Help with partitioning!

[shorinhio]

OK so Im not very good at organizaton and I need some help with a new setup please! I have just reformatted one HDD and bought another:

(1) Maxtor 160GB (SATA)
(2) Western Digital 250GB (SATA)

I wish to install Windows XP and Kubuntu Edgy Eft. I also wish to have seperate partitions for the system files, and the music, games, etc.

1) Where is the best place for the OS partitions? At the beginning of each HDD? Or on the same one?

2) Also I wish to access the music partition from both Windows and Linux, is a FAT32 formatting the way to go here? Because I've been reading about read/write errors when trying to access from both and I've been getting a bit worried.

Any help wuld be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[toad]

Re: Help with partitioning!

Hi,

it is difficult to answer your questions, but guidance is no problem

1) HDs are best organised according to the shelf life of the files contained therein. Thus files which are written to often should be in a batch and not too far away from those which are read frequently. On the other hand, files that are only needed for booting can be packed away somewhere completely out of the way. But there really is no hard and fast rule as to how to partition properly, as it depends entirely on how you use your system. My system is set up with sda1 as swap, sda2 for strictly personal info, sda5 as home, sda6 as usr, then a number of different partitions for downloads, games, multimedia, etc. and sda13 as /

2) I wouldn't touch FAT with a bargepole and format your music partition as ext3 - there are tools for windowze so you can read ext2/3 - a google should see you right. I think even the hardiest windows freak who absolutely hates linux would have to say that the linux way of file system organisation is simply far superior.

HTH

[Cyrus Jones]

Re: Help with partitioning!

If you want to share files between Windows and Linux, you have multiple choices. You can even use a combination.

Read and write to NTFS in Ubuntu. Use ntfs-3g, by following these instructions: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=217009
Disadvantage: Although perfectly stable and I use this personally and love it, it still is questionable if you just want to keep operating system separate from data.

I wouldn't touch FAT with a bargepole and format your music partition as ext3 - there are tools for windowze so you can read ext2/3 - a google should see you right. I think even the hardiest windows freak who absolutely hates linux would have to say that the linux way of file system organisation is simply far superior.

Agreed. Read and write to ext3 in Windows. I recommend this over creating a FAT32 partition because
it is a better filesystem and has better reliability. It also not subject to the 32 GB FAT32 partition limit. Use the Windows program Ext2 IFS at:
http://www.fs-driver.org/
Disadvantage: If you use this to share data between the two operating systems using the Linux OS partition, like NTFS-3G, it still is questionable if you just want to keep operating system separate from data. Also, the reliability of ext3 is better in Linux since journaling is employed in case data becomes corrupted, while Windows completely ignores the journaling feature. If using a separate ext3 partition, disadvantage is that you must create a new partition and data is completely separate from operating system partition (although this could also be an advantage).

Using separate FAT32 partition is a bad idea. I would go with using a separate ext3 partition. FAT32 is much worse when compared with ext3 as a filesystem. FAT32 also has a 32 GB FAT32 partition limit. Like ext3 as a separate partition, you must create a new partition and data is completely separate from operating system partition (although this could also be an advantage).

I would recommend using ext3 as a separate partition. You would share data between the two operating systems using this partition. Kubuntu would automatically mount it and you could access ext3 in Windows via Ext2 IFS.

Read/write errors. You won't be accessing files at the same time from both. However, the filesystem must be appropriately unmounted. Which means that Windows cannot use it's hibernating feature and you must properly shut down Windows. In many cases the filesystem will not mount in Kubuntu if Windows has crashed (you will have to start Windows and properly shut down). This is a major issue when accessing a Linux operating system partition from Windows.