I've heard that it's a good idea to create a partition on your HDD to install your OS to to enhance OS performance, is that true? For the record my HDD is a WD Caviar Black 7200 RPM 500GB and I'll install Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. Also, is it essential to add a layer of thermal paste on top of my CPU to enhance cooling? If so, I skimmed around a bit but I didn't see any guide to doing that, anyone can help me with that? Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.
Creating a seperate Partition is mainly for safety of data. You can have your OS on the c: partition and important data on your D: partition. If a spyware/virus attacks your OS, you only have to format the c: partition and reinstall windows. You don't have to delete the data on your D: partition. Has save me many times. All my hard drives I setup c: 20gb and the remainder is used for data. Always works for me. Also it's quicker to backup a small partition than an entire 500gb hard drive. It takes me 5 minutes to do an image backup of my 20gb (6gb in use) partition. Always have thermal paste on your cpu, either the one that came with the fan or the one that comes in a tube. From my experience the quality of your cpu fan is more important.
That sounds like a pretty good reason to put my OS on a seperate partition. Thanks for the prompt answer! As for the thermal paste, I'm not sure just how much I should put and how... guess I'll be looking around for that answer. I know I got my CPU with silicon beads, I presume I'm supposed to use that?
That silicone stuff is garbage; I recomend Arctic Silver 5...even the OEMs and Sony use that stuff or equivelant. You want to completely cover the top of the CPU, keeping it as thin as possible. Use a flat piece of plastic to spread the goop thin and even (I use half of an old credit card...split long-ways for a thin, flat edge)
if your creating a separate Partition on the same drive the point is moot. if you loose your registry those programs will have to be reinstalled anyway. i don't recommend creating two partitions on one drive. CPU paste is as important as oil is for your car. buy cheap oil get bad performance. your choice
I get a lot of conflicting messages wherever I go about partitions, but in the end it's not all that important, I guess. However, thanks for the suggestion concerning which kind of thermal paste to use, that's really helpful, along with how to apply it. I'm not sure I can easily get an old credit card right now though, but maybe I can find some sort of old plastic card I can use. Anyway, it's good advice, if anyone's got more about to say about that particular subject, I would be very interested in hearing it. I don't want to mess this up, considering how fragile the CPU can be.
I just use an old credit card because I had it available when I needed it one day. You just need something plastic, rigid, and with a strait edge...in a pinch, I have cut pieces of tamper-proof packaging and used them. You could even use cardboard, though it tends to soak up your valuable, silver-laden thermal grease. As for partitions, it is slightly safer to have one for the OS & programs, and another for storage. This isn't very safe anyway, as you have no redundancy in case the drive ever fails...but it will save you a lot of hastle if windows dies and you have to reinstall.
