|
Build Computers:
Step 15: Partition Hard Drive
After you build your own computer, you need to partition and format the Hard Drive to install the Operating System.
Partitioning a hard drive means that you are creating the boot sector as well as dividing the hard drive into other logical drives (C,D,E, etc.). This step is performed using the FDISK command. This command should be on your system boot disk.
After you build your own computer, you need to think about the number of partitions that you intend to make on your Hard Drive or if you want one large partition for the complete Drive.
If your Drive is larger than 40GB, you may want to partition it. With modern Operating Systems (like Windows 98, 2000 and XP) you will want to use FAT32 file system.
Partitioning Hard Drive:
Insert the system disk in the floppy drive and reboot computer. After a brief moment, you will be taken to the 'A:>' prompt where you will type the following command:
'FDISK'
This command is used to partition the drive. Follow the menus to create either a single partion for the whole drive or multiple partitions. The first partition must be made active to make it bootable.
You will then see a prompt (DO YOU WISH TO ENABLE LARGE DISK SUPPORT Y/N)?. You should answer "YES". This enables the partition to be created using the FAT32 file system.
You can also continue to accept default entries for all the prompts to partition the drive as a single bootable partition that covers the whole drive.
Exit 'FDISK'; this reboots the system.
Formatting the Hard Drive:
After you build your own computer, you need to format the Hard Drive before you can install the Operating System.
Firstly, you need to reboot the PC with the system disk and then format each partition that you created. The first partition is formatted using the FORMAT command as follows:
'FORMAT C:'
If you have more partitions, you can format them by running the FORMAT command and changing the drive letter for each partition that needs to be formatted.
After you have formatted the drive, you should reboot the computer again with the system disk.
Installing DVD/CD-ROM Drivers:
After you Build Your Own Cheap Computer, to be able to use your system, you have to install an Operating System.
Since most Operating Systems now come on CDs, if your system does not support booting from a CD, you will need to install the DVD/CD-ROM Drivers.
To continue with the build your own computer guide, you now need to install the Drivers.
To install the Drivers, you should have a system disk properly configured to support the DVD/CD-ROM drive in your system.
This requires that real-mode (DOS-based) Drivers be installed on the disk that is compatible with your Drive.
The easiest solution is a Windows 98 or later system disk because it is already prepared with the proper Drivers for over 99% of all the systems on the market.
This disk should have the appropriate CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to enable DVD/CD-ROM support.
If the Driver is called CDROM.SYS, that file - along with the following line, should be added to the CONFIG.SYS file on your Windows system disk:
device=CDROM.SYS /D:oemcd001
This causes the CDROM.SYS Driver to be loaded and assigns it an in-memory Driver designation of oemcd001. Any designation can be used but it should be eight characters or fewer and must match a similar designation in the next step.
Continuing the build your own computer guide, you should now load the DVD/CD-ROM extensions Driver in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. This Driver is called MSCDEX.EXE and is already included on the Windows system disk.
If you use the designation listed in the previous step, add the following line to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file on the system disk:
LH MSCDEX.EXE /D:oemcd001
This loads the MSCDEX.EXE Driver (in upper memory via the LH or LoadHigh command if possible) and looks to attach to the DVD/CD-ROM Driver loaded earlier via the Driver designation oemcd001 in this case.
After these lines are added to the CONFIG.SYS and the AUTOEXEC.BAT files, you should reboot with the system disk.
If you followed the Build Your Own Cheap Computer tutorial carefully, you should now be able to access your DVD/CD-ROM drive.
It will appear one drive letter after your last drive partition. That is, if your hard disk partitions are C: and D:, the DVD/CD-ROM Drive will be E:.
You have now installed your DVD/CD-ROM Drivers and can now install the Windows Operating System of your choice.
|
