Partition and Format choices

[mattg2k4]

I'm going to repartition and reformat my 80 gig ata 133 maxtor hdd. I will use FAT 32 unless you guys really think I should go NTFS.

Should I use fdisk and format or use my win xp disk to partition and format?

Should I use seperate partitions for os and data and maybe swap? How big and how many?

[CorruptedSanitY]

No, I strongly suggest NTFS, because the FAT32 is better for 20 Gb disks and less. The NTFS will allow you to use your HD at a better performance.
I Suggest that you format your whole HD, then partition how much you would like @ NTFS. check out this thread for more info.
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...threadid=44424
good luck !

[mike breck]

Unless you intend to dual-boot with Win9x, then go with NTFS.

Go into the BIOS and set the boot sequence to boot from CD first, then you will be able to boot from the XP CD and use it to partition and format your HD.

Partitioning depends on the individual. Just some ideas:

C: - Swap (Page) File 500mb-1Gb depending whether you limit the size or let Windows handle it. It also depends how much memory you have. Do a Google search and read the differing opinions about this.

D: 6Gb - XP - this will give you a good safety margin for updates and service packs in the future.

E: Programs

D: Data backup

The size of E: and D: depends on how many programs and what sort of data you are backing up. 50%/50% might be good here.
However, if you are downloading and saving music and video files, you may want to make it something like 30%/70%.

HTH