My rig: Duron CPU 1.1 gig/Win 98se/ECS K7S5A/256Pc133/Antec 450 watt P.S./ Primary Master: WD 20 gig 7200 ATA 100/Secondary Slave: none/ Secondary Master: TDK CD Burner/ Secondary Slave: Delta CD Rom. Set Up: C: WD 20 gig (running Windows 98se and programs) D: Maxtor 30 gig 7200 ATA 100 (for storage) attached to ATA 100 Promise controller card. Have a brand new WD600JB HDD (60 gig ATA 100) in unopened antistatic bag. Want to install it as Secondary Master on controller card and also use entirely for storage. Must I use Fdisk and create one big partition first? Why can't I just format it through DOS or Windows? BTW, my system is currently using FAT 32 on my Primary Master. Any help or advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks for such a helpful forum...awesome!!
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New HDD set up question, please
- Thread starter snoop1989
- Start date
"Must I use Fdisk and create one big partition first? Why can't I just format it through DOS or Windows?"
Same answer for both questions, the drive has to be partitioned/fdisk'd before it can be formatted.
FAT32 is the only choice for larger-than 2GB partitions. Be aware that the BIOS may have a problem with larger than 32GB drives.
Same answer for both questions, the drive has to be partitioned/fdisk'd before it can be formatted.
FAT32 is the only choice for larger-than 2GB partitions. Be aware that the BIOS may have a problem with larger than 32GB drives.
- Thread starter
- #4
Thanks for the replies, I guess I don't understand why I need to "partition" if there is no OS going on the drive, and I plan to use the drive in its entirety for storage. I guess I was under the mistaken impression that as long as the drive was formatted it would be OK. It seems that when you partition a drive you lose some space, right? BTW, what is MBR and would this drive need it? I know, I'm still learning but don't want to allocate space for something unless it is a neccessity. That is my concern and confusion. Please help an idiot understand, thanks!
For your purpose the drive does not need to be partitioned and should already be formatted. So it should be good to go. When you partition a drive it does lose a little 'usable space' but not enough to be concerned about. MBR=Master Boot Record. It's only on the boot drive. You need not concern yourself about that.
That information is contrary to my experience. NT and XP require partitioning before formatting. A new hard drive is only "low-level" formatted. The low-level format sets up the locations of disk sectors physically on the drive.
The high-level format is what defines the directory structure and clustering.
You might want to partition the drive simply to provide some ability to separate your data and to keep utilities like disk defragmenters and search programs from having to slog through the entire hard drive every time.
TTFN
The high-level format is what defines the directory structure and clustering.
You might want to partition the drive simply to provide some ability to separate your data and to keep utilities like disk defragmenters and search programs from having to slog through the entire hard drive every time.
TTFN
Sorry...I kinda got ahead of myself. You do need to run the utility disk to setup the drive. That will format and create the partition. When I was referring to partitioning the drive i was referring to creating logical partitions on the drive vs one large partition. When a drive has one large partition i kinda got use to saying it's not partitioned.
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