What is the best partitioning method?

Hi, the easiest way to go about this is to first install dos. Then, install either nt workstation or server, ntldr will recognize dos and add it to your boot options (boot.ini file). When loading nt, you will have the option to create partitions ifyou want and then install winnt on the partition of your choice. This is probably easiest, unless you want to create the partitions in dos first (fdisk.exe). Letting NT do it, though, is easy. Once you set up your partitions, nt formats the partition where you install its system files (\winnt). You also can have nt format the other new partitiions, but you can wait till the os loads and format from disk administrator. Since you want to access nt via dos, keep the nt boot partition (\winnt - where the system files are)as the fat file system. Dos cannot read or access ntfs which is nt's secure file system. An IDE drive is fine unless you need the specific benefits of scsi (many drives, one interrupt, etc.). hope this helps.

Is there a specific reason why you want to boot to DOS if NT fails to boot properly? If there really isn't... Installing NT and allowing it to partition the drive according to your direction is probably the easiest and best way. In addition, I've always found that the NTFS file stucture has been more stable and efficient in the long run.

I would do what Ivachon says, but in this manner: Split your drive into two partitions one DOS boot partition, approximately 2.5 GB, and make the second partition after loading NT over DOS, use disk administrator to create the second partition, NTFS, for the data drive.

Hey, Call me creasy but I sleep a bit better knowing that if one of the Hard Drives on a server crashes, I still have a change to do some troubleshooting if i am able to acces the boot sector being DOS.

just my two cents!

On Workstations: Where I work, I was making a small partition (5mb) with DOS and the NT boot files. This is useful if for some reason the files are missing or corrupt you can copy them from another computer and overwrite them here making NT bootableagain. We no longer do this because workstations with just one partition feel clean. You don't have to worry about programs attempting to install on the C:, the space is better used and the computer is faster. If there are any problems, just reimagethe computer. The user should not be saving anything to the hard drive anyway. If they loose any information, it is their fault.

On Server: I do not make any DOS partitions. If the drive fails, there is a mirror of it (if the drive has the boot partition on it). The data is on RAID. As simple as that.

Have fun

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