CD-ROM defaulted to run at ATA/33

[TheJTrain]

I'm in the process of building a new system, and am in the pre-OS-installation phase - I noticed on the hardware configuration screen that flashes up before it boots from the floppy that the BIOS has auto-detected the HD and it's running at ATA/100 (like it should), but the CD-ROM drive that it autodetected is only at ATA/33, even though I've got a newer drive (Lite-On CD-RW 16102B 16X/10X/40X) and a true ATA/100 IDE cable. Anybody know if and/or how I can set it to run at ATA/100?

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Budman]

Most if not ALL newer cdrw drives will run at best ata33,some do ata66 but even a PIO4 cdrw drive will work fine even at 24X burn.

so dont worry,be happy.

 

[TheJTrain]

Cool, thanks Budman. I love this place!

While we're at it, here's another rookie-league question: when the time comes to partition and format a new HD for the first time, I've read all up on FAT32 and NTFS and the advantages of each, and how to partition the drive for a fresh install by using FDISK. What I couldn't find was how to specify that the new (first) partition be NTFS. FDISK never asked me which I wanted (after booting from a W98SE Startup floppy), and I can't figure a way to change it from FAT32 (the default apparently) to NTFS before I install Win XP. Help?

Jason

 

[NateSLC]

I assume you are using Win2k or XP. If so, just boot from the CD and take care of partitioning and formatting (NTFS) during the setup process. It's very straightforward.

 

[Duvie]

Pioneer has a ata66 dvd-rom drive otherwise 95 percent of the market is ata33 drives....

 

[AndyHui]

Windows XP gives you the option to convert to NTFS during the installation phase.

If you are going to install WinXP only, it is probably better than you do the partitioning through the Windows XP installation as opposed to the Win98SE bootdisk, as this will set the NTFS clusters to a size which offers better performance than if you had converted from FAT32 to NTFS.

 

[TheJTrain]

Thanks you guys - I sure wish I'd have asked here sooner rather than waste two hours of surfing last night to try and find a utility or method that would let me go the NTFS route from the get-go - only to find out that what I needed was taken care of by Win XP Setup all along! I guess I wanted to be able to say that "I've looked everywhere!" before I bothered anyone with an easy question like this one...

Thanks again,
Jason