Need some quick help, new build, blank 80gb HDs, NTFS only?

[KoOk]

I know theres a lot about NTFS, FAT32 in the search but I read what I found and I am still unsure. I have 2 80gb HDs (SATA Seagate) I used seagate DiscWizard to setup the primary (Ill set the other up when I get XP in) but I ran the XP setup and it sees my drive (unpartitioned), but will only partition and format in NTFS. FDISK wont work it only sees it as 10gb, is there any way to get this 80gb HD and XP to install in FAT32? Ive installed XP on a 40gb HD before and had the option of NTFS or FAT32 but now i only get NTFS. I know NTFS is better but this is a gaming comp and I heard its better to use FAT32. Ive heard NTFS is slower (although I dont know how much truth is in that) for gaming. But can i get a 80gb HD to format and partition with Win XP for FAT32 or is the HD too large at this point? I dont have access to any partition magic type programs.

[Dreamscape]

Why did you use the DiscWizard program? Is that just an overlay for larger disks and older bioses? Do you really need it?

As for the 10 GB limitation, that is weird. You have to be using LBA, (logical block addressing) because the CHS (cylinder, head, sector) limitation is about 8.something GB. But check the see if LBA is enabled anyway. FAT32's limitation is like 2 TB, which is well beyond. Hopefully, someone else can answer that.

But, my suggestion: Use NTFS. I highly doubt you will notice any speed issues regarding the Filesystem. Also, you would lose a lot of space with FAT32. Case in point, my Windows 98 FAT32 partition has 1.75 GBs of digital data which take up 2.80 GB of actual harddrive space. That is 60% overhead. NTFS is more efficient in not allowing fragmentation and handles small files much better.

My two pence.

[KoOk]

Seagate suggests using the program i got off their site because their HDs dont require drivers to install under Xp and its and Serial ATA HD so it helps avoid the problem of XP not seeing the HDs, something about the press F6 to install any 3rd party raid scsi drivers... but for gaming and performance theres no hit when using NTFS? I do want to make use of the entire HD and if NTFS is the only way, then NTFS it is...?

[Dreamscape]

I see about the progam now. I guess SATA is not natively supported, yet. Too bad.

Well, fdisk was a good program at one time. was. But ATA/IDE, harddrive mapping, and formatting were such poor slipshod efforts with little and sometimes absolutely no thought of future scalability that dozens of cheap hacks and workarounds had to be created in order to allow growth. Needless to say, fdisk eventually got overwhelmed and more often than not just simply fails to work in todays world.

That said: Check this out. From the official Seagate place.

[glc]

The reason Fdisk only sees 10 gigs is Win98 has a bug with drives over 64gb. If you want to make it FAT32, you are gonna have to download the updated fdisk from M$ and update your bootdisk.