Formatting New HDD and other questions

[trudi]

I recently got another hard drive and would like to know the best way to handle all of this.

First, I want to use my new 60 GB HDD (it was only $90 I couldn't pass it up )to store DVDs or Divx or whatever. I assume that this means that Windows 2000 will be better than ME - am I right?

Second, I would like to have an OS loaded onto the second drive so that should my system ever crash I can get it back up and running asap.

So I guess my question is am I right in #1 and 2000 is my best bet and how in the world do I format the second drive to do #2. Do I need to partition something? I assume that I will have to format the new drive to ME first so that I can copy my files over there first and then reformat the old to 2000 and then copy everything back to the old drive and reformat the new one. Ick! Oh well, it should work out. Does anyone have any advice on how to do any of this or if I am completely crazy or something?

This is my system:
Thuderbird 1GHz
Gigabyte GA-7IXE4 MB (not the best but it works with my sound card)
ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon
Sound Blaster Live MP3+ 5.1
Western Digital 30.7GB HDD (Old)
Western Digital 60.0GB HDD (New)
768 MB RAM

 

[GregMal]

You're gonna set that 60 gig as your 2nd drive for data, right?
What you wanna get is something like Norton Ghost. It'll make a
copy of your OS on drive c: and store the compressed copy on your
new drive d:. Something goes wrong with C: re-format it, boot in
DOS to drive d:, run Ghost and it'll copy the OS back to c:.
.
Most say Win2000 is currently the best OS out there but there are
still some games that won't run on it. If your choice is between
Win2000 and ME, get Win2000. I personally still use Win98SE and
never get BSOD's.....Greg

 

[sohcrates]

WELL, i'm assuming you have ME on your existing 30 gigger right?

so you were on track.

#1) install new 60 gigger and format it

#2) disconnect old 30 gigger temporarily and make 60 gigger your "master" drive

#3) boot off the winME cd and install winME

#4) after winME is on and good to go, reconnect old 30 gigger as "slave"
**Then, copy over ALL your important stuff from your old drive (anthing you wanted to save)**

#5) boot off the win2k cd and install win2k to drive D: (your old 30 gigger)...during install, make sure you specify to reformat the drive into fat32

#6) if win2k install goes correctly, it will automatically make a nice boot loader where you can select at boot-up between winme and win2k

(this setup puts winME as your primary OS on your 60 gig and win2k as a secondary OS on your 30 gig)...is THIS what you wanted?

 

[trudi]

I think that GregMal is closer to what I want to do.

I would like, when I'm happy with how I have it set up (it takes a bit of tweaking to get the video, audio and network cards to live in harmony) to have the same OS on both drives, just boot to the smaller one and have the bigger serve as OS Backup / Storage.

The point of changing over to 2K is partially because I don't want FAT32, there are file size limits - right? I was led to understand that 2K could read from a ME drive but ME can't read from a 2K drive - does that make sense or is that right? So I could move the files back to the small drive after its reformatted.

I really don't play any games, I just use my computer as my TV / DVD / Stereo so I am not terribly concerned about those problems with 2K but thanks for letting me know anyway - I guess that could make a big difference!

 

[sohcrates]

win2k WILL read winME's fat 32 file structure

winME will NOT read win2k's NTFS file structure

but, win2k runs pretty well off fat32, so if you want winME to see everything, then you might as well install win2k on fat32

 

[trudi]

sohcrates - isn't there like a 1 GB limit on files in FAT32 though? NTFS doesn't have a limit or its incredibly high. I would otherwise stick with FAT32 but I would like to manipulate my DVDs and such before I make them into Divx and generally think more is, well, more Am I in left field here??

 

[sohcrates]

you're thinking of fat 16, where max partition size was 2.1 gig (if i remember correctly).

fat32 has NO such limitations

 

[Zepper]

A large drive (60Gig qualifies) should be partitioned into smaller chunks. FAT32 gets huge on large drives, slows down file access. If it were me, I'd make four 15Gig partitions. One primary (15), One extended (45), three logicals in extended (15 each). Just my 2c.
.bh.

 

[trudi]

I am almost 100% convinced that NTFS is the way to go. I've been reading up a lot on this Divz thing and have seen a lot written about the 4GB file limit in FAT32. There seems to be some programs to get around this but the DivX process seems complex enough without adding that to it.

Are there any issues with NTFS and large drives, I'll partition if need be.

 

[sohcrates]

yeah, i wasn't really reading your previous posts well when you mentioned messing with dvd's...there IS a 4 gig limit with fat32 (or close to 4 gigs) , but most normal users never see that. ntfs has like some crazy high limit, which is basically NOT a limit, so in that case, you're definitely better off with ntfs. just remember that winME won't see it

 

[trudi]

Thanks, I thought I was losing it at first! :0

Anyway, thanks for the ME / 2000 warning too, but as long as 2K will recognize a ME drive long enough to copy back the files to the small drive I don't think that will be a problem. - So help me if this doesn't work I will scream though