File Organization & Partitioning

[Basils57]

would like some advice regarding the above, which seems a bit of a minefield that I want to get right.

I have just installed a second hard drive, and am about to create new partitions on both my existing(80Gb) and new drives(160Gb).

Am I right in thinking that the preferred way of arrangement would be to organise the partitions into 4 basic (main) partitions - System; Programs; Data; and Backup coupled with putting the paging file on the new hard drive in its own partition?

If this is ok, what is the best way to achieve this (apart from the paging file transfer, which I have instructions for) , ie are there any tricks to it, or just move each file manually, and do I just leave the Windows file in the systems partition?
Will I need to make any specific arrangements for file associations - if so what & how?

Thanks in advance, and if there are any other suggestions I would welcome them.

[Panama Red]

You can use Disk Management to partition the new drive but you may need something like Partition Magic to do the existing drive if it's all on one partition currently. There is no "preferred way of arrangement". MS recommends what you plan with the page file as a way to improve performance but separating the Operating System from Programs doesn't really do anything. Most programs have some registry integration so you'll lose program functionality in the event of a reformat. I like to put the My Documents file including My Pics and My Music on some partition other than the OS partition just to prevent data loss in the event of a crash. Plus I back them up frequently to an external hdd. But that's just my personally preferred method.

[Basils57]

Thanks for that Panama Red