setting up win xp

how do you partition, format and install win xp? off the disc? is ntfs better than fat 32?

Boot straight from the CD, it will give you the choice to format or not, and if so, which file system to use. But be careful aout NTFS, because if you play games, like Champ Manager for example, they dont like NTFS, and the games wont run, but only sometimes, seems to be a fluke kind of thing.

NTFS is better. Up until this thread, i have never heard of a problem with it. It is faster than FAT, it's more secure, it lets you encrypt or compress individual files, and it is more reliable and you don't have to do that annoying scandisk when your computer shuts down incorrectly.

FAT, however, is prettymuch universally readable (whereas NTFS requires NT/2000/XP/NTFS-DOS to read it.) It is a simple, low-overhead filesystem.

NTFS is far superior to FAT in terms of speed, redundancy and security. I've never heard of any problems w/ it.

NTFS is great as long as you wont want to go back to 98 etc...

Most of the time Champ Manager doesnt care about the file system, but I have seen it a couple of times on NTFS and it can be a bit funny about it... Just thought I'd mention it...

I should really mention that FAT is FASTER than NTFS on small partitions (i.e. less that 2Gb). FAT absolutely rules at disks below 512Mb - you can use FAT16 which is blazing quick (you can use it on larger drives, too, but then it slows down).

As for security - of course, NTFS is the winner. No goddamn scandisks... No lost clusters... Yummy