Installing 2nd drive and XP Drive Management

Is it a good idea to use XP Drive Management to install a 200GB using the XP Drive Management program to convert the drive which is preformatted in FAT32 to NTFS and to insert partitions? Does one have to include a primary partition on a new drive even though there will be no operating system? Any suggestions to the number of partitions and sizes? If I wanted to run Linux from this new drive, is that possible?

 

Off hand I say no need for a Primary partition. Just be sure the JUMPERS ON BOTH are set correctly.

1st as Master

2nd as Slav

BTW/ That is an area where I have messed up more than once.

BillyBob

 

I think these drive work on CS, cable select.

 

You can't format a HDD, only a partition; so you do need at least one partition.
I always make a primary partition in case I want to move an OS to the drive later.

XP's disk management can do the whole job, unless you want FAT32 partitions larger than 32MB, in which case leave some of the disk unpartitioned and use W98 fdisk for those. I don't like partitions larger than about 40-50MB, and mostly smaller, but it's a personal preference.

You can make separate partitions, or better, leave part of the drive unpartitioned for linux and point linux install to it. Linux needs at least 2 partitions (one for swap).

With linux on the drive I suggest you make mostly FAT32 partitions; my linux can't see the contents of ntfs partitions.

 

Sparrow, did you mean GB rather than MB in your note concerning the sizes of the partitions?

 

Yes, partitions should generally be GB, except fot linux swap. Wish I could type without errors .