Partition the Hard Drive in a Windows 7 Install

thanks for the help

So I have been running 7 for the past 5 years on an old dell latitude with only 55GB memory. Never really had any problems with functionality or lag ups, but wanted to do a clean install. My original setup never had partitions and was wondering if 55GB was enough to have a separate partition for the OS and another for everything else? If so, how large would you recommend each partition to be (if 2 would suffice) as i feel somewhat comfortable seeing in the example he is using only 20GB?

Brink said:

Hello Berkey,

It depends, but if you don't plan on installing much, then 55 GB should be fine for Windows. :)

I dont install much in the way of games and what not. My last real set up with and the bulk of most programs would include:

Chrome
Avast
Malwarebytes
Sandboxie
Winpatrol
CCenhancer
Zemana Antikeylogger
Microsoft Word and Excell (custom install as I don't use the other components of the suite)

toss in a few smaller programs for viewing comic books and an occasional viewer such as windirstat and that would be what the set up on this laptop looks like. I keep it rather bare bones and ususaly transfer most files of size to a external HDD. Only documents and the occasional pic/song stay on the hard drive long term.

I have no issue with the 55GB for running 7, but would splitting the 55Gb in half be wise for 2 partitions or should I just leave it all in 1 as it was in the past?

I have about 55 applications installed on C, along with Windows 7 Home Premium, fully updated.

Occupied space is 32 GB. I use a single partition on the 80 GB drive. My data is on an entirely different drive.

I don't see any over-riding reason why you should use more than a single partition if all you have is 55 GB. What would be the point?

I assume you have plenty of storage space on some other drive for your personal files. Even if you don't have many personal files and intend to keep them on the same physical drive as the OS, I don't see any reason to split up 55 GB. If you had several hundred GB of space and wanted to keep say 70 for the OS and 250 for personal data, that would be another story. But if you split such a small space as 55 GB, it's just a matter of time before you need more space than you have as you don't know how fast each of the split partitions will grow.

ignatzatsonic said:

I have about 55 applications installed on C, along with Windows 7 Home Premium, fully updated.

Occupied space is 32 GB. I use a single partition on the 80 GB drive. My data is on an entirely different drive.

I don't see any over-riding reason why you should use more than a single partition if all you have is 55 GB. What would be the point?

I assume you have plenty of storage space on some other drive for your personal files. Even if you don't have many personal files and intend to keep them on the same physical drive as the OS, I don't see any reason to split up 55 GB. If you had several hundred GB of space and wanted to keep say 70 for the OS and 250 for personal data, that would be another story. But if you split such a small space as 55 GB, it's just a matter of time before you need more space than you have as you don't know how fast each of the split partitions will grow.

Thanks for the tip. i finished my reinstall with the single partition as the old saying "if it ain't fix don't break it" fits with my scenerio. Thanks again to you and brink

I have been searching for such a helpfull answer for days and now I found the best one
THANK YOU SO MUCH

I did all this but wasnt able to install windows on any of that partitions "windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style".