Page 1 of Installing new operating system - do I format first?

I`ve bagged a copy of Windows XP Prof. and was wondering, should I format my hard drive first, or just put the cd in and reboot? Secondly, I`ve already partitioned my hard drive using partition magic. Will this cause problems with the program no longer being on the system when XP is installed?
Thanks for any help

Yes format, it`s not worth patching over an old windows. If you got the upgrade though you need an old windows CD as well.

And no it wont effect partition magic, though be sure to format the correct part.

Regards
Rev

Thanks Rev
Do I format using a floppy, or is it OK to right click the drive and then format?
It`s a full version of XP - not an upgrade, do I still need an old windows cd?

You should be able to format the drive using the CD as the boot as you have a full version and not an U/Grade . You should also have the option to format in either FAT 32 or NTFS. I am not sure which is best but I would guess that as FAT 32 was a more efficient version than the previous version I would think NTFS might be even more efficient than FAT 32.
HTH
Choagy :-)

I take it you alraedy raelise if you format you loose everything on your PC. You can overwrite it no probs and keep all your existing data and programs.

The NTFS option allows larger file sizes. FAT32 is restricted to 4GB file size where NTFS has no restriction. If you want to do any video editing then reformat to NTFS.

Really? I have a 50GB+ fat32 partition at home.

If you`ve partitioned the drive into 2 one for the OS and one for your documents, then there shouldn`t be a problem in just formatting and doing a clean install - as others have said putting a new windows version on an old windows version is just asking fro trouble in the future.

But a partition is not a file....

Hmmm, some reason I read it as saying that the 4GB was the biggest partition.

My mistake.

If you`re only having XP on then definitely go for NTFS. It`s what it`s designed to run on.
As well as support for larger files there are other things like increased security (allowing different users different levels of access to files or folders), increased stability and better error tracking.
Even if you don`t you can convert it later without a reinstall or losing any data. The command is `convert` in DOS and it will convert the format and keep everything. It`s also well documented in the help.

Ste

But you cant convert back to FAT32. You also wont be able to use a dos boot disk to access the files if anything goes wrong. Although there are boot disks with Linux that allow you to access an NTFS disk. You can even change the admin password if you need to.