Partitioning and Formatting Hard Drive for first time

[Traxler]

I'm trying to partition and format my hard drive. I've just put my computer together and booted it for the first time. I have a windows xp boot disk, but it's just trying to install windows. I can't figure out how to get a command prompt to run fdisk. Any ideas?

Thanks.

[sgtspector]

It's not necessary to run fdisk or any other preparatory commands. Simply install the drive and boot the xp disk. The install program will start and partition and format the harddrive to your specs. One important thing to remember though. If your copy of xp does not have service pack 2 included it will not recognize drives larger than 137 gb. You should slipstream (http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp) your xp disk with service pack 2 before continuing.

[TwoRails]

Slipstreaming is good, but the 137GB barrier was for XP before SP1: SP1 does large drives.

[Cricket]

Is this the same problem as the one in this thread? (http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=190099)

:) Cricket

[sgtspector]

Slipstreaming is good, but the 137GB barrier was for XP before SP1: SP1 does large drives.

Thank you TR I stand corrected. But if your going top slipstream you may as well do it the level of SP2