Installing XP to non-C: partition but at start of drive

[Deleted User]

Jamp wrote: »

Using Kaspersky and I'm not selling my house

Ba-dum tssstttt!

[Deleted User]

Jamp wrote: »

Sure but it also says that "the fact is that some of the cruder virii specifically target the C drive, which means, to some extent (however small), C is the most vulnerable drive", and that "any security-savvy user will tell you that installing to the default directory is the least secure option". I'm inclined to agree with that guide that any additional layer of protection available is worth having, particularly if at no cost in performance or £s. If, however, it's quite a hassle to achieve or going to harm system performance then I'll just stick to C

If I were so inclined to write a virus, one of the very first things I would do would be to locate the system directory, which in itself is not very difficult to acheive.

esuhl

I wouldn't worry too much about viruses that have been so badly written that they only work if Windows is mounted on the C: drive. If the virus programmer can't read an environment variable to locate Windows, he/she almost certainly won't be able to get past even a basic antivirus program.

Jamp wrote: »

I do however want to have my 'system' partition with Windows and Program Files at the start/edge of the drive platter for speed of access.

I thought the fastest linear speeds were at the end of the partition, rather than the start. Isn't the logical "beginning" of a hard disk considered to be at the centre of the physical disk?

S0litaire

For windows all you really need is 3 partitions at most.

Partition 1 = Windows + Program files
Partition 2 = Users + Document & Settings
(Optional)
Partition 3 = Swapfile on a separate drive. (can also be used for storing backups)

Personally I think Windows is very bad when it comes to using multiple drives to spread the OS over. it keeps wanting to dump stuff on the C:\ drive. Their is a way around this if you use NTFS. You can use a folder as a link to a different partition. But it's a pain to setup...