partition

[cptmac]

New build. Installed Vista 64. I can’t keep it from crashing. P35 board, 6850. It doesn’t like the X-Fi Gamer. Yes I turned off the on board sound, downloaded the latest drivers from Creative. Ran Vista’s memory check, it said I have a memory problem, but no details. My machine has 4gigs Crucial Tracers. Won’t let me download memtest. It says Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and is closing. Then the system crashes. Gone to the Microsoft support site, downloaded all the latest patches. Here is my plan, I am going back to XP. Tell me if I’m doing the right thing. Two harddrives. I want the OS on the Raptor 150, my movies are on the Western Digital 750. I am going to unplug the 750, format the Raptor then install XP. I want partition the Raptor. XP requires 539mb. I have never partitioned a drive before. Do you partition the drive before you format? Does Vista walk you through this, you can call the partitioned drive “C”? As always, Thanks.

 

[runswindows95]

Okay, why are you partitioning the drive if you're going back to XP and XP alone? The only reason I partitioned my OS HDD was to dual-boot XP and Linux. If I wasn't running Linux, I wouldn't have partitioned the HDD just for one OS.
Also, your HDD requirements for XP is way off. The system requirements state 1.5GB. So, in reality, you really need about 3GB for the OS, updates, and all the drivers.

 

[cptmac]

Thanks. I don't know why you should partition, except the veterans say you should partition. I thought there was some sort of magic to partitioning. I got the 539 MB from the XP dvd. When you insert the disc, it says it holds 539 MB. I will go with no partition but I am courious where the 1.5 GB comes from. Wooh, wait, 3 GB. This is from experience?

 

[skittle]

The contents on the CD are compressed.. basically.

 

[cpburns]

dude, the contents of the XP cd are massively compressed. my installation c:\windows folder alone takes up 2.57GB of drive space. I would never put XP on a drive less than 4GB. and if you plan to do anything useful with the OS such as decompressing zip files, you'll want more.

in fact, i wouldn't let XP inhabit less than a 10GB drive. this is including only minimal space for the page file.

also, i wouldn't bother in your case even partitioning the raptor. it's usually done so as to safe-guard data on single drive systems. fact is, if your OS goes to ****, so will all your installed programs with it. they won't be accessible from a new installation; thus the only reason to install programs to a different partition from the OS partition is if that partition exists on a different drive, a faster one. for example, i run photoshop from a raid 0 array, and its swap file is there as well, as are all my games.

the most important thing to note though. you have vista 64, and you have 4GB of ram. i'm guessing that's on 4 sticks of ram? 4x1GB? if so, install vista 64 with only one stick in, completely update the OS, including any hotfixes. there's one specifically for vista 64 for this particular issue, 4 dimms installed. once all that is done and rebooted, install the rest of the memory. this is more than likely what is causing your problems.

as far as the sound card goes, i wouldn't be too concerned about that. try installing the card in a different slot, sure. but it's primarily creative's x-fi cards that cause problems under vista. (i could be forgetting that yours is a rebranded x-fi? but i don't think so) sure, go thru a clean install of vista like i laid out, put the sound card in a good slot, don't worry about its IRQ, do all updates and hotfixes, and then install the rest of your ram.

good luck!

 

[ir_efrem]

why would you want to create a 539mb partition anyway?

why not use the whole hard drive as 1 partition?