Help! I've never partitioned a drive

Greetings,


I'm (finally) getting a new hard drive. I'm getting a Seagate 1TB drive. It will be the only drive in the desktop PC, so I need to install my OS (Win XP Pro), all my programs, and files. I'm looking for advice on:

1. How to do it--I'm paranoid I'll make a mistake since I'm a newbie!
2. How many partitions?
3. What size partition for OS, programs, pagefile, files, etc.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I do have the OS discs, so I'll make two partitions--one 30GB for the OS and the rest for data? Should I make a third or fourth partition for programs and /or pagefile?

Thank you for your help!

How ya doing, buddy?

Thank you also Audiophile! It does seem like laptop drives get larger more slowly than desktop! My laptop has an 80GB drive and I think the max available is 250GB?

OK, so the plan so far is:

Three Partitions:

1. 30GB for OS and Programs

2. 3GB for Pagefile (should I make it larger if I have 4GB of ram?)

3. The rest for data

So my next question is, how do I "tell" Windows XP Pro to use the 3GB partition for Pagefile?

Thank you!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

^-^,

Thank you very much for your clear and complete instructions for the pagefile! This is very helpful and I appreciate you taking the time to help!

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?