trouble reformating
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Place your boot floppy into the drive and reboot your computer.
( choose: Start Computer with CD-ROM support if prompted )
You should wind up at the A:\> MS-DOS prompt. Again, make absolutely, positively sure that you can access your CD-ROM at this point by typing DIR E: ( or whatever drive letter your CD-ROM drive has ), and and pressing ENTER. If you can now see a list of files on the CD you know it works.
At the A:\> prompt, type FDISK and press ENTER.
You will see a very long message, telling you that "Your computer has a disk larger than 512 MB", and asking if you wish to enable large disk support. ( "Large disk support" means "FAT32" ) Answer Y to enable large disk support.
You will see the main FDISK Options menu, and the Enter choice: prompt.
It will tell you Current fixed disk drive: 1 in other words, unless you tell it otherwise, it's going to operate on disk 1, the first disk it's found on the system. Since there's only one hard drive on your system ( Make sure this is true ), this is what you want to do.
You want to start out by deleting the existing partition from the disk.
To do that, type in 3 the Delete partition or Logical DOS drive option and press ENTER.
A menu will appear, asking you what sort of partition to delete. Enter 1 Delete Primary DOS partition and press ENTER.
A list of partitions will appear; there will probably only be one partition there. It will ask you what primary partition to delete; choose 1 the only one listed, and press ENTER.
To make absolutely sure that you know what you're doing, it may prompt you to type in the volume label for the partition, which will be listed in the partition list. If the Volume Label column is blank, then the volume label is blank too, so just press ENTER.
It will tell you Partition deleted, or words to that effect, and send you back to the main menu.
Now you want to create a new partition.
To do that, choose option 1 Create DOS partition or logical DOS drive and press ENTER.
It will prompt you for what sort of partition to create; choose option 1 Create Primary DOS partition and press ENTER.
It will prompt you Do you wish to use the maximum available size for a Primary DOS partition and make the partition active (Y/N)?
No, you don't;
that would put you right back where you started with one partition the size of the whole hard drive. So choose N and press ENTER.
It will show you the total space on the drive, and prompt you Enter size in MBytes or percent of drive space (%): You want this first partition to take up one quarter of the drive space, so type in 25% ( make sure to include the percent sign ), and press ENTER.
( If you would like a different partition size, just adjust the % number )
It should tell you Partition created; drive letters changed or added, or words to that effect. If it sends you back to the main FDISK Options menu, great; if it doesn't, just press the Esc key until you're back there.
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Before we go any farther, let's make this partition the active partition. That is the one that the system will try to boot from.
Choose option 2, Set active partition, and press ENTER.
It will show you a list of partitions which should only include one partition, the one you just created and ask you what partition to set as the active one. Choose 1 ( the number of the partition you just created ), and press ENTER. It will tell you that it's made that partition active, and prompt you to press Escape to go back to the main menu. Do that.
Now it's time to create the extended partition, the partition that will contain the remaining three partitions. Choose option 1 Create DOS partition or Logical DOS drive again.
When it prompts you for what type of partition to create, choose option 2 Create Extended DOS partition and press ENTER.
If it prompts you Do you wish to use the maximum available size?, then press Y you do. Otherwise, if it prompts you to enter a size, enter the maximum value it allows. For example, if it tells you that the maximum possible size is 12843 MBytes, enter 12843 with no percent sign and press ENTER.
FDISK should tell you that it's created the partition. Press Esc to return to the FDISK Options menu, if it doesn't send you there on its own.
Now it's time to fill up that extended partition you just created, by making three logical partitions to fill it. Again, choose option 1 Create DOS partition or logical DOS drive and press ENTER.
This time, when it asks you what type of partition to create, choose option 3 Create Logical DOS drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition and press ENTER.
It will prompt you to Enter logical drive size in MBytes or percent of disk space once again. Type in 33% with the percent sign and press ENTER.
( Remember; if your want a different size, the % number you enter is the percent of the "extended" partition )
It will create the first logical partition, and immediately prompt you to Enter logical drive size... again. This time, type in 50% with the percent sign, and press ENTER. It's 50% this time because half of the remaining is one third of what you started with.
( Again, if changing the numbers from what I list the % number is the percent of the "extended" partition )
It will create the second logical partition, and prompt you once again to "Enter logical drive size..." This time, look above the prompt, to where it says "Maximum space available for logical drives is (some number) MBytes". Type in the number of MBytes shown there, without a percent sign, and press ENTER.
It will create the third logical partition, and tell you that All available space in the Extended DOS partition is assigned to logical drives in other words, you've filled the entire space, just as you wanted to do. Press Escape to continue.
Believe it or not, you have now successfully partitioned your drive.
Press Escape once more to exit FDISK. It will give you one last warning, telling you that you must restart the computer for the changes to take effect. Press Escape one more time.
You should now be back at the A:\> prompt. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to restart the computer. Again, let it boot from the boot floppy.
When it gets back to the A:\> prompt, type FORMAT C: to format the primary partition. When that finishes, type FORMAT D:, then FORMAT E:, then FORMAT F:, to format the remaining partitions.
