"Mike M" wrote in message
...

[ . . . ]
In addition by keeping the system partition "lean and mean" defrags for
example are much quicker to complete and have less of the restart problems
experienced by many with large single partition systems. Further by
relocating ones data on a second partition or drive makes reinstalling an
OS far less of a problem in the event of major problems and ensures little
or no loss of data. Similarly far less space is required to back up the
system partition which means it may just get done a little more frequently
than otherwise. :-)

Thanks again, those are really good points. I've often thought about
partitioning in connection with that first item, the faster defrags, but
this only occurs to me when I've already started the long inefficient defrag
and then I forget about it until next time. ;-)

What sort of restart problems? Do I understand you correctly, that this
means restart problems following a defrag? I don't recall having had
anything like that.

Yes, I can see that having a smaller system partition to back up makes a lot
of sense. As for reinstalling the OS though, I may be missing something
here. I have a lot of programs installed, and reinstalling the OS means
losing the original registry, doesn't it? While I realize the registry
itself can be backed up, isn't a reason for reinstalling likely to include
something wrong *in* the registry, or at least an accumulation of useless
junk there? I'll admit to being seriously out of my depth when it comes to
the registry, and it's something I mean to learn more about.

O.G.