XP Format and Partition

[Jeff1713]

hey
I am getting a new WD 40gig hd and am goin to install Win XP home on it. A few questions....

1) should i go with FAT32 or NTFS??

2) How should i go about partitioning the drive?
I use my comp for games, dl music, movies....
any info would be greatly appreciated

thanx
jeff

[RJ]

Hi,

1) NTFS

2) That's a personal preference really. A general recommendation is to separate OS from data, so make at least 2 partitions. The rest it up to you.

RJ

[minsonngo]

I would go with NTFS. It is much faster, more robust, and more secure than any FAT filesystem. NTFS also places no limits on the sizes of partitions, volumes, and files. The only bad thing about NTFS is that only Windows NT/2000/XP can only access NTFS volumes. This means that other operating systems will be unable to access the NTFS volumes. I personally would partition the harddrive into two partitions. I would make the first partition about 15% or 20% of the harddrive space available. This partition will be made primary and active. This would be for the operating system and any other basic software like Microsoft Office or other utilities and drivers. The remaining harddrive space would be made into the extended or second partition which will be used for games; music; documents; etc.

[Daedalus]

first off: try WinXP Pro..its much better than the Home Edition
second:NTFS is much more reliable
third:i'll tell you how I partitioned my 40gig barracuda:
2GB - Windows(primary,active);
logical drives:
1 GB - PageFile;
10GB - Software/ISOs/kit
20GB - MultiMedia (MP3,Movies,Pictures)
5GB - Games(only installed)

[MaXimum SMOKE]

I was curious about this myself, as I just bought a new box and it had XP home preloaded, all NTFS. I was more curious about backward compatability with older Win/Dos format prgs. Was actually surprised when a (dos program) installer had no problem copying the files to the NTFS partition. I have no idea at this point if the Partition type (alone) makes much difference to older program compatabilities (aside from the program code just won't execute under XP thing) I'm getting familiar with the older windows compatability settings in the OS, though.

[Daedalus]

those old DOS progs dont have direct disk access so they use the WinXP drivers for accessing files on the NTFS partitions, so its normal that they wont cause problems.