New Hard Drive

[David]

Hi Guys,

I have windows xp pro with one GB hard disk with four
partitions on FAT32 file system. I purchased another 80 GB
hard disk. Now, I wish to format and partition the second
disk. How do I do that?

Do I have to make it as a slave and then use Fdisk? or I
have to remove my first Hard Disk and make the new one as
Master ?

Any help on this is muchly appreciated


regards
David

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

I have windows xp pro with one GB hard disk with four
partitions on FAT32 file system. I purchased another 80 GB
hard disk. Now, I wish to format and partition the second
disk. How do I do that?

Do I have to make it as a slave and then use Fdisk? or I
have to remove my first Hard Disk and make the new one as
Master ?

David,

jumper the second disk as slave and attach it to the same IDE
port as the first one.

Then use Disk Manager to partition the disk.

My recommendation is to put only one NTFS partition on each
disk, unless you have a good reason to create more partitions.

Hans-Georg

 

[Witchsmeller]

David,

jumper the second disk as slave and attach it to the same IDE
port as the first one.

Then use Disk Manager to partition the disk.

My recommendation is to put only one NTFS partition on each
disk, unless you have a good reason to create more partitions.

Hans-Georg

Why do you only recommend one partition per disc? I thought separating
your data by placing it in a different partition to the OS would lessen
the extent of data loss should the OS partition become corrupted. Just
interested in your opinion.

J

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Why do you only recommend one partition per disc? I thought separating
your data by placing it in a different partition to the OS would lessen
the extent of data loss should the OS partition become corrupted. Just
interested in your opinion.

J,

creating more than one partition has one obvious
disadvantage---you're hacking your most valuable disk asset into
pieces, your free disk space. Of course you could use programs
like Partition Magic or Bootit NG to change the sizes, but that
actually creates the risk you're fearing.

NTFS partitions are fairly robust and not easy to corrupt. I
cannot remember that that has ever happened to me, except when a
disk went south. But then you lose the entire disk anyway.

Of course it could happen, but if you worry about the
information on your disk, backups are better than multiple
partitions.

In a way separating your disk into four partitions would be like
living in four huts in a round-robin fashion, rather than in one
big house, so you still have three if one burns down. But I
don't know many people who do that.

That said, there are a few reasons to have multiple partitions,
particularly if you have more than one operating system on the
same disk.

Hans-Georg

 

[Witchsmeller]

J,

creating more than one partition has one obvious
disadvantage---you're hacking your most valuable disk asset into
pieces, your free disk space. Of course you could use programs
like Partition Magic or Bootit NG to change the sizes, but that
actually creates the risk you're fearing.

NTFS partitions are fairly robust and not easy to corrupt. I
cannot remember that that has ever happened to me, except when a
disk went south. But then you lose the entire disk anyway.

Of course it could happen, but if you worry about the
information on your disk, backups are better than multiple
partitions.

In a way separating your disk into four partitions would be like
living in four huts in a round-robin fashion, rather than in one
big house, so you still have three if one burns down. But I
don't know many people who do that.

That said, there are a few reasons to have multiple partitions,
particularly if you have more than one operating system on the
same disk.

Hans-Georg

Thanks for the explanantion & I do see the logic behind what you say, as
far as backing-up data is concerned using the same HD is extremely risky
& practically pointless. I suppose it's just personal preference at the
end of the day.