I know how to fdisk an install XP on an IDE. I guess my old 12gb hdd was small enough that I didn't have to make several smaller drives (partitions??)for XP back in 2001. Now I bought a larger HD (40GB- go ahead and laugh!) but it is my first SATA. I think I understand the driver(F6)install for XP for the drive to actually operate. I think I missed the instructions about partitioning the SATA HDD. Or is this just not necessary on SATA drives? If partitions are needed, please explain when and how. Please keep it simple Is there a tutorial camparison for IDE v. SATA installation and set up? TSM I am building a new system and this SATA thing is scaring the heck out of me. I have 3 systems: PITA, RICE, and SLOE. YES! I name them. PITA: Described above. RICE: WIN-XP, CYRIX686, SLOE: Gateway 433, 400CELERON, WIN-XPPRO

Guess it depends on how you are set up. There really isn't much of a difference between SATA and IDE really. If you are using the SATA drive as your drive that you're not booting from, right click on my computer, then manage and then storage. Partition and format the drive as NTFS. FAT32 doesn't like larger partitions. NTFS does allow for large file systems. Are you using like a SATA add on card or something?

OMG,(take a breath) I never partitioned a drive, IDE or otherwise. I think FAT32 is going out because 64bit is taking over and NTFS is another acronym that you choose when nothing else works in the BIOS for as ATA hdd settings. My wish is: install new hd and format for User1,User2,User3. Install my current HDD (w/XP) to backup onto the SATA/CD.It doesn't matter which drive I install XP. I have 3 systems: PITA, RICE, and SLOE. YES! I name them. PITA: Described above. RICE: WIN-XP, CYRIX686, SLOE: Gateway 433, 400CELERON, WIN-XPPRO

He has to be using an add on card because no Socket 370 board came with any SATA internal connections. Internal SATA connections didn't start poping up until the later versions of Socket 478 and Socket A. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz 2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200 Nvidia 7900GT SATA II 2x 300gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0 Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

You gotta get rid of that old Bigfoot. I don't think you realize how slow it is compared to the SATA HDD. The Bigfoot is an ATA33 drive, which means the MAX data transfer rate is 33MB/sec...& since nothing ever runs at it's max, it's actually slower than that. Plus it spins at 5400RPM & only has a 512k buffer...not only that, but the platter(s) are 5.25" which means the access time is longer. It's just a bad, outdated HDD that should have been retired a LONG time ago. Your SATA HDD has a max data transfer rate of 150MB/sec (theoretically) & probably has an 8MB buffer, plus it spins at 7200RPM. Even if you don't know what these numbers mean, you should be able to determine that the SATA is MUCH faster. Get whatever files you need off the Bigfoot & sh!tcan it! You don't *have* to partition the 40GB HDD if you don't want to. If you do, I suggest you make the 1st partiton about 20-25GB & format as FAT32. Format the remaining 15-20GB as FAT32 also & use it for storage. FAT32 is faster on smaller partitons plus it's easier to repair if you run into problems. Smaller partitions are easier to maintain too. You can NOT format a partition larger than 32GB as FAT32 using the WinXP CD. Microsoft did that deliberately to "force" you to go to NTFS (which just so happens to be Microsoft's proprietary file system). However, if you use the HDD manufacturer's software, you can format FAT32 on much larger partitons. The downside to FAT32 is that the cluster size grows up to 32k as the size of the partition increases...NTFS has a fixed cluster size of 4k. *Usually* the HDD manufacturer's software allows you to select the cluster size you wanna use for FAT32...Microsoft's formatting software is not customizeable in regards to cluster size.

This is a NEW system I am building. My mobo is a Gigabyte plus s3g AM2 socket. Has everything onboard that I need. I am just confused about the Maxblast 4 software compared to the mobo software. It seems they both can format/partition the harddrive. Sorry to be such a pain. I have to do more reading on this partition/cluster stuff. I thought it would be easier to understand. I have 3 systems: PITA, RICE, and SLOE. YES! I name them. PITA: Described above. RICE: WIN-XP, CYRIX686, SLOE: Gateway 433, 400CELERON, WIN-XPPRO

"My mobo is a Gigabyte plus s3g AM2 socket. Has everything onboard that I need" There are better boards in the same price range. I'm curious as to why you chose this particular one. Since you're building an AM2 system I would think you'd want a board based on the nForce5 chipset...even if it's the low end 550. I can only guess that the onboard video played a factor in our decision, but apparently gaming isn't a priority?