New Hard Drive Partition for Vista OS

[bloomer1]

I just recently built my second computer, I am close to loading Vista-32. I have a 320gb Barracuda for the OS and will add another 320gb HDD for a data/media drive later. I went through alot of post but could not find much on Xpress Recovery 2. How should I partition the new drive and should I use the Xpress Recovery 2 feature from my Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 mobo? What are the pros/cons with partitioning?

Current Plan:
Partition #1: 60 GB - Vista OS
Partition #2: 240 GB - Apps/Games
Partition #3: 20 GB - Xpress Recovery 2 drive (10 GB recommended)

How is this plan?

Any help would be great.

V/r
Darryl

 

[itotallybelieveyou]

looks great

 

[bloomer1]

Thanks for the reply. Any thoughts on Xpress Recovery does it work well or should I skip it and create backups? I have searched for posts on it but can't find a lot of info, expecially when people talk about partitioning.

 

[aadamszc]

Generally, motherboard software stinks. However, I would install it. In the grand scheme of things, it is 20GB.

 

[bloomer1]

I have seen in a few post a temporary/cach partition; how does this work and is it useful?

 

[Flingpoo]

Looks good to me too.

I've never used Xpress Recovery. I'm assuming it's a recovery partition. For the cost of 20gig it looks like a good idea.

I always partition my drives, and the only con I can think of it's a little more work when downloading or installing a program. Hardly a big deal at all though. All you have to do is make up your own folders so all the info doesn't get scattered all over the drive.

The pros out weight the cons. The biggest being if you have to reload windows for any reason all the information in the other partitions remain . You will have to reload apps and games, but any saved work/games in those folders will still be there. Of course all your media files will still be there.

I usually partition when installing windows, but I found out (from here) Vista has a partition tool. If you don't like the way it came out, of if you decide not to use that 20 gig Xpress Recovery partition it can be changed later.

Good luck!