Preparing my hard drive for W2K.

[barlav]

I'm new to this stuff and I will be installing Windows 2000 professional on my new PC using the NTFS file system. My hard drive is an IBM 60 gig 7200 RPM ATA/100 drive. What do I need to do to prepare my drive for the installation? I want one 60 gig partition. Thanks!

 

[John]

FDISK it and make your partition(s). The Win2K cd is bootable, so set your CDROM to boot first and during the Win2K setup it will ask you to choose a partition and format it with Fat or NTFS. Goodluck.

 

[luv2chill]

you don't do anything to prepare it. Just stick the Win2k Pro CD in the drive, boot off of it, and it will prompt you to create a partition, which can be of any size you want.

l2c

 

[thirdkind]

Provided everything is set up properly, and you boot from the Win2k CD, Windows should see your drive and allow you to partition and format it right from setup. Pretty easy and self-explanatory.

Why one huge partition, if I may ask? Why not make at least a second small partition for backing up important files, downloads, mp3s, etc.? If you ever need to format and reinstall, you can just wipe the C drive and leave all of your important stuff on the backup.

Anyway, just boot from the CD and follow the instructions. Pretty simple.

 

[luv2chill]

John

FDISKing isn't necessary. You can create a partition right from the Win2k install and save yourself a step (and a reboot)

l2c

 

[barlav]

Sounds easy! Great! Thanks for your responses.

 

[barlav]

Thanks thirdkind. That makes sense. I will create one 40 gig partition and then a 20 gig for backups!. Thanks!

 

[Radboy]

Better not let Modus hear you say that.

 

[BigLance]

Hey whats better if your just running Win2000, Fat or NTFS ?? and why ?

 

[John]

I suggested FDISK'ing because I believe in making at least (2) partitions.

1 for the OS
1 for everything else

 

[luv2chill]

John

You still don't need to FDISK... You create your boot partition during Win2k install and create any other needed partitions after installation from the Disk Management Snapin (Administrative Tools--->Computer Management--->Storage--->Disk Management).

If you're doing everything NTFS, FDISK is a waste because it won't create NTFS partitions.

l2c

 

[John]

I am old fashioned, I like FDISK. I also like using Fat32 vs NTFS. What works for me may or may not work for you.

 

[Dameon]

As to the how to format question it boils down to this:

NTFS - Must have NT4 and 2000 only. Great for security and permissions. cannot be read from DOS without flaky & expensive 3rd party utilities.

FAT32 - No permission / security. *Not for webservers*. Can be accessed from DOS. Easier to repair if you screw up. Example: installed slightly older rev of Nero CDR software, Win2k stopped booting. Booted to DOS and removed the file added by nero the system was choking on. System boots again. With NTFS that process is much more difficult if not impossible.

 

[luv2chill]

John--

I didn't intend any offense. I was just attempting to point out to people that they can save themselves a step and do all their partitioning/formatting within the confines of the OS--especially if they're going to use NTFS (as barlav had said).

Feel free to use FDISK or any other archaic, outdated, DOS apps as you see fit. (I'm kidding!)

l2c

 

[faolan]

NTFS is probably the better way to go if you plan on running only 2000. It will allow you to use file permissions, and also compression on files. I personally use compression on things like the Deus Ex save folder, where 372MB of save games shrank to 172 while still being usabale by the game in real time. Also, Win2000 will use less space on NTFS, as it compresses it's "dllcache" directory, where it hides the backup copies of all the important system files to restore if the origional ones get deleted somehow.