installing Win2000 first time

[mpholic]

I am installing Win2000 Professional on my new computer (when the parts arrive). I bought the OEM version along with my new parts. My question is about partioning and formatting the hard drive. In all my other systems I used Win98SE and booted the system with a win98 boot disk which contained FDISK and FORMAT. I partioned and formatted the drives then ran SETUP.EXE from the cdrom. The Win2000 CD is a bootable CD. If I boot from the CD and use my existing drives (FAT32) will they be recognized or should I transfer all the info to CDR, and let Win2000 format the drives and start from scratch? Will the Win2000 CD automatically partition and format the drives?

[Markoman01027]

Welcome to the Forums Mpholic!

When your installing a new operating system on a home-built system, it is best to start from scratch, as this will prevent any problems that you may encounter(during installation and first use anyways).

Yes, when you load Setup of Windows 2000..Windows 2000 will format the drive and then partition it for you, because you cannot use FDISK as it is not available on WIN2K and WINXP.

I would suggest save your data on CD-R and start from scratch. Best thing to do in my opinion.

[Markoman01027]

You can also use a program called Partition Magic that will allow you to FORMAT AND PARTITION...

PM is best when you are adding another HD..since you are not able to access FORMAT or FDISK during DOS in WIN2K and WINXP..

if you are going to add another hard drive(in your case your not)...Just right click on my computer.disk management and there you can format/partition your hard drive..

But you could also use partition magic..which to me sounds a lot cooler and easier

Good luck and let us know if you need any help!

[twborbely]

Windows 2000 offers a "clean installation" and an "upgrade installation". You may also do a "dual boot" with other OS.

[twborbely]

2000 can use NTFS, FAT32. Should work well