Actually just so that you note, you don't need the Maxtor HD format utility to reformatt your drive. In the XP Home CD, (actually all the XP CDs) when it asks you which partition to install to, you can have the option to delete all the partitions, then you select the unpartitioned free empty space and partition it to the amout you want then click next. The setup will then say that the selected partion is unformatted and it will format it for you. If you enter a partition amount lower than that of the maximum allowed partition, the rest of the space will become free unpartitioned, unformated space which you can partition later with HD partition utilities. I did this only yesterday when I accidentally deleted an important windows file but the computer kept on recognising 2 XP home editions even when I had over-written the original folder. I did it for a clean install.

P.S. I still think that you should stick to Pro. Its better than home. But its all still up for you to decide.