to use. It also provides usefull info for people setting up multi-boot systems. It might just be the ticket in this case to help you get your desired scheme in place, plus offer the flexibility to make changes/adjustments after the fact.

There's another disk/partition manager often mentioned around here, Ranish Partition Manager. It is a free one, and those who use it seem to like it too. Maybe look at that also.

Either way, you probably need to do a little more planning. But then, a partition manager might help simplify the process of implementing what you decide to do.

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[This message has been edited by DrMDJ (edited 04-18-2001).]

[kxn]

griffinspc,

I believe BeOS Personal Edition can only be installed on C:

Go to their site and see the FAQ or support.

Since I don't run BeOS Pro Edition, I am not sure its limitation.

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"The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come." Peter Ustinov

[griffinspc]

Thanks again guys. I have just received a copy of PowerQuest Drive Image 4.0. My friend says he's happy with it but hasn't tried others. Anyone used it and what do you think?

I think I'm going to use the second drive as the NT 4 and the new drive as C, D (swap), E the rest storage.

C will be about 6 GB the swap 500 mb E all the rest. 2nd drive will be NT including swap, etc in a normal setup.

BeOS will take up about 700MB on the C.

Doc, that should solve any cylinder problems and make everything pretty straight forward.

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"Finest Kind"

[DrMDJ]

I still think you want to take a look at one of the boot managers, and even partiton/disk managers as an easy means to set up and handle all this.

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