Best practices for partitioning a hard disk on a computer running Windows XP

Mitch Tulloch explains from his personal experience how to partition a hard disk and the benefits from dividing your hard disk into more than the single partition and hard drive that it originally came with. These benefits can help you be better organized, more productive, and ensure the integrity of your data.

1. Install Windows on drive C on your first hard disk.

2. Create a second partition on your first disk to store your active work files, and keep it fairly small so you can maintain it more easily. Unless your work is graphic design or video production, since your work files will be much larger.

3. Install a second hard disk on your computer and create at least two partitions on it, one for your paging file and the other for archiving old work files and other important files like your Outlook PST file.

4. Create additional partitions on your second disk only if they will contain files that are infrequently accessed to minimize contention with the paging file partition.

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Of course, don’t forget to back up all your data before you start partitioning your disks!