( choose: Start Computer with CD-ROM support if prompted )
You should wind up at the A:\> MS-DOS prompt. Again, make absolutely, positively sure that you can access your CD-ROM at this point by typing DIR E: ( or whatever drive letter your CD-ROM drive has ), and and pressing ENTER. If you can now see a list of files on the CD you know it works.
At the A:\> prompt, type FDISK and press ENTER.
You will see a very long message, telling you that "Your computer has a disk larger than 512 MB", and asking if you wish to enable large disk support. ( "Large disk support" means "FAT32" ) Answer Y to enable large disk support.
You will see the main FDISK Options menu, and the Enter choice: prompt.
It will tell you Current fixed disk drive: 1 in other words, unless you tell it otherwise, it's going to operate on disk 1, the first disk it's found on the system. Since there's only one hard drive on your system ( Make sure this is true ), this is what you want to do.
You want to start out by deleting the existing partition from the disk.
To do that, type in 3 the Delete partition or Logical DOS drive option and press ENTER.
A menu will appear, asking you what sort of partition to delete. Enter 1 Delete Primary DOS partition and press ENTER.
A list of partitions will appear; there will probably only be one partition there. It will ask you what primary partition to delete; choose 1 the only one listed, and press ENTER.
To make absolutely sure that you know what you're doing, it may prompt you to type in the volume label for the partition, which will be listed in the partition list. If the Volume Label column is blank, then the volume label is blank too, so just press ENTER.
It will tell you Partition deleted, or words to that effect, and send you back to the main menu.
Now you want to create a new partition.
To do that, choose option 1 Create DOS partition or logical DOS drive and press ENTER.
It will prompt you for what sort of partition to create; choose option 1 Create Primary DOS partition and press ENTER.
It will prompt you Do you wish to use the maximum available size for a Primary DOS partition and make the partition active (Y/N)?
No, you don't;
that would put you right back where you started with one partition the size of the whole hard drive. So choose N and press ENTER.
It will show you the total space on the drive, and prompt you Enter size in MBytes or percent of drive space (%): You want this first partition to take up one quarter of the drive space, so type in 25% ( make sure to include the percent sign ), and press ENTER.
( If you would like a different partition size, just adjust the % number )
It should tell you Partition created; drive letters changed or added, or words to that effect. If it sends you back to the main FDISK Options menu, great; if it doesn't, just press the Esc key until you're back there.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before we go any farther, let's make this partition the active partition. That is the one that the system will try to boot from.
Choose option 2, Set active partition, and press ENTER.
It will show you a list of partitions which should only include one partition, the one you just created and ask you what partition to set as the active one. Choose 1 ( the number of the partition you just created ), and press ENTER. It will tell you that it's made that partition active, and prompt you to press Escape to go back to the main menu. Do that.
Now it's time to create the extended partition, the partition that will contain the remaining three partitions. Choose option 1 Create DOS partition or Logical DOS drive again.
When it prompts you for what type of partition to create, choose option 2 Create Extended DOS partition and press ENTER.
If it prompts you Do you wish to use the maximum available size?, then press Y you do. Otherwise, if it prompts you to enter a size, enter the maximum value it allows. For example, if it tells you that the maximum possible size is 12843 MBytes, enter 12843 with no percent sign and press ENTER.
FDISK should tell you that it's created the partition. Press Esc to return to the FDISK Options menu, if it doesn't send you there on its own.
Now it's time to fill up that extended partition you just created, by making three logical partitions to fill it. Again, choose option 1 Create DOS partition or logical DOS drive and press ENTER.
This time, when it asks you what type of partition to create, choose option 3 Create Logical DOS drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition and press ENTER.
It will prompt you to Enter logical drive size in MBytes or percent of disk space once again. Type in 33% with the percent sign and press ENTER.
( Remember; if your want a different size, the % number you enter is the percent of the "extended" partition )
It will create the first logical partition, and immediately prompt you to Enter logical drive size... again. This time, type in 50% with the percent sign, and press ENTER. It's 50% this time because half of the remaining is one third of what you started with.
( Again, if changing the numbers from what I list the % number is the percent of the "extended" partition )
It will create the second logical partition, and prompt you once again to "Enter logical drive size..." This time, look above the prompt, to where it says "Maximum space available for logical drives is (some number) MBytes". Type in the number of MBytes shown there, without a percent sign, and press ENTER.
It will create the third logical partition, and tell you that All available space in the Extended DOS partition is assigned to logical drives in other words, you've filled the entire space, just as you wanted to do. Press Escape to continue.
Believe it or not, you have now successfully partitioned your drive.
Press Escape once more to exit FDISK. It will give you one last warning, telling you that you must restart the computer for the changes to take effect. Press Escape one more time.
You should now be back at the A:\> prompt. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to restart the computer. Again, let it boot from the boot floppy.
When it gets back to the A:\> prompt, type FORMAT C: to format the primary partition. When that finishes, type FORMAT D:, then FORMAT E:, then FORMAT F:, to format the remaining partitions.
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