How to Build a Computer
with an
AMD Socket A Athlon or Duron Processor
Part 8 - Prepare the Hard disk Drive
Last updated: 5/26/2001
 In
this part we discuss options for installing various versions of Windows on
the computer and we start the process by describing how to partition and
format the hard disk drive.
Windows Versions. The upgrade
version of Windows 98 Millennium Edition (Me) was installed on this particular
computer. Any version of Windows 95, 98, NT, or Windows 2000 will work. However, because
of the size of the hard disk, you would want to use Windows
95 version OSR2 or later with large disk support (FAT32),
or Windows NT or 2000 with NTFS (NT File System) partitions. If
you have an older version of Windows 95, or even Windows 3.X or Windows for
Workgroups, you should be able to install the Windows 98 or Me upgrades on
a new hard disk drive without first installing the older versions.
Want to use Linux or some other operating
system, or dual-boot? I would suggest holding-off on these more
adventurous choices until you have honed your skills a little more with
a Windows installation.
111. Make a Startup floppy per Ways
to Make a Windows 98 Startup Disk or How
to Make Windows Me Boot and Startup Floppy Disks.
Prepare the Hard Disk Drive. I
would suggest partitioning (see below) the hard disk drive into at least
two partitions for greater efficiency. It would take an awfully
long time to defrag a 30 GByte C: drive. The hard disk in this computer
was partitioned into a 8 GByte C: drive. A second partitioned
occupied the remaining space on the drive and all of it was allocated to
logical drive D:. You might want to consider a 4 GByte C: drive with
slower CPUs and a 2 GByte C: drive with both slower CPUs and 5,400 RPM hard
disk drives.
112. Boot the computer with a Windows 98,
98 SE, or Me Startup floppy. You should see a menu like this:
-
Start computer with CD-ROM support
-
Start computer without CD-ROM support
113. Select 2. Start computer
without CD-ROM support
Partition the hard disk...
114. Execute fdisk to create a new
partition on your new hard disk as follows:
A:\>fdisk
It will produce the following screen:
Your computer has a disk larger than 512
MB. This version of Windows includes improved support for large disks,
resulting in more efficient use of disk space on large drives, and allowing
disks over 2 GB to be formatted as a single drive.
IMPORTANT: If you enable large disk support and create any new drives on
this disk, you will not be able to access the new drive(s) using other operating
systems, including some versions of Windows 95 and Windows NT, as well as
earlier versions of Windows and MS-DOS. In addition, disk utilities that
were not designed explicitly for the FAT32 file system will not be able
to work with this disk. If you need to access this disk with other operating
systems or older disk utilities, do not enable large drive support. [this
is usually not a problem]
Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)...........? [Y]
115. Press the Enter key to accept the
default [Y] for FAT32. You will get the following menu:
FDISK Options
Current fixed disk drive: 1
Choose one of the following:
1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive
2. Set active partition
3. Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
4. Display partition information
Enter choice: [1]
116. Press Enter to select the default [1]. The
following screen will be displayed:
Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive
Current fixed disk drive: 1
Choose one of the following:
1. Create Primary DOS Partition
2. Create Extended DOS Partition
3. Create Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition
Enter choice: [1]
Press Esc to return to FDISK Options
117. Again, press Enter to select the
default. The following will be displayed
Create Primary DOS partition
Current fixed disk drive : 1
Verifying drive integrity, xx%
complete.
Current fixed disk drive: 1
Do you wish to use the maximum
available size for a primary DOS partition
and make the partition active (Y/N) ....................? [Y]
118. Press N for no.
After fdisk verifies the integrity again,
it will display
Total disk space is ...
Enter partition size in MBytes or percent of disk space (%)
to create a primary DOS Partition ................................ [8000]
119. Enter 8000 (8,000 Mbytes = 8 GBytes)
as I did above.
120. fdisk will then display partition
information for the C: drive followed by the main menu. Choose 2 from the
menu to set the primary partition active. The active partition is the
one which will boot after Windows is installed. Make sure the primary
partition is Active by displaying the partition information.
121. Esc out of fdisk and reboot the
computer (press Ctrl-Alt-Delete at the same time) and start the computer
without CD-ROM support.
You must exit fdisk and reboot after
creating each partition.
122. Go back into fdisk again and create
an Extended DOS partition. Select the defaults to let fdisk allocate the
reminder of the unused space on the hard disk to this partition and assign
all of the partition to Logical drive D:
The menus are quite self explanatory
for accomplishing this task. Only one of the partitions can be active.
123. After creating the partitions and
making sure the primary DOS partition is active, Esc out of fdisk to the
A:\> prompt, power-down the computer, plug-in the mouse, boot to the Startup
Floppy, and select Start Computer with CD-ROM support.
Format the drive partitions...
124. Format the C: drive as follows:
A:\> format c:
Do not use the /s flag with the format
command. We do not want to transfer the system files from the floppy
to the hard disk. Windows 98 Me Upgrade (or other versions of Windows)
will not install on the hard disk if it already has the system files
installed on it.
Get a cup of coffee...
125. Repeat for the D: drive. Get
two cups of coffee.
 Purchase
the pdf version of this article
< Previous | Contents | Top | Next
- Install Windows >
|
