Defragment and Partition (freewares)

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Defragment
Keeping your harddiskdrive(s) defragmented is essential!
Defragment after each dynamic data-intensive change, like installing/updating new software, having deleted many files, etc. Diskeeper puts all data in contiguous order.
By increasing disk read/write performance, defragmenting increases overall performance of the PC. Also depending on the amount of defragmentation (a downward tendency). A heavily fragmented hdd can even cause crashes of applications. Especially when the application is gaming (the heaviest task for a PC) and after the drivers and DirectX are updated and the game files are heavily fragmented too.

Also, maintain a 15% free space on each drive.
Windows together with all the applications you installed, needs 15% free space to function properly in the first place. Also, the defragmentation program needs the free space for temporarily moving the fargmented blocks.

Want to know everything about fragmentation? http://www.executive.com/fragbook/FRAGBOOK.HTM

If you do not already use a third party defragmenter. Diskeeper and Auslogics do the job much faster and more efficient and with a much better User Interface than the inbuilt Windows defragger.

For Windows XP:
Diskeeper Lite (freeware) Download
to defragment on a regulary basis. You also can easily monitor the available used/unused diskspace per partition.

Diskeeper Lite is not Vista / 7 compatible.

For Windows Vista and Windows 7 (x86 / x64):
Auslogics Defrag 3 (freeware for home users) Download
to defragment on a regulary basis. You also can easily monitor the available used/unused diskspace per partition.

Note: when selecting "defragment + optimize" in Auslogics Defrag 3 when you defrag 2 partitions at once: the "Overall Progress" bar may show 100% while the second part is still running... It is because defragmentation is finished but the optimizing is now running. So don't get confused by the progress bar. The optimizing doesn't display in the bar.
At the end of the process it says "Defragmentation finished"... instead of "Optimizing finished" or "Defragmentation + optimizing finished"...

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Or Ultra Defrag (freeware)
https://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/en/?download
A marvellous opensource very thorough defragmenter! Including a vaste array of options, f.i. "Boot Time Defragmentation" to defragment locked files. See Ultra Defrag features.

UltraDefrag reduces the file fragmentation, thus it makes disk operations faster. Also the program can optimize a whole disk by placing small files close to each other, sorted by path (or other criteria). After the disk optimization less mechanical work is needed to read groups of small files. This reduces startup times of many applications including web and photo browsers.

In contrast with the most other disk defragmenters UltraDefrag can defragment locked files by running during the Windows boot. Actually all files including page and hibernation files can be defragmented there.

Also UltraDefrag aims to be fast, simple, reliable and efficient.

About the software

UltraDefrag has the following features:
•system files defragmentation (page-file, hibernation file, ...)
•MFT (master file table) defragmentation (on XP and later systems)
•NTFS metafiles defragmentation (on Windows 2000 and later systems)
•ultra fast NTFS analysis
•fast defragmentation algorithm
•effective disk optimization algorithm (many strategies available)
•safety, it can never damage processed files
•simplicity, it can be used without reading the documentation
•ability to defragment single files/directories from the context menu of Explorer
•ability to defragment additional streams attached to NTFS files
•ability to exclude any unimportant files based on flexible filters
•ability to defragment files, which have more fragments than specified by a threshold
•ability to automatically break defragmentation when the specified time interval elapses
•ability to perform defragmentation only when the disk fragmentation level is above the specified value
•ability to select multiple disks for defragmentation
•well readable HTML reports
•powerful command line interface
•ability to automatically hibernate/shutdown PC after a job is done
•ability to make an automatic effective defragmentation through Windows Task Scheduler
•multilingual graphical interface
•little binaries (about 500 kb)
•portable version available which requires no installation
•native 64-bit support
•open source code licensed under GPL

UltraDefrag runs on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7, including all 64 bit versions of Windows.

