Format & Partition

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mickey Mouse
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Mickey Mouse

I've just put a WD 400 gig Harddrive into my machine. I want to format and
partition it. What's the best/most popular program to do this?
Someone suggested partition magic, what do you think?

Mickey
 
Look on The WD website-there should be some software for setting up your new
drive. Partition magic will be fine, but of course isn't free
Chelsea
 
Hi Mickey,

All you really need to do is run diskmgmt.msc and use this Windows tool to
partition the drive, then format it. Third party tools are only necessary if
you are frequently making changes to your disk structure. If that were the
case, I would recommend instead that you use BootIT NG from
www.terabyteunlimited.com

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Yes, I want to format it then partition it to two 200gig drives C & D.
When I brought the new machine home from the tech it was formatted this way
but they mucked up the product key so I had to re-install. I'll take it
back to him on Monday if I can't do it but it being the weekend now I'd like
to try myself. Tried formatting it with my XP installation disk but it only
recognised about 130 gig. It's a 64bit dual core machine with Western
digital 400gig HD. I'm not sure if Fdisk will recognise a 400gig drive and
partition in half. I'm thinking Partition Magic is the way to no-hassle
formatting and partitioning, never done a HD this big before. Couldn't find
much help on the WD site.

I'd appreciate comments.

P.s. My bios recognises the 400gig.

Mickey..
 
Mickey said:
I've just put a WD 400 gig Harddrive into my machine. I want to format and
partition it. What's the best/most popular program to do this?
Someone suggested partition magic, what do you think?

Mickey
Click to expand...


There's no need to use any 3rd party software for this purchase.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
Mickey said:
Yes, I want to format it then partition it to two 200gig drives C & D.
Click to expand...


That's backwards. You have to create the partitions first, and then
format them.

When I brought the new machine home from the tech it was formatted this way
but they mucked up the product key so I had to re-install. I'll take it
back to him on Monday if I can't do it but it being the weekend now I'd like
to try myself. Tried formatting it with my XP installation disk but it only
recognised about 130 gig. It's a 64bit dual core machine with Western
digital 400gig HD.
Click to expand...


You'll need to use an installation CD with SP2 slipstreamed into it.

I'm not sure if Fdisk will recognise a 400gig drive and
partition in half.
Click to expand...


FDisk is an MS-DOS utility, and isn't even available with WinXP. The
later version that came with Win98 might recognize a drive of that size,
but then you'd be limited to FAT32, which is terribly wasteful of hard
drive space whenever a partition exceeds 8Gb in size.

I'm thinking Partition Magic is the way to no-hassle
formatting and partitioning, never done a HD this big before. Couldn't find
much help on the WD site.
Click to expand...

Rather than waste money for Partition Magic for a one-time use, try
BootItNG from www.bootitng.com. There is even a free, fully
functional, 30-day evaluation version available for downloading.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
In
Mickey Mouse said:
Yes, I want to format it then partition it to two 200gig drives C &
D. When I brought the new machine home from the tech it was formatted
this way but they mucked up the product key so I had to re-install. I'll
take it back to him on Monday if I can't do it but it being the
weekend now I'd like to try myself. Tried formatting it with my XP
installation disk but it only recognised about 130 gig. It's a 64bit
dual core machine with Western digital 400gig HD. I'm not sure if
Fdisk will recognise a 400gig drive and partition in half. I'm
thinking Partition Magic is the way to no-hassle formatting and
partitioning, never done a HD this big before. Couldn't find much
help on the WD site.
I'd appreciate comments.

P.s. My bios recognises the 400gig.

Mickey..
Click to expand...

What service pack does the XP CD have? You need at least SP 1 to partition
and format larger than 137 gig partitions without third party partitioning
software.
How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives
in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013#137hd
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
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