disk partitions

the windows xp professional setup program examine the hard disk to determine its existing configuration.setup then allows you to install windows xp professional on an existing partition or to create a new partition on which to install it.

new partition or existing partition

depending on the hard disk configuration, do one of the following during installation.

• if the hard disk unpartitioned, create and size windows xp professional partition.
• if the hard disk partitioned and contains enough unpartitioned disk space use the unpartitioned space to create windows xp professional partition.
• if the existing partition is large enough, install windows xp professional on that partition.installing on an existing partition overwrites any existing data.
• if the existing partition is not large enough, delete it to provide more unpartitioned disk space for creating the windows xp professional partition.

remaining free hard disk space

although you can use setup to create other partitions, you should create and size only the partition on which you will install windows xp professional.after you install windows xp professional, use the disk management tool to partition any remaining unpartitioned space on the hard disk.

installation partition size

microsoft recommends installing windows xp professional on a 1.5 or larger partition.although windows xp professional requires less disk space for installation, using a larger installation partition provides the flexibility to install windows xp professional updates, operating system tools, programms, user documents or other necessary files in the future.