Formatting & Parbreastioning Brand New Dell E510 1266

Wow, now this is informative. You really know this E510 configuration. Thank you for taking the time...

I ordered two identical hard drives which are on backorder: "Parallel ATA-133: DiamondMax 10 drive is available with the industry's fastest version of the parallel ATA interface. The Maxtor-developed Ultra ATA-133 interface maximizes performance potential by supporting data transfer rate up to 133MB-sec."

The two 3-1-2" drive spaces on the bottom of the E510 do have one cable, but the cable pbuttes right through the first connector (that must be what the "series" means?) and terminates at a second connector just about where I think it would make sense to mount the first Maxtor drive. If I understand you right, could that mean that I could buy a 2nd SATA cable, attach it to the 2nd SATA slot on the MB, and put the 2nd Maxtor in the available upper slot using the 5-1-4" to 3-1-2" adapter you mentioned? or are 2 ATA devices the limit no matter how many cables you use? If not, it sounds like USB is the way to go.

I just powered up the computer for the first time just to get the BIOS info for a Maxtor e-mail question and noticed that the 160GB drive that came with the box is formatted for NTFS, not FAT32. Reading on, it sounds like you recommend that anyway. Boy, nowhere else did I get that clear of a description about the 32GB XP boot parbreastion limit. Thanks again. If I disk copy using Norton Ghost 10 am I going to be able to boot off that 2nd drive, or do I have to install XP again on the new drive? I am guessing-hoping for the former.

The TigerDirect reviews on the Maxtor drives almost unanimously raved about it, but they don't come with cables, and someone highly recommended getting Ultra ATA-133 cables. Does that mean getting an Ultra ATA-133 card too? Is this required? Will it make a difference? Many of the reviews talked about just plopping it into their computer and away they went. Some formatted the drive with the Maxblast download and they said they were up and running in less than a minute. That doesn't sound like they got a special cable and-or card.

Any reason you don't parbreastion your hard drives? If I could keep my image of the OS-program drive separate from my data on the 1st 300GB drive, I wouldn't feel any need to parbreastion it at all, unless I was worried about one of my daughters overwriting something. I guess that was the whole point to the 3rd drive though, a place I can put the image of the 1st drive, and maybe backup my data too. Can I boot off a USB hard drive? I think I'll learn more about how Norton Ghost 10 actually works once it gets here. That may answer a question or two.