Preparing A Hard Disk For The Installation Of Windows 98

Preparing A Hard Disk For The Installation Of Windows 98

This step-by-step guide shows you how prepare a Hard Disk for the installation of Windows 98.

Overview

The following gives a brief overview of the steps required:

Boot From Startup Disk

Remove Current Partitions

Re-partition Hard Drive

Create Primary DOS Partition

Create Extended DOS Partition

Create Logical DOS Drive in Extended DOS Partition

Activate Primary Partition

Restart, Format, Install

Thinking About It

The process of preparing a Hard Disk for re-intallation and installation appears to be the same so the following applies to both.

The main reason for writing this document is to provide you with a guide to the process of preparing a Hard Disk for the re-installation of Windows 98.

The secondary reason is 'a note to self' document to record my own attempts at carrying out and understanding this process. For that reason - I'm not going any deeper into the topic than I need to.

In this guide I will only show you what I've done, and how I did it. I'm assuming you're reading this because you know less about re-installing Windows 98 than I do - and that's not much.

Basic Concepts

The Basic Concepts appear to be:

Booting your computer from the Startup Disk - this stops your computer starting from its Hard Disk while giving you access to the DOS fdisk and format commands
Using the DOS fdisk command to Partition your computer's Hard Disk - we're going use this to make your single Hard Disk appear to be two Logical Disks (C:\ and D:\>)
Using the DOS format command to Format the two Logical Disks created using fdisk - this prepares them for use by your computer

Note - you can use fdisk to make a single Hard Disk look like more than two Hard Disks. That is - turn one Actual Disk into two (or more) Logical Disks.

Assumptions

This step-by-step guide assumes the following of you:

That you've backed up all the files on your machine - be very sure about this. Following these setp-by-step instructions will remove Everything from your computer's Hard Disk
That you'll have a Windows 98 CD and know how to use it
That you'll have all the Device Drivers for your computer - or know how to get and install them
That you'll have a Bootable Startup Disk for Windows 98 - or know how to (make/get) one
That you 'know' DOS and are comfortable with using DOS to:
- Run commands
- Navigate between directories and drives,

Doing It

Boot From Startup Disk

Put your Startup Disk in the Floppy Drive

Start or Re-start your machine - your machine will Bootup from the Floppy Drive

During that process you'll see (something like) the following:

1. Start computer with CD-ROM support
2. Start computer without CD-ROM support
3. View the Help file.

Enter a choice: 1

If your machine doesn't Bootup from the Floppy Drive - sorry, but you're on your own. Your machine must Bootup from the Floppy Drive before you can continue.

Once your machine has Booted from the Setup Disk you will see (something like) the following:

To get help, type HELP and press Enter.

A:\>

Your machine is running in DOS mode. The only way to interact with your machine in this state is by typing DOS commands.

Remove Current Partions

Now you are ready to remove any existing Partitions on your Hard Disk.

This section assumes that you've decided - like I did - to re-partition a 10Gb Hard Disk from the appearance of a single 10Mb Hard Disk to the appearance of a 1Gb and a 9Gb Hard Disks.

This will give me a C:\ drive for Windows 98 and a D:\ drive for my files

Note The fdisk command seems to like verifying (an reverify) the intergrity of your Hard Disk so you'll be forced to wait on it between some of these steps.

Delete Primary Partition

In this section we'll delete the Primary Partition. At the A:\> prompt:

Type fdisk

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Your computer has a disk larger than 512 MB.

...

Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)..........?[Y]

This question is about whether (or not) you want to use the FAT16 or the FAT32 file system. For Windows 98 you'll almost certainly want the FAT32 file system.

Since Y is the default:

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

FDISK Options

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Choose on 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]

Press Esc to exit FDISK

Press 3

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Delete DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive

Current fixed drive: 1

Choose one of the following:

1. Delete Primary DOS Partition
2. Delete Extended DOS Partition
3. Delete Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition
4. Delete Non-DOS Partition

Enter choice: [_]

Press Esc to return to FDISK Options

Press 1

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Delete Primary DOS Partition

Current fixed drive: 1

Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage

C: 1 PRI DOS 9531 UNKNOWN 100%

Total disk space is 9531 Mbytes (1 Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)

WARNING! Data in the deleted Primary DOS Partition will be lost.
What primary partition do you want to delete..? [1]

Press Esc to return to FDISK Options

Since 1 is the default option:

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Enter Volume Label...............? [ ]

Since (in this case) my Hard Disk has no Volume Label:

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Are you sure (Y/N)...............? [Y]

Press Esc to return to FSDISK Options

Since Y is the default:

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Delete Primary DOS Partition

Current fixed drive: 1

Total disk space is 9531 Mbytes (1Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)

Primary DOS Partition deleted

Press Esc to return to continue

Press Esc - you will see (something like) the following:

You are now ready to re-partition your Hard Disk.

