Gernal PC building Questions

[jlepri]

As the parts are comming in for my first PC build I have a few questions reguarding the configuration of the system.

1) I will be installing a 160MB hard drive (ATA/100) and a Combo DVD/CD-RW drive. Should I be installing the HD on IDE Channel 1 as "Master" and the CD on IDE Channel 2 as "Master". I read that you should keep HD and CD-RW on seperate channels - high speed CD burnerd won't perform at full spec otherwise. I will be using NF7-s MB (if that matters).


2) Does anyone have recommedation on if I should make a 5 or 10 GB partion on the HD for the operating system (Windows XP pro). Is there any benifit to this, or should I just keep it as one partion. I read an acticle in Maximum PC that states that you get maximum performance from windows XP with on large partion that spans the entire drive.

Thank you. This will be my first build and would like it to go as smooth a possible. As a result, I will be asking lots of questions. :D

[FarEast]

As for question 1 your assuptions are correct try to keep HDD's and optical drives seperate. I even went to the extreme of getting a PCI IDE card so i could keep all 6 drives seperate.

As for question 2 i would make the main partition 60Gb and then use the 100Gb left over for back up and storring software, docs, pics and everything else, If your like any other of the O/Cer's you will probably do a reformat at least every 3 months.

[simpleman]

sounds like you did your home work

[hibner]

1) As for the drives, put the had frive on channel 1 master, and the combo drive on channel 2 master. The Channel 1 connector on the board is usually blue and channel 2 connector is usually black.

2) I dont think that it makes a difference if windows is on a separate partion. But make sure that you create a partion for your swap file, preferrably on another hard drive. Rule of thumb is that you make it twice the size of the amount of your ram.

[jlepri]

Reformat every 3 months? Wow. Are you reformating your entire HD or just the operating system partion. Thats alot of work to reinstall all that software.

[FarEast]

just the OS partition I also have my all my software on a broadcast server that i can re-install from ....normally takes around 3 hours to get things back to normal on a system.

[hibner]

Just get everything the way you want it after a fresh install of everything. Then use Norton Ghost. It gets you up and running quick

[FarEast]

I know all about Norton but the usual reason for a reinstall is because I'm either completely changing the O/S or I'm having a major bios/driver overhaul and the last clone made is out of data.

P.S

If you know how you can broadcast mirrors using Windows XP

[don256us]

Originally posted by jlepri
1) I will be installing a 160MB hard drive (ATA/100) and a Combo DVD/CD-RW drive. Should I be installing the HD on IDE Channel 1 as "Master" and the CD on IDE Channel 2 as "Master". I read that you should keep HD and CD-RW on seperate channels - high speed CD burnerd won't perform at full spec otherwise. I will be using NF7-s MB (if that matters).
The rule is simply, the recording device should be on a different channel than the source. It doesn't really matter if it is master or slave. It doesn't matter if it is in the first plug of the ribbin cable or the second.

Originally posted by jlepri
2) Does anyone have recommedation on if I should make a 5 or 10 GB partion on the HD for the operating system (Windows XP pro). Is there any benifit to this, or should I just keep it as one partion. I read an acticle in Maximum PC that states that you get maximum performance from windows XP with on large partion that spans the entire drive.

This is done a lot in *nix. I have heard people doing this before. I see no benefit in doing this. If you lose the OS, you can do a recovery install with Win XP. knock on wood, It's kept me out of trouble.

[NiTrO bOiE]

Originally posted by don256us

If you lose the OS, you can do a recovery install with Win XP. knock on wood, It's kept me out of trouble.

Same here, it does the same thing as re-formating without having an extra partition. Your discession though.