opinions on Partition strategies for dual boot on single physical disk?

[Voixdelion]

Hi everyone! 

Since I am having to start from scratch anyway with a new hdd, I am wondering how to best go about partitioning the 500gb HDD in the laptop which will be a multiboot setup with both windows 7 and XP.  My major dilemma is whether or not to separate the programs from the OS installations, which would primarily serve the purpose of saving disk real estate if the two systems share the same program folders rather than each being installed again with their respective OS.  I realize that the installs will have to be done for each system separately, but I don't mind that as some of them are pretty hefty in size and consume a lot of space and are identical in content in those folders between the two OSes.  What I have run into problems with before is having my system partitions running short of space and screwing me up because the programs ended up taking too much room and having to uninstall some.  By keeping them separate, I would lessen the likelihood that the OS drive would get unexpectedly large and would maintain a reasonably consistent space requirement so as not to find myself  in that predicament again, and also the benefit of having the space saved from installing in two different locales.

I also want both OSes to share data locations by default, and neither of them to be allocated to the system partitions, naturally, so I am wondering is it too much work for the drive to go back and forth to a separate partition for the programs?  This strategy would require one xp partition, one for 7, one for programs, and one for data and personal files generated with said programs, so it seems kind of "busy" to me for a single physical drive.  Would I be better off with just duplicating the installation folders in each OS and limiting the partitions to each OS and one for data?   If so how big should I make a partition to allow for the programs taking up more and more space over time?   

Any advice or experiences that can be shared to save me future headaches would be appreciated.  =)
 
 

[smknjoe]

TLDR

Install Win7 and virtualize XP (which will be virus city pretty soon.)

Edit: damn spell check.

[Voixdelion]

Thanks , but no thanks.  I worked much too hard to customize and control and familiarize myself with the ins and outs of xp - I need my comfort zone available outside of 7 which still irks me with stupid things like mic input latency when trying to record and monitor  vocals simultaneously- it's maddeningly impossible to do in windows seven on my laptop, and the only solution I have found is a alternate option to boot into xp if I want to do that particular thing, nothing else worked after poring through thousands of online threads about it.   I had it configured that way before my hdd broke and didn't use it very often, but it was the only way aside from setting up another machine to route the mic monitor through separate from the laptop where it was being recorded... otherwise I can't sing and hear myself through the speakers at the same time.  Supposedly had something to do with the way sound was handled in windows 7 environment that made the delay somewhat impossible to remove completely though it could be minimized to some degree.  It was never enough to my liking though, and I can't install a separate sound card to the laptop...virtualization didn't fix that, it had to be native xp.

[smknjoe]

XP is a 13 year old OS that is going to be completely unsupported by MS (no more security updates at all) in April of this year. AV software will not keep you "safe" without security patches from MS. You will get viruses very soon after that date if you are going to use that OS online (without even going online. You just need to be plugged into the Internet.)

However, if you still want to proceed with what you proposed you should be able to. It's no more taxing on the drive to having the data spread across different partitions. Even when you have one big partition the data is not stored sequentially. The only thing that I would be concerned about is the "programs" partition. Just make sure the program data is stored in the same location in both OSes. Otherwise, I think you'll be okay.

Personally:

OS partitions - XP ~40GB    Win7 ~80GB and the rest is up to you. That's assuming you are installing the programs on a separate partition.

Edit: A clean installation of Win7 takes up about 20GB and XP after updates is probably close to 7-10GB.

[Voixdelion]

Thanks - That's good for a start.  I'll leave some extra space for the unexpected too, as I don't need it to be super tight in terms of space, I just didn't want to get that DISK FULL message getting in the way at some crucial point.  If I decide not to keep the programs separate then I have to deal with much longer back up times too, and sometimes there is less trouble sorting out what I want backed up if I organize better to start. 

I run a pretty tight install of XP - only about 14 processes running at any given time - and generally I am immediately aware of anything hinky tries to sneak in.  Most things run in isolated spaces to prevent things spreading and I'm pretty good about catching stuff that shouldn't be there and removing it from another environment if necessary, so that doesn't worry me much.   I haven't run into trouble with viruses ever since I became familiar with exactly what needs to be running and what doesn't, and I don't even intend it for much use except when 7 doesn't meet the need properly (such as with the latency issue in recording)  and generally do most of my internet surfing from within 7 just for the speed difference.  (Most of the damage that has ever been done to my machines has been self-inflicted through unscrupulous downloading of something I knew I ought to have avoided but its been eons since I have actually had anything infiltrate and I don't even run a constant monitoring AV solution, as some of them don't like some of the customization I have implemented.  I just do manual checkups from time to time. 

 I don't know what most people are doing that they find themselves constantly battling malware, though.  I stopped much of that just by being selective about the features and services I run in my OS and trimming the fat out of the stuff I had no need for.  Since I never need remote access to my computer, I'm sure that closed quite a few holes right there as I don't allow anything incoming that I haven't authorized to make changes.     One of the reasons I feel so comfortable using XP over the newer options is for that very reason that I know it well enough to recognize something that doesn't belong there, but feel a bit less comfortable killing process in windows 7 for fear I will break something if I do.

  I don't like there being so much background activity and communication going on that I am not privy to - I wanna know what my computer is doing and who its talking to at all times, and frankly I HATE this whole ET phone home computing environment nowadays.  I don't trust them to be messing around with only the stuff they have permission to be messing around with.   I was in shock at how much speed and efficiency I gained just from paring down the services in a basic XP installation the first time I learned about that.  ( It surprised me that MS didn't run a tighter ship in general, but I guess the more control they want to keep over their product from afar, the more vulnerable it is to being taken over from afar as well. )

[smknjoe]

I understand where you are coming from now...so, just go for it. You should be fine. You should try learning Linux sometime. You can't have more control than that and talk about lean! A clean Debian or Slackware installation uses about 350MB of RAM idle. Arch about ~60-100MB. Win7? How much you Got Bro, we want it all?!?

[IvanIvanovich]

I would dump XP and get a nice external low latency ASIO / what you hear capable sound card like the Roland duo capture.