How to format two hard drives?

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EGS

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How can I go about formatting two hard drives that are working together, one as master other as slave, keeping that configuration of master and slave? :confused:
 
If these are IDE drives, Master and Slave are set by jumpers on the back of the drives, formating them has nothing to do with it
 
Run windows setup, partition and format the master drive, load windows. From windows, go to computer management, partition and format the secondary drive.

Mater/slave settings are hardware based(well, for the most part) and will not change unless altered with jumpers or the bios(depending on the drives and motherboard)
 
If you have a Vista installation disk onhand the process has been simplified where you don't even need to install Windows to see two drives partitioned and formatted. The one favorable thing long overdue now seen is the format option in the tools options when booting from the Vista dvd. Here I use GParted regularly for a more pricise partitioning of all drive space to be followed by either the Vista tools or Disk Management in XP.
 
in windows xp right click my computer click manage and then click disk management and then select the hard drive you want to format and format it and then do the same thing for the second one but if one of them has your os on it then its better to just do it the way The_Other_One said
 
The one problem seen on several occasions when using the XP installer or Disk Management tool for partitioning a drive is leftover unallocated drive space sometimes seen at both ends of the drive. The DM simply makes it easier for the average user to see this done. Once you have the first drive OSed you simply right click on the new partition created with the DM to see it formatted. The DM is under the Storage listing when you go into the Computer Management section.

http://img525.imageshack.us/my.php?image=diskmanagementez7.jpg
 
If both drives are on the same cable they are both EIDE ATA100 type drives. They would have to be in order to slave one to the other. Those are both Parallel ATA drives using a typical flat ribbon 40wire/80conductor cable unless you bought the round type. For Serial ATA drives referred to as satas each drive has it's own thinner 7pin cable going directly to the board.
 
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