I've just got a new Pc - with a 160GB HD...!!!
and I'm unsure what to do now....
I've read plenty about partitions and NTFS and would like some ideas/suggestions as to what to do...
I was thinking something along the lines of partitioning a large chunk (say 40GB), changing it to NTFS and then using that as my 'capture and editing drive'.
It's running XP - so it should be easy enought to do, right...??
Does this sound workable...??

[MarkE19]

If running WinNT/2000/XP then you should format your drive(s) as NTFS. There is no advantage of FAT. IIRC you can not partition and then format the 2 (or more) virtual disks as different formats.
Why partition your drive? IMO this give no advantages. The recommendation to capture video to a separate drive only relates to another physical, not vertual, drive as the reasons are the limitations of the throughput of the IDE interface. If a virtual drive is used then there is no increase in the throughput of the drive.

Mark.

Thanks Mark,
All understood.... I guess with the price of HDD's now it's probably best to install an additional one...
As for re-formatting my drive as NTFS - will I lose all my data and programs (and XP itself) if I do this via XP...???
Or will I just be able to instruct XP to format the drive to NFTS and everything will remain...???
This one puzzels me and I'd be very grateful if you could help out...?
So to sum up - my system is running XP (home) and the drive is FAT. How do I convert the drive to NTFS please (without losing my current programs/data)...???

[andypandy]

You need to get down to the dos command prompt from within XP the enter convert c: /fs:ntfs.
Then accept the prompt to apply the conversion on next reboot.
reboot - job done.

Personally, I would have a seperate partition for the operating system, what ever it happens to be. This makes re-installing the op. system so much easier and you have the other partition with all your source files, drivers, etc. and they will not be harmed. It's always a good idea backup this drive too in case the whole drive fails !.

Adding extra hard disk will introduce additional heat that every computer system can do without. So unless you have a full tower I persoanlly would not start adding extra hard disks. OK, so you can buy hard disk coolers and extar fans, etc but that's another area I wouldn't go down what with noise and power drain.

Thanks for your help Andrew....
Just to claify - as I'm a little nervous about this one - if I enter the DOS command prompt as above and re-boot.... evertything will come back the same... all progs. data and XP...???

[andypandy]

yep , not that I personally have tried it as I am still on Windows 98SE.

You could certainly double check the command syntax on XP help for added re-assurance.

In the example I gave you I was assuming the drive you wanted converted was your C drive.