Creating a Partition for the OS at a specific location on HD Platter

[oliverthomas]

Hi everyone, I'm about to upgrade to the Windows 7 64 Bit RC1. I have all data backup/etc situations handled, and I understand the inherent risks of using RC1.

That being said, I've been reading up on partitioning HD's, and how it's best to create a partition at the BEGINNING of the HD for the OS so it can be accessed fastest. I went through the Disk Management Utility, and shrunk/created a 30gig partition for the install of W7 RC1, but I'm realizing that I have no idea WHERE on the disk the partition resides. It is the only partition on the disk, and come's 2nd (to the right) of my "C" drive, which is the rest of my drive's space, ~436 Gig. If it's listed 2nd, does that mean this new Partition designated (O is coming AFTER the 436 gigs of drive C: on the platter? This is obviously the last thing I want, for the OS to be install on a partition at the furthest spot from the beginning of the HD Platter.

Is there a way to move this partition? A way to specify where on the platter I want it to reside?

The reason I'm trying to create this partition within the current O/S instead of just formating everything and starting from scratch is that I have to install the RC 1 from a Virtual Drive, as I have no DVD burner or 4 gig USB. I'm not sure how the install would work if I'm running it from a virtual drive while trying to format the disk that the virtual drive is on! Maybe I could create a Virtual drive on my 2nd internal HD, (73 gig, only for storage, etc). Would that work?

haha, confused? I'm sorry, I hope I'm getting across the gist of my problem, thanks for any help!

 

[Devastator_uk]

You can't specify the physical location of a partition as such but the first partition (far-left in most software) will be at the begining of the drive.

And having a fairly small partition ensures that the data is contained on that small portion of the drive. A regular defrag also ensures that most of the data is pushed to the start of the partition and thus closer the the begining of the drive.

 

[oliverthomas]

According to this guide on partitioning here.

"the first partition you create on a drive will automatically take the outer/leading/fastest edge."

meaning-

"In other words, the drive's read/write heads won't have to travel (seek) to the far end of the drive (during normal system usage, anyway). This will provide you with a more responsive system by decreasing the drive's effective seek/access time.

I guess the question then becomes:

Can I install W7 from the ISO mounted to a Virtual Drive on a 2nd Hard drive, and during installation format/partition the primary HD, giving the OS the first 30 gigs of the HD to be partitioned to?

 

[tmike]

Obtain, burn, and boot from the gparted live cd, with which you can create, delete, resize, move, and copy partitions.

 

[oliverthomas]

The documentation for gparted live shows that the "move" command is the same as copy, and is only useful for moving/copying a partition to another disk, not moving a partition that come's after C: to be moved "before" C:, to the outermost part of the HD platter.

Again, the question seems to be:

Can I install W7 from the ISO mounted to a Virtual Drive on a 2nd Hard drive, and during installation format/partition the primary HD, giving the OS the first 30 gigs of the HD to be partitioned to?

Or is there a way to move partitions within windows?