[SigitNurhadi]

HI. I want to create a new partition in my hard drive for Windows Vista to set up a dual-boot system with Windows XP pre-installed. The new partition will only be for Wndows Vista and, of course, future updates and Service Pack for the operating system. How much space is needed in my new partition? Thanks.....

[smax013]

SigitNurhadi said:

HI. I want to create a new partition in my hard drive for Windows Vista to set up a dual-boot system with Windows XP pre-installed. The new partition will only be for Wndows Vista and, of course, future updates and Service Pack for the operating system. How much space is needed in my new partition? Thanks.....

You could probably get away with 20 GB or maybe even as little as 10GB...BUT...if you are going to install any applications in Vista, then you should plan for that and assume you will be installing them on the Vista boot partition (some applications MUST be installed on the boot partition with running OS). Thus, I would likely suggest at a minimum of about 30 GB, but you might be better served with 40 or even 50 GB depending on how many applications and what applications.

[SigitNurhadi]

Actually, I plan to install all my Vista applications in an external hard drive. Is this ok?

[smax013]

SigitNurhadi said:

Actually, I plan to install all my Vista applications in an external hard drive. Is this ok?

Maybe...maybe not. It will depend on the application. Some applications must be installed on the same drive/partition as the OS. And just about all applications will still install some portion of their support files in the Windoze directory on the OS drive, even if the main application folder/installation is elsewhere.




And keep in mind that most Windoze applications will NOT just work with any computer...in otherwords, you will generally NOT be able to hook up that external USB drive to another computer and run the applications on that computer with out actually using the installer on that computer. Most applications must have some support files in the Windoze directory and also have entries in the Windoze Registy to work. Thus, if you want to use it on a second computer, you will have to install it on a second computer. This is also true of dual boot options...programs that are installed in say a XP partition will generally not work when you boot up the computer off of a Vista partition without also installing the program in Vista.

[SigitNurhadi]

Thank you for your input, smax013.

[piyushsingh]

hello [~53213]

As smax said the min. size of the partition can be of your choice depending on where you install your applications. But keep it atleast 15GB as updating to SP1 requires about 4.5GB free space on system drive which is later freed but is needed for installation. So put it anyting from 15GB onwards.

[techie4fun]

How big is your hard drive? Your going to want wiggle room for both operating systems to breathe. Nevertheless, I would go with 15 gigabytes bar Minimum.

[SigitNurhadi]

My internal hard drive (232 GB in size) is divided into the following partitions:
Drive (C:) This is where Windows XP and its applications reside. It is 198 GB in size and it has 168 GB of free or unuse space.

Drive (D:) This is for my System Recovery files, and it is 8 GB in size.

Drive (L:) This is for Windows Vista Home Premium, and it is 25 GB in size



I don't have any room in my computer to install a second hard drive, so I created another partition where i plan to install Windows Vista. I also have a 250 GB external hard drive where I plan to install most of my Vista applications.

[smax013]

SigitNurhadi said:

My internal hard drive (232 GB in size) is divided into the following partitions:

Drive (C:) This is where Windows XP and its applications reside. It is 198 GB in size and it has 168 GB of free or unuse space.


Drive (D:) This is for my System Recovery files, and it is 8 GB in size.



Drive (L:) This is for Windows Vista Home Premium, and it is 25 GB in size









I don't have any room in my computer to install a second hard drive, so I created another partition where i plan to install Windows Vista. I also have a 250 GB external hard drive where I plan to install most of my Vista applications.

Personally, I would likely make the Vista partition a little bigger...say about 40 GB and plan on installing all the applications on that partiion. If you are planning on loading a LOT of applications, then I might make it bigger. But, considering that your XP partition is only using about 30 GB, you should be OK with 40 GB with similar applications. You can always look at the disk space requirements of the programs and sum them up to get an idea of what you might need.



Then I would shrink that XP partition down to about 40 to 50 GB and with the remaining space, create a data/files partition. Then use the external drive as a backup drive to backup at a minimum the data/files partition on at least a weekly basis, but also backup the XP and Vista partitions every once and a while (like everytime you make a major change to the installation...add a new program, etc).



And as long as you have space on the files/data partition, you can always adjust its size down and shift it over to the XP or Vista drive if you need more room. If you are worried now about that, then hedge your bets some and make the XP and Vista partitions about 60 GB...that would still leave more than 100 GB in space for files/data, which is plenty of room unless you are HEAVILY into video or maybe pictures of large size.

[SigitNurhadi]

Thank you for your suggestion, smax013. I'll give it some serious consideration.