Just wondering if anyone has had the same problems/conflicts as I have... I am preparing a 30GB/ATA100 drive for install of Windows XP Pro using the NTFS file system. I would have liked to have used Partition Magic 8 to manage this drive and create a DATA partition of 5GB for large downloads and such (so as not to frag the disk). Unfortunately PM8 and Norton Systemworks 2003 Pro are having some problems co-existing so I'm scrapping the PM8 install and thinking about partitioning with Fdisk. My drive is already formatted per IBM disk manager for FAT32 (IBM DM does not allow formatting to NTFS, only within XP can I do this or rather from a prompt). Should I create my partitions and then from a prompt change both partitions to NTFS (as desired) using the X: /fs:NTFS command for both and THEN install Windows XP? (realizing that I can quick format the primary partition to NTFS at the time of OS install) I know what I'm doing just need a little support on the decision...PM8 is a nice utility but it keeps wanting to test my drives for consistancy EVERY single time I restart which is ANNOYING to say the least. Thanks for the INPUT !! :)

The XP cd has the partitioning tools you need right on it. You can boot to the Recovery Console, use the DISKPART tool to delete the current partition, then create and format new ones in the NTFS format that you want. This site shows what the console windows look like: Repair XP

Ger, Never thought of doing that...duhh... Do I feel clueless. Thanks for the insight. I'm just gonna boot from the OS during initial install and delete the 30GB part and make my 2 new partitions...then the install. Thanks! :)

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