I am getting a new computer with 2x250Mb hard drives, which I want to partition. It will come with Windows XP home version pre-installed. However, ny supplier won't give me the XP installation disk, just a "system recovery disk". I've never partitioned a HDD before and have been doing a bit of research. I know that Fdisk erases all the data on the drive(s) when it creates the partition, and I'm worried that the system restore disk won't work to re-install the OS afterwards. I'm assuming that I could just back up the contents of the hard drive(s) (as far as I'm aware it will have windows XP on it and nothing else), partition them and then restore the backup to my chosen drive. Am I correct? Also, I read in one of the articles about partitioning that it is a good idea to create a small DOS partition on the primary drive but am a bit unclear about how that is actually done. First of all, is it a good idea (I think the reasoning is that it is a handy failsafe in case all else fails and you can't get into your NTSF filestore for some reason). And if so, how do I go about actually getting that first partition to boot up with DOS. FYI, I want the partitions so that I can have this DOS failsafe (maybe), Windows XP in it's own small partition, then separate partitions for my data files, applications and games software, music and video files, plus a couple of free partitions for future use (such as alternate operatings systems or whatever). Thsi is all new to me though, so any advice or pointers would be much appreciated. Cheers!

Just as an afterthought to the above, it occured to me that if the OS is installed on the first HDD (drive C:, say) and the second HDD (D:, for example) is empty, that I could possibly partition D: with impunity, then use the system restore disk to restore XP to the relevant logical drive on that drive, then go back into C: and partition that drive without having to care about losing the data that is on it. Is this do-able, or am I talking rubbish through my ignorance of partitioning?

First things first... Forget dos and Fdisk , it will not see the 250 gig hard drives.... If the suplier is isntalling the OS and dos not partition 2 250 gig drives I would say go somewhere else, he they dont know what they doing.. MY personal view only........ The best thing you can do is obtain the hard drive setup utility from the hard drive vendor... Use it to setup the drives and than reload the OS... However you can in fact partition the drives from within XP itself, as to the small dos aprtition you are refering to why would you ??? IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT A8N-SLI Deluxe AMD X64 3500+ Wnchst Corsair 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel GV-NX6600128D PCIX Graphics Card Ggbyte GT Pro CPU Cooler Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cool

There has never been, there will never be, any MS-DOS in Windows XP, therefore forget MS-DOS you are using a Windows NT Operating System. Windows XP Service Pack2 will see large hard drives over 137GB, therefore if if you have MS-DOS the drives would not be seen. The "PC Expert" should partition the drives to your liking if not walk away. Nearly all new PC's come with a Recovery CD and quite often the PC has a hidden partition for storing neccessary files, which if you Format/Partition you may loose. At the end of the day negotiate a price for a real copy of Windows XP OEM, here in the UK it is around £60 for HOME and £100 for PRO. It is false economy if you are spending shed loads of dosh not to spend a little extra to have your own copy of XP.

"The "PC Expert" should partition the drives to your liking if not walk away." I agree wholeheartedly. The Expert should also answer any and all of your questions as it particularly relates to what s/he is selling you about how to use that restore CD. Microsoft requires that you a have license to use their product. Do make sure to get a ProductKey and I do hope it is WinXP with SP2 or else the restore CD won't be of much use to you in the future. Bryan

Everything you need to know about partitioning: http://partition.radified.com/partitioning.htm Asus A7N8X-X 1800+ @ 8.5 x 200MHz 768MB PC3200 Asus A9550 128MB/128-bit Gamer Edition WinME/WinXP Pro

Thanx for the replies so far. A few responses: General: Most of the advice/guides you find on the net are a few years old and refer to 20Mb or 40Mb dives and advocate FDisk which, as the replies state, is no good for huge drives. This is, I think where most of my confusion arises. Jam: Yes, I saw the radified.com guides, which is where I got this DOS partition notion from. Having gone back and read it all again, I see (or at least I think 8^) ) that he is essentially saying is it's a good idea to have a small FAT32 partition as your primary partition (C:) just in case of problems so that you can load DOS-based disk recovery programs. The guide says: "If I were going to partition 120-GB drive today, for a system containing only this drive, I'd break it up like so. Note this is merely personal preference, and will give you an idea of what is possible: 4-GB FAT32 primary partition. FAT32 is DOS-compatible. Never know when you might need to load some DOS disk utilities, or install a legacy version of Windows. It's nice to be able to if need be. [C: drive] .....[rest of drive break-down deleted]" From what you guys are saying, this cautious approach (leaving yourself the option of loading DOS utilities) now seems obsolete (obviously, I understand that certain earlier versions of Windows won't run under NTSF and have to be on FAT32 partitions). Janos, hiho, Bryce: All good points. However, I should point out that I am buying from a mass-market supplier. If I was buying from my local custom-built computer shop it'd easy to talk the guy through custom drive partitioning. With the big chains it's not really an option. Besides, it's the sort of thing I'd like to be able to do myself. I should say that I'm assuming that when the computer arrives I'll have two 250Mb partitions. I may be pleasantly surprised and they will have broken them down for me and have XP installed in its own little partition, but I doubt it. And even if they have partitioned the drives into more than 2 x 250Mb, I will probably want to change the sizes to my own preferences. Janos: I'll look into the partitioning facility within XP. Does this preserve the operating system, or still destroy the data, requiring the re-installation of the software? hiho: Yes, I've read about these hidden partitions, which, correct me if I'm wrong, contain archive files that the recovery CD accesses to restore the system. That's why I'm worried about not being able to restore the OS after partitioning. Is it possible to access this hidden partition? If so, and I backed up the contents to CD, I'm assuming I could copy them back after paritioning and use the restore CD. Bryce: As far as I am aware, I will certainly get a ProductKey. It is a big, reputable, established supplier I am buying from, so I don't think there is any realistic chance of getting pirated software. I suppose this opens up the further possibility that I could use a friend's copy of the XP disc, which it is my understanding would be legal since I will have my own, paid-for (as part of my system) product key (you're paying for the licence to use the software, not the media the files come on).