[aklug] Re: Windows installer and partitioning

--- On Sat, 10/11/08, Kenneth D Weinert <kenw@quarter-flash.com> wrote:

> Christopher Howard wrote:
> Does the Windows installer (XP/Vista) allow the user
> to decide how
> he wants to partition the drive? It's been so
> long since I
> installed a Windows OS, I can't remember.

In my experience, usually not. The only time I've ever seen it ask is when there's a previous Windows install. Otherwise, it happily installs over the whole hard drive.

Kenneth D Weinert said:
> [Vista's partition tool] worked fine, the only thing I might have done
> differently was not
> take the default resizing as Vista split the disk in half.

My observations suggest that Vista will allow you to take half of the available space. If you have a 100GB HDD, and 40GB is currently used (for OS, software, user files, whatever), it'll let you cut out [(100 - 40) / 2] = 30GB. For best results, clean out all the junk and temp files and defragment before shrinking. One one of my computers, a clean Vista Home Premium install was 24GB, and I corralled it into a 40GB partition using gparted. AFAIK, the only minimum I've seen is currently used space plus virtual memory.

I've heard of cases where Vista refuses to boot if you use a non-Vista partitioning tool, but I've never seen it. If it does happen, I'm told it can be fixed by inserting the Windows install disk (a rescue disk could work, but I don't know for sure; a proper Windows installation disk would be best.) Every time I've done it (two HP laptops and a Dell desktop), Windows noted an anomaly during boot, did a disk check, and restarted. After that, everything was fine.

--
Aaron A.
akbeancounter@yahoo.com
      
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