System Crash!

[GoodGame]

You can't selectively reformat that way. Reformating the hard-drive is all or nothing. Since an OS reinstall is usually best with a reformat, there's no point in partitioning on the OS hard-drive.

The other problem with multiple partitions on the same harddrive is there is no performance gain, and really no gain at all unless you think they're a prettier way to organize, somehow. All partitions on the same hard-drive have to queue for access.

It's always better to have multiple harddrives, with one partition per drive, from a performance standpoint as well, since then you can have multiple partitions running at the same time.

 

[Cutlass]

If you have more than one "logical drives" on one "physical drive" you can reformat either one independently to your heart's content on windows 2000 or later. I've done it dozens of times.

2 physical drives is better in many ways, but not everyone has that.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

There is a very good reason to partition your OS HDD. I usually give windows around 10 gigs and partition the rest so I can use it to store things and not worry about having to fully back up all my data in case Windows dies.

Of course, that doesnt help at all when your computer decides to make a RAID array all on its own wiping out all your data.

 

[GoodGame]

On XP's installation disc, I've never been able to do a selective partition reformat on the OS harddrive. Maybe that is a difference between Home and Pro?

 

[Cutlass]

XP home was widely panned as being too limited. That is possibly your problem. Having never had XP home I can't answer that question with certainty.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

You have to select the "Install Windows XP" option and from there it should give you the option of doing a repair install if it finds a previous installation of XP.

 

[IamJohn]

I know on the XP Pro disc you can selectively erase partitions.

I don't know about reformatting though.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

I know on the XP Pro disc you can selectively erase partitions.

I don't know about reformatting though.

What do you mean? for a reformat, you just erase the partition and make a new one.

 

[IamJohn]

I can erase the partition, but I can't directly format the new partition to a NTFS format, unless you are installing windows as far as I know.

 

[Cutlass]

from a winxp pro disk, with windows not currently installed on the system, you can pick the size and number of particians and then format each separately before actually starting to install windows. once you have begun windows install, you have already passed that option.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

thanks everyone