XP installation?

[Baztian]

When I install XP on a new, clean system, should I partition and format first or will setup do it for me (windows xp install setup that is)?

Thanks,

Baztian

>4&*

 

[delpart]

Set up will prompt you each step of the way. Make sure you only have the bare necessities installed on your computer, motherboard, memory, hdd, cd, (fdd), and video card. It will reduce the possibility of hidden hardware conflicts and the possibility of having to reinstall XP again. No, XP will not show these and you will not have the option to change hardware setting even if you are given the option!!For some reason the ACPI features wouldn't work correctly until I did this and then began to install each card and install the driver for it step by step. When formatting, do not use the quick format. You will get a cleaner install by not having residual data from another operating system left on the hdd. The quick format only removes the first character of the disk label rendering the data that is left on the disk unaccessible, but the data is still there and can cause havoc later if it is not overwritten.

en Xristos

 

[btvillarin]

It's typically better to partition your hard drive before setup with FDISK or something similar. Then, when setup starts, change your filesystem to NTFS with the Windows XP install. This helps avoid the 512 byte NTFS clusters...right Toey?

For the bootdisk to get FDISK, get a Windows 98 one from <A HREF="http://www.bootdisk.com" target="_new">Bootdisk.com</A>.

Bryan

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[xyz]

I second BTVILLARIN. FDISK is the best choice for partitioning, no compatibility issue, no problems and no headache with it.
Just partition your hard drive using fdisk. You can use the boot disk recommended by BTVILLARIN. That works very fine.
If you need, you can get a lot more information about fdisk from <A HREF="http://fdisk.radified.com/" target="_new">Radified FDISK Guide</A>. It is one of the best fdisk guides on the web.
Then boot from winXP CD and it will give you option for formating your hard drive and choice of file systems. Let win XP format all of the partitions with NTFS (5.1) and then re-install window without any troubles.

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[btvillarin]

Thanks, <b>xyz</b>! Thanks especially for that link, because I know Toey mentioned it before and I forgot to bookmark it. I saw some of your other posts, so keep up the good work.

Bryan

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[thefaresteast]

windows XP installation has a partition deletion and creation during the installation procees. so why need fdisk?

 

[btvillarin]

Because it's more prone to errors than FDISK. FDISK is just a single utility, that isn't running with a setup program of Windows XP. Plus, if you're formatting to NTFS, it's best to do it this way because of a possbile cluster sizing problem that I mentioned above.

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[Toejam31]

Yep. I'm in agreement with Bryan.

Plus, if you decide to keep the partitions as FAT32, using FDISK will avoid the 32GB partition size limitation that occurs when partitioning with a Win2K or a WinXP CD.

The installation CD's are also limited as the amount of partitions that can be created on a single drive during setup, while FDISK is not. Without FDISK, you'll have to use the <A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q309000" target="_new">WinXP Disk Management tools</A> to create a partition other than a System or Boot partition.

Personally, I think it's much easier to create the partitions with FDISK, format the system partition with the OS installation CD, and then format any other partitions from within the GUI, simply from right-clicking on the drive letter icon, choosing format, and the file system you prefer.

While on that same subject, Microsoft recommends no more than four partitions per disk with Win2K or WinXP.

There are some recommendations for the type of file systems that can be used with WinXP on this page:

<A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gettingstarted/guide/installnew.asp" target="_new">Choosing a File System - Install Windows XP Professional</A>

<A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q310525" target="_new">Description of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP (Q310525)</A>

I suggest choosing a file system right from the beginning, instead of converting from FAT32 to NTFS later on. Bryan already mentioned the 512 byte cluster size issue which occurs during the conversion from FAT32 to NTFS, which would result in lower performance due to decreased efficiency. (Although this can supposedly be changed with a program like <A HREF="http://www.partition-manager.com/" target="_new">Paragon Partition Manager</A>, and there is the possibility that this issue will be addressed in a future service pack for the OS.) But there are two other reasons I can add to this for avoiding the conversion:

1.) The location of the master file table (MFT) is different on volumes that have been converted from previous versions of NTFS, so volume performance might not be as good on volumes that are converted from Windows NT.

2.) Compared with volumes that are initially formatted with NTFS, volumes that are converted from FAT to NTFS lack some performance benefits. On converted volumes, the MFT can become fragmented. In addition, on converted boot volumes, NTFS permissions are not applied after the volume is converted.

One final link:

<A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q313348" target="_new">HOW TO: Partition and Format a Hard Disk in Windows XP (Q313348)</A>

Toejam31

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[Baztian]

Thanks guys. I think I´ll stick to FDISK and FAT32. Thanx for the information.

Baztian