Please help
- Thread starter Comeau
- Start date
- Status
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.
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:\> type restart 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.
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.
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:\> type restart 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.
- Status
