Right have just finished my first buildand basically now have a few options of wat to do wth the hard drive, etc. basically would u reccomend partioining the hard drive, if so into how many sections etc. also iu have a tv out on my gfx card, could i use a tv as a monitor or should i buy a monitor?
specs:
Asus A7v8x
AMD Athlon XP 1600+
2x 256mb crucial pc2700
raedon 9000 128mb
350w psu
dvd rom drive
48x24x48x cdrw


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and basically now have a few options of wat to do wth the hard drive, etc. basically would u reccomend partioining the hard drive, if so into how many sections etc. also iu have a tv out on my gfx card, could i use a tv as a monitor or should i buy a monitor?
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I know I'm in the minority here but numerous drive letters really 'p' me off and often get in the way far more than they actually help. It can often be hard to decide what sizes to go for and resizing even with top sw always carries an inherent risk. In these days of super cheap CDRs and drives it makes sense to backup, heck HDs are so incredibly cheap it makes sense to have one you plug in from time to time for backups. Most important is file system. FAT32 shouldn't really be used with partns bigger than 32GB and even then it is incredibly wasteful, try to stick close to the point just before the cluster size doubles which are 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB IIRC. Switching to NTFS is well worth it, esp with these large HDs but you lose the ability to use multiple OS' ... again a 2nd HD perhaps?
TVs are incredibly awful as monitors, if you plan to use mostly video and music purposes then TV will suffice but trying to read or work on even the best TV sets is awul compared to the cheapest monitors, to a degree gaming too. You may also find the gfx cards and their sw like to operate with a monitor which may also cause some problems if you're TV only. 15" LCD have really come down in proce and would make a discrete backup unit should you need/want it. 17" CRTs are bulky but only £100 new, 19" cost very little more but add even more bulk. Perhaps a 2nd hand 15" in a cupboard somewhere may do so you can call on it if you need to. Is this system your only one?
As for the HD, the problem with a 10GB HD is it is wasteful to use FAT32 on it unless you break it up to 2+8GB or 4+6GB for example. If you use Win2000/XP then NTFS would help (if you don't worry about accessing from other OS) but NTFS is most beneficial for HDs > 32GB. Certainly no need to partition anyway, mostly just personal preference, it's just that 1x10GB partn is a little wasteful if you use FAT32.
Best sw is Partition Magic, there may be a good free alternative. You could do a fresh install on the 10GB HD after setting up the partns you want and then copy your personal files from your old HD, that would save hassle resizing etc.