Re-partition Hard Drive

Create Primary DOS Partition

Since 1 is the default:

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Create Primary DOS Partition

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Do you with to use the maximum available size for a Primary DOS Partition
and make the partition active (Y/N)...............? [Y]

Press Esc to return to FDISK Options

You are being asked - if you want to use all of your Hard Disk for the Primary Partition.

Press N

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Create Primary DOS Partition

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Total disk space is 9531 Mbytes (1 Mbyte = 1046576)
Maximum spave available for partition is 9531 Mbytes (100%)

Enter partition size in Mbytes or percent of disk space (%) to
create a Primary DOS Partition

Press Esc to return to FDISK Options

You are being asked - how much of your Hard Disk you want to use for the Primary Partition.

Type 1024 (the actual number of megabytes in a gigabyte) - you'll need about this much for Windows 98 alone

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Create Primary DOS Partition

Current fixed drive: 1

Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage

C: 1 PRI DOS 1028 UNKNOWN 11%

Primary DOS Partition created

Press Esc to continue

You are now ready to create an Extended DOS Partition on your Hard Disk.

Create Create Extended DOS Partition

This will be the new D:\> drive.

Press Esc - you will see (something like) the following:

Since 1 is the default:

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

TO BE DONE

Enter 2

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

TO BE DONE

You are being asked - how much of the remaining space on your Hard Disk you want to use for the Primary Partition. To accept the defult offered by fdisk:

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Create Extended DOS Partition

Current fixed drive: 1

Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage

C: 1 PRI DOS 1028 UNKNOWN 11%

1 EXT DOS 8503 UNKNOWN 89%

Extended DOS Partition created

Press Esc to continue

Press Esc - you will see (something like) the following:

You're ready to create a Logical DOS Drive in the Extended DOS Partition.

Create Logical DOS Drive in Extended Partition

Since 1 is the default: Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

TO BE DONE

Enter 3

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

TO BE DONE

You are being asked - how much of the disp space in the Extended DOS Partition you want to use for the Logical DOS Drive.

Since we are only creating one drive in the Extended DOS Partition we'll accept the default size that fdisk offers.

To accept the default:

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Create Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition

Drv Volume Label Mbytes System Usage

D: 8503 UNKNOWN 100%

All available space is the Extended DOS Partition
is assigned to logical drives.
Press Esc to continue

Press Esc - you will see (something like) the following:

The Logical Drive D:\> is created.

You are ready to Activate the Primary Partition.

Activate Primary Partition

Press 2

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Set Active Partition

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage

C: 1 PRI DOS 1028 UNKNOWN 11%

2 EXT DOS 8503 UNKNOWN 89%

Total disk space is 9531 Mbytes (1Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)

Enter the number of the partition you want to make active...............: [_]

Press Esc to return to FDISK Options

Since 1 is the default:

Press 1

Press Enter - you will see (something like) the following:

Set Active Partition

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage

C: 1 A PRI DOS 1028 UNKNOWN 11%

2 EXT DOS 8503 UNKNOWN 89%

Total disk space is 9531 Mbytes (1Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)

Partition 1 made active

Press Esc to continue

Press Esc - you will see (something like) the following:

You MUST restart your system for your changes to take effect.
Any drives you have created or changed must be formatted
AFTER you restart.

Shut down Windows before restarting.

Press Esc to exit fdisk

You've Partitioned your Hard Disk and Activated its Primary Partition.

Restart, Format, Install

Leaving the Floppy Disk in its Floppy Drive:

Restart your computer.

When your computer has Rebooted:

Format the C:\> Drive

Format the D:\> Drive

Install Windows 98 from your Windows 98 CD

Partition	Status	Type	Volume Label	Mbytes	System	Usage
C: 1		PRI DOS		9531	UNKNOWN	100%