I need some help with a new hard drive.

Help Please?! · 02-19-2007, 01:26 PM

Well I've just ordered a new hard drive, a 320GB Hitachi DeskStar... I'm going to reinstall Windows XP Home Edition onto it and I'd like to partition it into two parts, I'm going to store heaps of music, videos, games and other on my new drive.

Could You tell me how I should divide the drive into partitions, since I don't know most of that?(meaning: of what size should they both be, what file systems I should choose and some other things I should know before I start working on the reinstall stuff and all that)

By the way, can I have 2 windows Xp's on both of my drives? I want to keep windows on my old drive until I transfer important files on my clean installed XP on the new drive.(It's an OEM version if it changes anything)

Thanks in advance.

God I can't wait till my HDD arrives.

blackduck30 · 02-19-2007, 02:31 PM

well, in regards to your partition size, your formatted size of your drive will come down to approx 300G, So if you are going to be storing a lot of stuff i would maybe go for a 100G for XP and a 200G ( or the remaining space ) for your storage. You could even bring the XP partition down to 80G if you like.
I would use NTFS formatt.
What I would be inclined to do is if your current XP installation is running fine I would install your new hard drive in your system along side your old drive, use a partitioning tool such as PARTITION LOGIC to partition and formatt your drive then use a program such as XXCLONE to clone your old drive over to the new XP partition you setup, you will have to set an active partition on the new XP drive and then with xxclone make sure you make the clone bootable. this will then allow you to copy the whole contents accross and then go into the bios and change your boot order to boot to the new drive, once you are happy it is running fine you can either keep the old drive as a backup drive or formatt it and use it for whatever you like

have a look at this post by Linderman that explains how to clone your drive
HERE

Help Please?! · 02-20-2007, 12:35 AM

Thanks for the help mate, I shall follow most of the instructions.

02-19-2007, 01:26 PM	#1 (permalink)
Help Please?! Registered User Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 81 OS: XP Home \| Windows 7	I need some help with a new hard drive. Well I've just ordered a new hard drive, a 320GB Hitachi DeskStar... I'm going to reinstall Windows XP Home Edition onto it and I'd like to partition it into two parts, I'm going to store heaps of music, videos, games and other on my new drive. Could You tell me how I should divide the drive into partitions, since I don't know most of that?(meaning: of what size should they both be, what file systems I should choose and some other things I should know before I start working on the reinstall stuff and all that) By the way, can I have 2 windows Xp's on both of my drives? I want to keep windows on my old drive until I transfer important files on my clean installed XP on the new drive.(It's an OEM version if it changes anything) Thanks in advance. God I can't wait till my HDD arrives. Last edited by Help Please?!; 02-19-2007 at 01:37 PM.

02-19-2007, 02:31 PM	#2 (permalink)
blackduck30 Registered User Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Wollongong/Australia Posts: 4,230 OS: XP pro SP3/Vista Ultimate My System	well, in regards to your partition size, your formatted size of your drive will come down to approx 300G, So if you are going to be storing a lot of stuff i would maybe go for a 100G for XP and a 200G ( or the remaining space ) for your storage. You could even bring the XP partition down to 80G if you like. I would use NTFS formatt. What I would be inclined to do is if your current XP installation is running fine I would install your new hard drive in your system along side your old drive, use a partitioning tool such as PARTITION LOGIC to partition and formatt your drive then use a program such as XXCLONE to clone your old drive over to the new XP partition you setup, you will have to set an active partition on the new XP drive and then with xxclone make sure you make the clone bootable. this will then allow you to copy the whole contents accross and then go into the bios and change your boot order to boot to the new drive, once you are happy it is running fine you can either keep the old drive as a backup drive or formatt it and use it for whatever you like have a look at this post by Linderman that explains how to clone your drive HERE __________________ Blackduck30 Time is like money and milk, It's always running out Any Donations Help Keep TSF Free For All Last edited by blackduck30; 02-19-2007 at 02:34 PM.

02-20-2007, 12:35 AM	#3 (permalink)
Help Please?! Registered User Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 81 OS: XP Home \| Windows 7	Thanks for the help mate, I shall follow most of the instructions.