@ tut: true. not sure the little speedrun freak is talking about a laptop though?
@ datel: to resize partitions you can use the
- "gparted live cd" (linux based) or
- "partition magic" (windows program, that lets you choose what to do in windows itself and then executes that after a reboot before windows is "loaded" [when necessary])
--> in both cases, if you do that stuff: backup your data. all of it...
those tools are great and do a good job. i used them successfully very often. but both(!) did (once each) cause a data loss... might have been my mistake or some problem with the HDDs... not sure.
--> edit: just found this
http://en.kioskea.net/faq/sujet-1391-free-alternative-to-partition-magic
but you are right about the partition becoming too small at some point, of course. i also hit the problem
but tbh... at some point you have everything installed, right? only the data gets more and more. this is why your data-partition is the biggest one anyway. in my case i hit the limit, because I installed more RAM and suddenly needed a lot more space of the hibernation and page file (winXP). but even those can (both?) be placed off the primary partition i think (but, yes, this might hurt the performance a bit, if you are using a conventional HDD where the inner part is the fastest in terms of access times I think).
so imo you should be fine with say 20GB for the OS, another 30GB for programs and the rest for data. or if you prefer 50GB for OS and programs (I am still using the same partition for OS and programs myself!). I suggested splitting that in two, because half of the "programms"/"tools" I use personally are portable or do work from a backup of a once installed folder. thus no need to re-install them at any time, which saves a lot of effort whenever you setup a fresh OS. as i said i am not doing it that way atm, but once i get my new laptop and/or PC i will.
okay last thing i wanna say:
if you got around to partitioning, then you should do create backups of your OS partition every now and then (whenever you think it is necessary). this is very easy and free with
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm .
btw as my primary partitions are so small i can fit my whole-OS-partition backups on one DVD
. have it