Partitioning and having a seperate boot drive.

Zac · **Posted:** May 26th, 2009, 7:37 pm

I had a question to ask, it's not really a problem, but I wanted to make sure before I do anything.
I currently have two partitioned drives on a single hard drive. (C:\ and D:\)
What I would like to do is make another Drive (X:\) and just have my Windows Vista Installation files on there, nothing else.
I know it's silly to do, but I just want to know where all my HD space is at and what's using it up. Also makes it a little neater. :oops:

I'm not sure if this is possible, but I thought of turning it into a boot drive so I would be able to boot Windows up from it.
I would also like to have C:\ as my main drive still with the main folders that come with it. (Program Files, Documents, Music, ect.)
I've messed around with partitioning a lot and have quite some experience, but I just want to make sure I can do this without messing up my computer. :oops:

Something like this?

Thank you,
-Zac

Adbot · **Posted:** May 26th, 2009, 7:37 pm

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

You can easily do that, but you're probably going to have to reinstall to get it done. I'd also leave more room than 200MB considering you'd still have to install updates and patches from time to time. SP2 just came out, so that'll be another 300 or so MB that the disk will have to contain.

Zac · **Posted:** May 27th, 2009, 2:34 pm

Alright, I'll leave at least 10GB in there for updates and what not. (I can always change it when needed)
Also I have no problem with re-installing it, but would I have to change my vista drive to the boot drive before installing it on my vista drive?

Edit - I've installed Windows Vista on my Vista drive (Z:) but everytime I boot my computer up I get the choice of either using my new Vista or my old Vista.
I want to keep everything on my Windows Vista that I have now, but I just want the computer to boot up using the
To be honest, I don't know how to do this.

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

I think what you're trying to get to is a dual (or more) partition setup that has one partition as a system partition containing only OS files, and another partition that contains all of the data and program files (or have it so that one is data (documents, music, etc) and the other is just programs). If this is what you're going for, you can move all of your data over to a seperate partition now, then reinstall Vista on a 20GB or whatever partition, and use the rest of the space for programs.

I'm not sure how much you should dedicate to each partition, so that's something you'd have to figure out on your own.