Ok, I'm ready! I'm about to install a new Maxtor 60GB HDD into an older Micron 350 PII computer via a Maxtor ATA/133 PCI card. I plan to have this as the only HDD and plan a clean install of Windows XP.

Question: Since I am using a PCI card to overcome BIOS limitations, do I need to use the Maxtor HDD software (MaxBlast) at all? I do not want to install any overlay software. I beleive EZ-Bios is the name of their overlay software. So the steps would be:

1. Install PCI card
2. Remove old drive and install new Maxtor HDD
3. Use Fdisk to partition
4. Install XP

Is this right?

Most PCI Cards contain a built-in BIOS that should detect the Hard Drive. This should make it possible for you to modify your installation procedure to the following:

1. Install PCI card and new HDD
2. Install XP

The XP Installation should give you the ability to setup your partitions at the time of install and therefore eliminate the need to run FDISK. I have setup several machines recently using this methodology for 2000 and XP and have had no problems.

Just found out that my NVidia Riva 128 video card is not 100% compatable with XP...and upgrade not avaialble.

Does that change the answer above? i.e. should I use Fdisk now?

No, you still don't need to use fdisk, but if you go ahead and install XP, expect problems with your video.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I mean I will not install XP now, rather I will stick with Win98...does that mean use Fdisk?

Also, can someone recommend a cheap (under $35) video card that's compatible with XP and Plus! Nvidia? Radeon? No games, just MS Office, internet, etc.

If you are using Win98, then yes, you use fdisk...

I bought an ATI card by Saphire at Newegg for a system that was using WinXP and it seemed to work fine. It was 64meg I believe and was pretty cheap.