I am about to install Vista64 on a new machine and used Partition Manager 8 from floppiy to format the hard drives. It gave the option of ME, 2000 or XP as the format. Does Vista have its own different format?George

When you run the DVD for Vista x64 setup, the option to format will be presented early in the process. It's standard NTFS format.Regards,Jim Karn

>It's standard NTFS format.>I don't think so. If I use the Vista format, Partition Manager doesn't recognise it.George

I don't know anything about Partition Manager, but in Windows, there are three file system options: FAT, FAT32 or NTFS. The Vista DVD will do a complete format, which wipes the disk or a quick format that will create a new file table but does not fully erase the volume.Regards,Jim Karn

Thanks Jim. I believe the problem is that Vista uses a different MBR from XP and Partition Manager doesn't recognise it as a valid partition.George

Slightly different topic: Is there an optimal way to partition two new hard drives under Vista-32? The unformatted capacities are 250GB and 500GB and I prefer to use NTFS. I know that under FAT you could gain additional disk space by partitioning, but I thought NTFS at least partially fixed this issue. Is there a disadvantage to using both drives at their full, formatted capacity? Thanks, - Lee

Dividing the drive into multiple partitions is a user choice, generally to organize files and folders to their liking. There is no operational advantage to creating additional partitions on a volume.Regards,Jim Karn