I will install Win XP soon...just have a couple of questions..

[raystorm]

I picked up Win XP Home and will be installing it sometime next week (gotta up my ram first!)...but I have a couple of questions first. I'm currently using Win 98 by the way.

1) Should I format my hard drive with a startup disk BEFORE installing Win XP or will XP do it for me?

2) I have 2 hard drives... If I choose to use NTFS for my Master drive, will I still get to use my Slave drive thats already in FAT 32 format? I only use my Slave drive (which is an old 8 gig hard drive) to store game patches, software executables, music...etc..and I dont feel like formatting it.

3) What about bios settings? Should "Plug n' Play OS" be put to On/Yes/Enable??

4) I have read multiple "Install Windows XP" guides on the net. I know that the CD drive should be set to be the first to be booted up when turning on the pc, but a few guides I read stated that I should change it to my hard drive AFTER the first "reboot" that Windows XP does during setup. That doesn't make sense to me...cant I just leave the CD drive as the first to be booted the entire time?


I apologize for the simple questions, but I have the OEM version of Windows XP Home Edition and the manual is useless (its like 12 pages long! ....guess the retail version's manual is alot bigger and discusses the OS more in depth).

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Originally posted by: raystorm
I picked up Win XP Home and will be installing it sometime next week (gotta up my ram first!)...but I have a couple of questions first. I'm currently using Win 98 by the way.

1) Should I format my hard drive with a startup disk BEFORE installing Win XP or will XP do it for me?

yes

2) I have 2 hard drives... If I choose to use NTFS for my Master drive, will I still get to use my Slave drive thats already in FAT 32 format? I only use my Slave drive (which is an old 8 gig hard drive) to store game patches, software executables, music...etc..and I dont feel like formatting it.

yes

3) What about bios settings? Should "Plug n' Play OS" be put to On/Yes/Enable??

yes

4) I have read multiple "Install Windows XP" guides on the net. I know that the CD drive should be set to be the first to be booted up when turning on the pc, but a few guides I read stated that I should change it to my hard drive AFTER the first "reboot" that Windows XP does during setup. That doesn't make sense to me...cant I just leave the CD drive as the first to be booted the entire time?

You don't have to do anything. Just have XP in the CD-Rom and then when it reboots, it already knows to boot to the hard drive. If, for some reason, you have problems after rebooting (starting the install over againa) just take the CD out, and when it's finished booting, put it back in.

I apologize for the simple questions, but I have the OEM version of Windows XP Home Edition and the manual is useless (its like 12 pages long! ....guess the retail version's manual is alot bigger and discusses the OS more in depth).

It's good to ask questions.