Partition and format

[Ron Patterson]

I just built my own computer for the first time. I relied on XP to format
and partition the HD.
On my old Win 98 computer I had a 10 gb HD. I used less than 3 gb.
My new HD is 120 gb (smallest I could buy at Fry's was an 80 gb and 120 gb
was cheaper with rebate.)

If I recall correctly I choose to use the NTFS format system as opposed to
FAT 32 - good or bad?
I made a 12 gb partition for xp and left the rest of it unpartitioned -
good or bad?
If I recall, 8 gb of the 120 gb was reserved for some other use? Is this
normal? Please teach.

The A. Baba
Blue Master

[S.Heenan]

Ron Patterson wrote:
> I just built my own computer for the first time. I relied on XP to
> format and partition the HD.
> On my old Win 98 computer I had a 10 gb HD. I used less than 3 gb.
> My new HD is 120 gb (smallest I could buy at Fry's was an 80 gb and
> 120 gb was cheaper with rebate.)
>
> If I recall correctly I choose to use the NTFS format system as
> opposed to FAT 32 - good or bad?

NTFS has several advantages over FAT32. Unless you happen to be dual-booting
with Win95/98/ME, NTFS is the way to go.

> I made a 12 gb partition for xp and left the rest of it
> unpartitioned - good or bad?

That's plenty. I'd recommend 4GB minimum for Windows XP.

> If I recall, 8 gb of the 120 gb was reserved for some other use? Is
> this normal? Please teach.

When hard drive maker advertise a hard drive, they refer to the size in
"billions of bytes", a base 10 number. In your case that would be
120,000,000,000 bytes. Windows considers a kilobyte to be 1024 bytes, which
is a base 2 number, 2^10. Cube 1024 bytes and you get a GB equalling
1,073,741,824 bytes.
120,000,000,000 divided by 1,073,741,824 equals 111.759GB. Note, this has
nothing to do with formatting or the choice of file system.
A small ~8MB partition is used by Windows for the Master File Table or MFT.

--
Winerr 012 - Cash Underflow - Credit Card Number Will Be Assimilated

[Ted]

"S.Heenan" > wrote in message =
. ca...

<snipped>

> 120,000,000,000 divided by 1,073,741,824 equals 111.759GB. Note, this =
has
> nothing to do with formatting or the choice of file system.

You pillock, it has everything to do with formatting and the choice of =
the filing system, since formatting, and what system one chooses, =
arranges the the storage space into binary formed clusters.

[S.Heenan]

Ted" <""" wrote:
> "S.Heenan" wrote in message
> . ca...
>
> <snipped>
>
>> 120,000,000,000 divided by 1,073,741,824 equals 111.759GB. Note,
>> this has
>> nothing to do with formatting or the choice of file system.
>
> You pillock, it has everything to do with formatting and the choice
> of the filing system, since formatting, and what system one chooses,
> arranges the the storage space into binary formed clusters.


Thanks for the enlightened opinion.
--
Winerr 012 - Cash Underflow - Credit Card Number Will Be Assimilated