Hard Drive Partition Help

First off - I'm running Windows XP Pro on a 30GB hard drive on my laptop (which I want to sell):

I wanted to make 3 parts in the hard drive. One for Photoshop to use for all my graphics work. One for my Apache web server, one for the computer itself.

I want the Graphics area to have 10GB's. I want the webserver to have 1.5GB's. And the rest to the one for the computer.

How would I go about splitting my HD into three parts, and still have Windows XP Pro control them all through the main part of the drive (C? Is this recommended? Will it speed up my system at all?

First, if you are re installing, then when you have the option to set up the format, select the amount you want for the OS, and format that as NTFS. Then when you are done isntalling the OS, go to your Control Panel --> admin tools --> Computer Management --> disk management. From here you can select the rest of your hard drive an partition it accordingly.

Now for Apache I wouldnt recomend installing the actual server in it's own partition. No need to. What you can do is create a section of your HD and set it aside as your www directory (or htdocs in Apache. ) This can be done in the apache configuration. Its listed in the .conf file and pretty easy to direct your root folder to a different location than the default.

So your hard drive would be 3 partitions:
1. System and Programs
2. Your web root
3. Your projects.

Since you are going about this you might as well set up a scratch disk and depending on your ram amount, you might want to set up a system scratch disk. But if you have 512 or above probably not necessary.

You can have up to 4 Primary partitions (one which your OS will be on.) and the rest can be logical (limited up to the letter z.) All these can be controlled by one OS. It just appears as different drives to your system, just like having your Cdrom or DVD drive, etc.

That should be about it. Just remember to use NTFS, unless your plan on sharing between different OS's (easier to share with Linux when not an NTFS partition.) NTFS allows you to use all of the built in security features that the NT operating system has. Fat partitions dont.

=)

Okay, I got up to the window of "Disk Management". Now what? I have no experience at all with this stuff... how do I split the hard drive into 4 parts (main, graphics, server, scratch)? Are there any other ways?

If your using the built in Drive tool, (ie not a 3rd party software like partition magic.) then you need to set up the first partition during the install, the one where the OS will be on and DO NOT partition the other part of the drive. That is what that utility will do for you. So if you have already partitioned the whole drive as one partition, then re install and only partition what you need to partition.

But basically you will see a bar graph that shows how much of yoru drive is what partition. On the blank parts select --> right click --> partition. Make it a primary until you use up primary partitions.

Regarding Apache... you will probably have the easiest time installing 1.3.27 rather than version 2, if.... IF you plan on installing PHP. Which I am assuming you want to do. I have had a hell of a time getting Php to install on Apache server 2 and installing MySQL 4.x. But 1.3.27 is a very slick build so you wont have any problems.

Okay,

I understand now Marble. When I reinstall and partition, I have to enter a volume number for how much space the partition will have... what do I enter for 23GB?

Well its in MB, so 23 GB == 23000MB . Now when you do your first partition when you install you dont want to use the whole drive or else you wont be able to make more partitions. So pick the amount you need. Then partition the rest once you install the OS (patition using the administrators utility.)

Alright got it. Thanks.