Repartitioning for maximum efficiency

[Nathan Krasnopoler]

I have recently bought a 250G Seagate hard drive, this is in addition to 
my 160G Samsung hard drive, and I would like to know the best 
configuration of partitions between the drives for both Windows and 
Linux.  Namely, on which drives and with what file systems to put the 
following

  1. Linux Operating system files
  2. Linux /home
  3. Linux swap file
  4. Windows OS
  5. Windows swap file

And possibly:

  1. The separation of the Windows OS and its files
  2. A shared FAT32 directory

What file systems and partitions should I to use, and how shall I split 
them between the two drives?

Also, when running the live-cd (and possibly the installer as well) it 
is unable to detect and mount my Cd drive, do you have any ideas on what 
may be causing this?