Formatting, partitioning new drives prior to loading Windows XP?

  • Thread starter Thread starter DaveW
  • Start date Start date
D

DaveW

Do NOT use a DOS disk. Just boot off of the XP CD and it will lead you thru
partitioning and formatting.
 
Hi folks,

My PC components arrived today and I have built the new machine.
It seems to be running fine (touch wood) and I've taken a look at the
BIOS, which is correctly identifying my drives (one primary master HD
and a Secondary master HD with a slaved CD-RW)

I'd appreciate some advice on setting up my hard drives... What is
necessary and/or advisable, these days, in the way of formatting and
partitioning, prior to loading Windows XP (oem, Home Edn)? Is it still
necessary to use DOS' FDISC - or does the awindows XP installation CD
do this for you? If this is the case, do I need to set my CD drive as
the boot drive in th BIOS, in order to boot from the XP CD?

My hard drives are:
Primary: SeagateBarracuda ST3120026A 120Gb 7200rpm 8mb cache (OEM)
Secondary master: Maxtor6Y080P0 Plus 9 80Gb 7200rpm 8mb cache ATA 133
(OEM)

I figure on using the Primary drive (Seagate) for
a) the OS
b) programs
c) data storage

And the Secondary drive (Maxtor) for:
Backup of the data files stored on Primary drive.

As the drives are OEM's there was no disc supplied with them and no
instructions on setting them up.

Is there any point in partitioning my drives into a number of smaller
'virtual drives?

Thanks for any guidance...

Ally
 
On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 22:14:00 GMT As another one bit the dust
Hi folks,

My PC components arrived today and I have built the new machine.
It seems to be running fine (touch wood) and I've taken a look at the
BIOS, which is correctly identifying my drives (one primary master HD
and a Secondary master HD with a slaved CD-RW)

I'd appreciate some advice on setting up my hard drives... What is
necessary and/or advisable, these days, in the way of formatting and
partitioning, prior to loading Windows XP (oem, Home Edn)? Is it still
necessary to use DOS' FDISC - or does the awindows XP installation CD
do this for you? If this is the case, do I need to set my CD drive as
the boot drive in th BIOS, in order to boot from the XP CD?

My hard drives are:
Primary: SeagateBarracuda ST3120026A 120Gb 7200rpm 8mb cache (OEM)
Secondary master: Maxtor6Y080P0 Plus 9 80Gb 7200rpm 8mb cache ATA 133
(OEM)

I figure on using the Primary drive (Seagate) for
a) the OS
b) programs
c) data storage

And the Secondary drive (Maxtor) for:
Backup of the data files stored on Primary drive.

As the drives are OEM's there was no disc supplied with them and no
instructions on setting them up.

Is there any point in partitioning my drives into a number of smaller
'virtual drives?

Thanks for any guidance...

Ally
Click to expand...

Try here,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/hard.html

HTH :)




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one thing I do is make a partition that's 1.5 X the ram and name it page
file. Then I set xp up to use that for the swap file. I've read that
everything is so fast now it doesn't matter about the swap file, but I still
think you get a performance boost from it. Could be worng, though.

Also, after you have all your drivers loaded, run bootvis. It will optimize
the way they load and that will reduce your boot time.

Oh yeah, once xp is installed, turn off the messenger service, too. That
will stop you being spammed by pop up ads that exploit the service.
 
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