Well Bill,
It really gets down to preference and how many users are on this computer or
rather how many changes are going to be made.

If you are one that likes to try stuff out, like software, then it is good
to make a system backup of your o/s.
In order to do that properly, you must make an image file of the whole
partition. That is the main reason I see to argue splitting a drive into
smaller partitions.

If for nothing else, make 2 partitions dividing your drive in half and
format each FAT32.  You may decide later that you want to do something else,
like try out Wxzp without giving up your current os.

The current method to economically backup a partition is using cd's, which
usually take 3 or so to back up a Win2k partition (3gb).

I have a 30gb drive, partitioned as such:
C:\500mb FAT16 (to allow master boot record for any kind of o/s)
D:\4.0Gb FAT32 W2k operating system and main applications that would be
normally installed with the o/s --Winzip, Zonealarm, Acrobat, etc
E:\10Gb  Fat32 Applications -- All applications get installed here.
F:\Remaining Fat32 Archiving

I find that the F: is good to have to use as tempory or whatever that is
just not part of the rest. Even to install another o/s I want to try.

This lets you also manage a backup of E: which together with D: would give
you a complete system backup, including all installed applications.

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