Laptop DVD into SATA desktop

[Magnum]

The following applies to one drive that is currently hooked up.

I installed a 300 Gb drive.

It's currently being formatted to ext2.

It will take 4 hrs.

Is that because of the 8 gb hidden partition that is being merged with the large partition ?

I will want at least 3 partitions.

(With Puppy and Windows on my other system, they both use less that 100 Gb.)

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Since it has no wireless card yet, I will get one recommended for Linux and Windows.

Second drive is also 300 gb and I don't know which Windows version was on it, but Disk Repair could not help.

I have some disk utilities, but they are on a CD  and I have no CD/DVD burner.

Andy

[dedndave]

repartition before formatting
if you have an 8 GB hidden partition, it may have Vista installation files on there   :icon_eek:
you can use quick format, but it doesn't test the data area, of course - much faster, though