Why is 20gb for XP not enough?

[solved]Why is 20gb for XP not enough?

I have been reading on this forum and other places about the right size for an XP partition. I multiboot XP Home and 5 Linux distros on a 250gb hd. I have XP installed is sda1 and it is 20gb. sda2 is a swap file. sda3 is an extended partition that is divided up and this is where the linux distros are installed. I have some unallocated space after sda3. I have used it in the past as sda4 but deleted it and now it is unallocated

Sda1 holds OS, applications, and data. I do most of my day-to-day work in linux but keep XP because of work that I have to do in Quickbooks. I have started getting warnings about space running out. I have deleted stuff and defragged the hd and now have about 6gb free. I may need to install another version of Quickbooks. I see talk about page file. What is the best size for a page file.?

I am thinking of buying Paragon Partition Manager to increase the size of sda1. Non of the linux partition managers will do the job on a NTFS partition. My first question is, will PPM do the job with what I have described? That is the unallocated space being after sda3 extended partition.

Thanks,
Harold

 

Harold,

Page File size...

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

If 20 GB is too small it is because you have put a lot of data/apps in the partition. WinXP runs fine in a 2 GB partition. But the partition needs to be larger depending on what you want to install.

 

?? Why not?

 

From what I read, they can't resize NTFS partitions. You have to use something like Partition Magic. I have it but it gives me error 116 and asks me if I want to fix it. I think it is because of my partitions and grub boot manager being written to MBR. I don't believe that it is an error so I told it not to fix it. From some the forum posts I read if you answer yes it will mess with your partition table and possibly the BIOS.

Now I am trying to find something else that will resize a NTFS partition.

 

Linux' GParted will work fine at resizing ntfs partitions. You could also use the excellent and free Partition Wizard boot cd:

-http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

 

I suggest Partition Wizard (Bootable CD)

http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

 

In addition to GParted, Acronis Disk Director Suite uses a Linux boot disk and works like a champ with all Windows' file formats (however it's not a free program)!

 

Thanks for all the input. I have a copy of Acronis and will look at Partition Wizard. It may be that I just don't know how to get the free space where it needs to be so that sda1 can be enlarged.

I have gotten a howto about using Bootit NG. It makes sense and seems like it could be a good guideline. I am being cautious because I had rather not mess with my MBR or my partition table. The unallocated space is located beyond sda3 which is an extended partition. It looks like I just have to get it back to just after sda1 so that I can increase the size of sda1.

I also have Partition Magic but it gave me an error 116 and offered to fix it. I was unsure that it wouldn't mess up my partition table/MBR so I abandoned that idea.

Thanks again,
Harold