Windows Xp only partition, How big should it be?

[Drain You]

Im backing up all my files and creating a partition just for the windows xp installation, just so if anything goes wrong and i need to reformat i still have everything. So how big should it be if thats all thats on it?

 

[stuckinthecave]

xp sp2, both pro and home need 1.8Gb to run, and media center uses 4Gb. You should make it 5Gb just to be safe.

 

[Drain You]

alright thanks

 

[mammikoura]

well you probably want at least 5gb. Updates and stuff install onto the same partition. And you should always have some free space on the OS partition.
But 5gb should be enough.

What I usually do is maybe a 100gb or so for the OS and then 200gb for storage. Then I install all my programs on the OS partition, since you will have to reinstall them anyway if you screw up. (well you could just mess with the registry, but I think it's easier to just reinstall) The storage will have all the things I don't want to lose if I have to reformat.

But that's just me, as we already said something like 5gb should be enough for the OS.

 

[Raffaz]

I normally set mine to 20gig, then i know i wont run out of room later. It all depends on how much stuff your gonna install.

 

[parismouton]

I'd agree with about 20 gig to be safe, this bloated monster is sitting at 3.85 gig of 'WINDOWS' right now and you want about 4 times that to be able to defrag correctly and leave some comfort zone

ta

 

[Äߧý∩†H♠H䎀]

Ya I'd leave at least 20gigs. If you don't have SP2 intergrated into your windows install you may want to just install XP on the 137GB then partition the rest as a media/game drive. That leaves you plenty of room for updates plus you don't have to redirect programs. And you can just target your documents folder to run to the extended partition.

 

[Juice1]

I did the same thing and 10 gigs sufficed for me.

 

[blackjack]

I use 10gig and thats perfect for me it allows me to get two back ups on it, one with all my software on and one with just the OS and a few basics, but I have them compressed at high compression level using Norton Ghost.