Am formatting my hdd, chucking out the current Win98 and installing WInXp.

Questions I have for you gurus are

1. I heard that are 2 types of HDD format that WinXP will eventually ask me to do, NTFS and FAT32. Which should I choose? Does it matter?

2. I have a 2nd hdd that I would later then wanna transfer back data to the main hdd. I should be able to just plug it in later and WinXp (on the hdd that i just formatted) should be able read the data right?

any other things i need to note before i do a format? am planning to use a win98 bootup disc, then format C drive, then install winxp using the CD rom.

Cheers!

NTFS is a more efficient file system, but its not backwards compatible with windows 98 or Dos, so any drives you format using NTFS wont be visible in win98 or dos.

^^ but this will only effect you if you're using a dual boot system, but there's no real need for that now in most cases.

NTFS is more efficient and more secure. to your second question, winxp will be able to see it

EDIT: i dunno about winxp, but win2k is a bootable CD, so u don't need to boot from a floppy, and there's an option in the installer to format it. i imagine it's the same for winxp installer

thanks for the quick reply. i would prob go Fat32 then.

and if the primary hdd (with winXp ) is NTFS and the slave HDD is Fat32, would the primary still see the slave?

Cheers!

weirdly drives don't actually see each other (they don't have eyes) but windows xp will see ntfs and fat no problem

hope you don't want to play the majority of dos games on it, 'cause winxp sucks the fat cock at playing dos games.

fdisk and install this way

C: Win98 3 gigs "FAT32"
D: WinXP 10 gigs "NTFS"

?: Your pr0n

Win98 is good for those times when you need to play those old games and if WinXP craps out on you,,,

also disable the services as well cos there's alot of crap u dont even use

also, with NTFS you have alot more control over computer security, you can set permissions on files and directorys.

xp teh gay, use 2k :D :D :D, but id always go ntfs (unless your thinking about linux) most (almost all things) work on 2k/xp its just a few that dont, youd probably be fine (if you are dual-booting) to just have the win98 one as fatXX and the XP *shudders* drive as ntfs...

I used to really hate XP but it doesn't seem *so* bad. Sure there's gumby wizards in things and stuff is moved around a bit but you don't see them too often and you can turn all the theming off if you don't like it.

Really, give up on anything dos. A clean NTFS install without any silly partitioning will be faster and more reliable (NTFS is worth it just for not having to scandisk every time you reboot without shutting down 'properly').

I have found thats it easier to just create a few partions and the make some i386 installs to copy from when things go wrong

Just to point out, because many don't understand it, your choice of filesystem won't affect compatibility with applications or other hardware at all. It's just a different way of writing stuff to the disk that is (except for low level things like disk editors) totally transparent to applications.

Having mixed filesystems (for this case) won't cause any problems with XP as it supports FATx and NTFS. It's not like the hardware will conflict or you won't be able to see the drives, you'll always see the drives (if they're working).

Cool!

THanks for all your help guys!

MAVERICK

also dont install 98, just install XP alone. Putting over a previous O/S has had some problems apparently.

ok. will take note of that. its ok to use a win98 boot disk then format C: then install WinXP right?

Also for future reference you can download proper XP Boot Disks from here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?releaseid=33291

because if you have ntfs a 98 disc will not read the harddrive anymore, the link is for boot discs that spans 6 floppies, its worth it because it loads all the drivers for you to install XP

it's also worth noting:

xp pro and xp home cds are bootable so you can install straight from them

whoever said ntfs would be a problem for linux hasn't tried hard enough. there are mount versions and umount versions that support ntfs natively

xp silver theme for gods sake

Not when you computer is not cd bootable, like old systems that boot floppy, harddrive then cd. You have to change you bios to boot cd first so its f*** changing any bios settings.