partition setup/ other reinstall stuff

[petebert]

ok, finally upgraded my old 5400rpm 512k cache IBM drives, got a WD800JB, couple of questions...

ok, XP currently on C: of course, that drive is going to be gone once XP is on the WD, E: is another old drive that will have pictures and mp3's on it.

So Im using partition magic thinking I can make some partitions while running windows, how convenient, well since my old drive is C: it wont let me partition the 10 gigs I want for windows as C: on the new drive, so I just went and partitioned it as D: for now, so when I pull the old C: and put in the new drive will it rename it to C: for the windows install or will it need to be repartitioned or something using however I used to do this, I only do this once a year or so, so I never remember, I know I used to use a windows boot disk, maybe the XP cd has it on there now?

any partition hints, made 2 partitions, one 10 gigs for XP, the rest for my crap, NTFS, default cluster size, logical drives.

Is there a way to save all my passwords that windows has stored somewhere? every message board on the internet wants a password and login now and I dont remember all of mine, maybe if I save my cookies? Is there a file somewhere for every time windows asks to remember a password that I could save?

oh one other thing i never remember, whats the order, is it partition then format or the other way around? I would always do it wrong using the boot disk..

 

[arkus]

Partition, reboot, format!!!

I think you should prolly play it safe and do it with FDisk:

<A HREF="http://fdisk.radified.com/" target="_new">http://fdisk.radified.com/</A>

I would do it as follows:

1) Unplug your old C: drive.
2) Install your new drive.
3) Download a bootdisk <A HREF="http://www.bootdisk.com" target="_new">http://www.bootdisk.com</A>
4) Boot from the bootdisk and run FDISK
5) Create Primary partition for Windows & Apps
6) Create Extended partition
7) Create Logical Drives in the Extended partition
8) Boot from WinXP CD (it can format drives for you).

 

[arkus]

Hmm, I just remembered, FDISK can get screwy sometimes (it did with my RAID 1/0 NTFS partitions, but I'm guessing you won't be going down that route).

An alternative method:

1) Unplug your old C: drive.
2) Plug in your new drive.
3) Boot to WInXP CD (it can do all the partitioning and formatting for you).

But where's the fun in that!!! ;o)

 

[petebert]

thanks I'll give it a try