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General discussion

?s about installing XP on blank hard drive

Jan 13, 2005 7:09AM PST

I've got a new Dell PC. I wanted to do a fresh install of Windows XP, mostly because I didn't want everything that Dell puts on their PCs. So, I inserted the "Reinstallation CD", from Dell, into my CD drive, and booted from it. It did its setup thing and I got thru to the part where I'm asked whether I want to reinstall XP or repair. I did the reinstall option, and then I get to the screen that asks what partition I want to use. It listed 3 existing or blank partitions:

-:Partition1[FAT] 71MB(63MB free)
C:Partition2[NTFS] 149409MB(144078MB free)
F:Partition3[FAT32] 3106MB(275MB free)

So, I picked Partition 2, and went thru and completed the installation fine. Well, due to some noise issues, Dell sent me a blank hard drive. So, I go thru the same process, using the same CD. However, when I get to the screen where it lists the partitions, there is only one partition listed. Obviously, I picked that one as the partition to install XP onto. As far as I know everything went thru fine. XP got up and running. Its only been a day since I did it, but everythings been working as far as I can tell.
My question is Why did the first hard drive list 3 partitions when the second blank hard drive listed just one? Is what I did fine?

Discussion is locked

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Jonsushi's Answers
Jan 13, 2005 7:27AM PST

heres what i can tell you jonsushi. The hard drive you originally had have been paritioned as it should have. Typically when installing an operating system you place it on a FAT partition, this way anything else you load onto your computer is placed onto the NTFS. This way when a probablem is brought up with your OS which seems to have happened you can simply reformat that FAT partition and reinstall the OS. However it seems as though since your FAT partition was not completely blank the OS still remained at less impart on your hard drive. You should have reformatted the FAT partition and then installed the OS. The data you had existing on the hard drive therefore whould not have been lost. It shows like you were able to score a free hard drive from Dell and for that i commend you. Yuo have done well. Your only possible problem with installed XP is it is on a single partition and you could lose your other data if you need to reinstall XP again (a very likely occurence). Also wether the partition is FAT or NTFS matters, but i don't completely understand the difference. I am by far not a computer god but that is the two sence i believe i know.

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I think I didn't explain clearly...
Jan 13, 2005 1:27PM PST

The noise problem with the 1st hard drive existed before I reformatted it and reinstalled XP. Everything worked before and after the reinstallation of XP. I had contacted Dell about the noise, before I reformatted and reinstalled. Apparantly they agreed it was a problem, which is why they sent me a new one. Well, they eventually sent me a new one.
But anyways, if I understand you and Grif correctly the only reason for the multiple partitions is for restoration ease. Am I right? If so, I don't really mind having just having one partition, at least not right now. And honestly, I don't really know how to go about doing that. I would like to find out, just to have the knowledge. If I did know how to do it, I might try to do it.
BTW, to which of the three partitions from the first hard drive should I have installed XP?

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Recovery partition
Jan 14, 2005 6:13AM PST

Josh;
With XP some systems have a recovery partition.
It is usually fat and hidden when XP is booted.
It contains the full set of software install files
that are on your cd. It is so you can reload the disk
without CD's. Not much use if your drive crashes.
There should have been an option when you reloaded the
disk from CD to create this.

Bob

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Jon, You've Done Well...
Jan 13, 2005 8:57AM PST

Just my personal opinion, but for most home users, the single NTFS partition should work just fine...It normally creates itself as the "C" drive and most, although not all, programs perform best when installed on that particular drive..In fact, although many computers have 2 or three partitions from the factory, USUALLY the operating system is placed on the NTFS partition because it is less prone to corruption than a FAT32 file system..All our corporate Dell XP Pro's are installed on single NTFS partitions. HP and Compaq computers, if I remember correctly, will place "Recovery Partitions" on their smaller FAT32 partitions.

That said, some users advocate multiple partitions because they feel if a particular partition becomes corrupted, they can reformat and reinstall on that partition only, and it will save data on the other partitions..IN my experience, where entire hard drives die occasionally, the partitioning serves no purpose. If the drive dies, then nothing helps except for removable media backups. IN that case, EXACTLY AS YOU HAVE DONE, it's much easier to replace the hard drive then reinstall the operating system and all required software by using backup CD's to do so.

Either way, it comes down to a personal choice which you've made. It sounds like your computer is working well.

Keep up the good work.

Grif

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Partitions
Jan 13, 2005 2:49PM PST

The small partition is probably either a thumb drive, a memory card from a digital camera, or some other type of device that was connected that has memmory in it. With that small size and the fact that its only FAT (not even fat32) it has to be one of the above.

NTFS has stronger security than FAT32 and allows you to set allow / deny rights to a folder and all the way down to a single file. Only the xp/2000/NT family line of windows can use NTFS or read an NTFS partition.

For instance, if you have Win98 machines on a network they will not be able to read a WinXP machines NTFS drive. However, the XP machine can read FAT32.

There is no need really to format in FAT32 anymore unless you are in that situation. Plus NTFS is necessary for large GB hard drives. You did all the right steps when you formatted your computer, congrats.

Hope my NTFS explanation makes sense.

James

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Thanks out to the three of you persons
Jan 14, 2005 12:13AM PST

I've got to give thanks to everyone thats responded, so far three. Everyone of you has given me very helpful info. But the best part of the info is that you all have explained it clearly, at least to me. So far this has been one of the best forums, I've found. Thanks,
Jon

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Glad you want to learn
Jan 14, 2005 5:55AM PST

I work as a PC technician for Geeksquad. I am happy to be able to help people with computer problems when they are willing to listen/learn. It reall bugs me when people bring in their computers and they just DO NOT want to even learn how to do stuff for themselves. I think it is very commendable that you tackled this restore on your own. You are smarter/braver than 90% of the customers I deal with on a daily basis.

BTW ever find out what that small partition was? Memory card Im guessing?

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Not sure about the small partition was
Jan 14, 2005 6:58AM PST

The hard drive was 160 GB. I don't know if this is how it works, but the total of the partitions found equals 152GB(I think so at least). I do have a USB drive, with 244MB, but I don't think it was plugged in at the time.

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Weezle, The Small Partitions I'm Speaking Of...
Jan 14, 2005 10:23AM PST

...although their size isn't really all that small, are DEFINITELY designated as the "Recovery Partition". HP, Compaq, and e-Machines all use a small FAT32 partition (about 5-6 GB) for storing their Recovery data on XP HOME computers. It also allows the user to create a Recovery CD when they first run the machine.

In fact, today, I happen to set up a customer's brand new e-Machines computer which had this type of Recovery partition.

Hope this helps.

Grif

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More on the Recovery Partition
Jan 17, 2005 7:33PM PST

I have an ACER notebook running Win XP Home which has a 2GB FAT 32 "recovery partition' in the 40GB hard drive - this partition is created automatically when the OS is installed.
I have succesfully used Norton's Ghost software for restoring partitions on my Win 2000 desktop, and asked the notebook seller at the time of purchase to partition my hard drive into 3 with the aim of backing up my C and D partitions to the E partition. Unfortunately, Ghost only works with a max of 3 partitions and the "recovery partition", which I was not aware of beforehand, resulted in me having an effective 4 partitions so Ghost will not do the backup imaging.
My only option is to combine my D and E drives with something like Partition Magic.