UltraDefrag cannot be used on DOS, Windows 9x, Windows NT 3.51, ReactOS and Mac OS since these operating systems provide no defragmentation API. However, Linux port of UltraDefrag exists. It is based on NTFS-3G capabilities.

Supported file-systems

The following file-systems can be defragmented by UltraDefrag: FAT12/16/32, exFAT and NTFS.

Read more: https://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/han ... ction.html

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Or Defraggler, with XP and Vista support. Download Defraggler (freeware).

Defrag Individual Files
Most defragmentation tools only let you defrag the whole drive. Defraggler gives you the power to select individual files and folders to defrag. So you can get the job done in seconds, rather than waiting for the whole drive to complete. Of course if you want to defrag the whole drive Defraggler will let you do that too.
Compact and Portable
Defraggler was written in the same compact architecture as other Piriform products (CCleaner and Recuva). This results in a compact single EXE application, which can be copied to a thumbdrive and then used whenever you need it, without a complex installation process. The EXE itself is less than 1MB!
Vista Support
Defraggler supports all OSs released since Windows 2000, this includes Windows 2000, 2003, XP and Vista. 64-bit support has also just been added! Additionally Defraggler supports both NTFS and FAT32 file systems.
Locate Files on the Drive
After analysis Defraggler lists all the fragmented files on the drive. Selecting one or many will highlight their location on the disk. Allowing you to visually see the location of files on the disk.

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Partition your harddiskdrive(s): If you're still on Windows 2000/XP/ 32-bit: Use Easeus Partition Master Home Edition (freeware) (Only for 32-bit OS) for that.
Programs such as Acronis Disk Director and Paragon Partition Manager are the most easy, comfortable and efficient method.
The built in Windows XP method: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348/en-us

Options for partitioning and formatting your hard disk
You can use the Microsoft Windows XP Setup program or the Fdisk and Format tools to partition and format System and startup partitions.

Acronis Disk Director 11:

CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: Seth Rosenblatt on January 22, 2009

A plucky little piece of freeware that packs a subtle punch, Easeus Partition Manager partitions hard drives like a reigning champ. Loaded with features, EPM runs smoothly and lacks only a glitzy interface.

A row of task icons sits on the toolbar, followed by a Windows XP-style left nav and central pane that shows your hard drives and information about them. To partition a disk, click on one of the drives and then use either the toolbar or the context menu to run the Resize feature. This brings up a slider for adjusting the drive volume sizes. You can also use the text fields to set a partition size precisely. Hit OK to run the resizing, and then run the Create feature. This will allow you format and label the partition in the newly-created empty space. While running, EPM will keeps you informed of the progress of the overall task, as well as the multiple steps it takes in partitioning your drive. A helpful color-key lives in the status bar at the bottom, divvying up drives by type as well as allocation use.

Other useful features include partition copying, a boot disk creator, a Properties option that will tell you everything from the physical geometry of the drive to the serial number, drive letter swapping, and password protection. In testing these features, the only glitch encountered occurred when a task had completed and the program window hid behind other active program windows. This did not, however, affect the use or execution of EPM, and we recommend it unequivocally for partitioning tasks.

Source
cnet

If you have Vista / Windows 7 Ultimate (don't know about the other versions) the tool in Disk Management is all you need.

My own recommendation:
example, you have 2 x 640 GB harddiskdrives
Windows reads them as 596.17 GB
Drive 1: Partition 1 (100GB) for Windows and programs. Partition 2 created from the rest of the drive.
Drive 2: Partition 3 (about 298 GB) for games. Partition 4 (about 298 GB) as archive

Useful information:
Disk Partitioning @Wikipedia
How to Remove the 100MB Windows 7 System Reserved Partition @ sevenforums
Hack to Remove 100 MB System Reserved Partition When Installing Windows 7 @ mydigitallife
In case of unwantingly having more than one active disk, how to disable them while (of course) keeping the one system drive as active: https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/14 ... ve-disable
@ tomshardware