Reformating hard drive with no partitions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robert
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R

Robert

I'm up to the point of installation where I have three
choices:(1) To set up Win. XP on the selected item, Press
enter. (2) To create a partition in the partition space,
press C. (3) To delete the selected partitiion, press D.

What Questions me is that there is two selection in the
box below which is:
-0: Partition 1 (FAT) 39MB (32MB Free)
C: Partition 2 (NTFS) 114400MB (82149MB Free)

I have only one partition so I assuming that I highlite
the secound one and hit enter, Do I need to delete the
first one first? then highlite and enter the secound
choice?

Also what are the following steps to reformatting and
installation Win XP?
 
Hi Robert,

If I understand you correctly you have a tiny unlettered 39 MB Fat partition
and an enormous 114 GB NTFS partition which is C:. Is that right?

From a usability standpoint 114 GB is *too* much for a normal user. If you
are not storing huge video editing files or something you ought to consider
formatting some reasonable number for XP, say 30 GB. If you leave the rest
as unformatted space you can use it for your user files, another
installation of XP, or another operating system down the road. Additional
partitions can be added easily from within Disk Management.

I'd suggest deleting both the Fat and NTFS and having XP Setup make one
reasonably sized partition 10-30 GB onto which it installs itself. More
partitions can be created as you need them. A good second partition would be
one to isolate your user files from the operating system. This would protect
them from the most common disk calamities.

Steve
 
I would just install XP in the large C partition and have 1 big disk. To me
creating other partitions for which to put data or programs on is more than
I care to worry about and if the disk goes south it's highly unlikely that
any partitions are going to work, there all on the same disk. Use 1 big
disk, purchase a 2nd for backing up your data and imaging to, disks are
cheap.
 
Robert said:
I'm up to the point of installation where I have three
choices:(1) To set up Win. XP on the selected item, Press
enter. (2) To create a partition in the partition space,
press C. (3) To delete the selected partitiion, press D.

What Questions me is that there is two selection in the
box below which is:
-0: Partition 1 (FAT) 39MB (32MB Free)
C: Partition 2 (NTFS) 114400MB (82149MB Free)

I have only one partition so I assuming that I highlite
the secound one and hit enter, Do I need to delete the
first one first? then highlite and enter the secound
choice?
Click to expand...

This is probably a machine that was bought with the system already
installed - the first partition is very likely one used in the maker's
restore or recovery sequence to put the machine back to ex-factory
state, and I would leave it severely alone
 
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