Partitioning Guide

This will show you how to put multiple partitions on your hard drive, create and format logical drives, then install Win98se in a very simple and fast manner. For the benefit of beginners, the following instructions will create 2 partitons only. The main benefit of having multiple partitions is to isolate and save your data files. In the event that you need to format your hard drive due to a corrupt operating system, you will not need to worry about backing up your files.

First of all I want to say that this is written for the novice in mind. Some of the things explained may sound very obvious. If you know these things already please bear with me!

The goals of this guide are:

Delete old partitions.
Create new primary partition.
Create new extended partition and create new logical drive on it.
Format your new logical drives.
Copy Win98se CD to the hard drive and start setup.

BEFORE YOU START

Before you proceed, be aware that these procedures will wipe all data from your hard drive! Proceed only if you are confident that you want to do this. Prior to beginning, back up any data you want to save on floppies or CD's. Also, print out this guide so you can have it to refer to while your computer is down.

I am assuming you have a boot floppy and a Win98se installation CD. If you do not have a Win98se boot disc you can download W98se boot floppy here. You can either put a blank floppy in your drive, click the above link and select Open and follow the prompts to let it load onto the floppy, or you can also save it to your hard drive and execute it from there. This is a standard W98se bootfloppy but if you need support for hard drives larger than 64 GB, you can also download updated FDISK here. All you need do is open the regular boot floppy and rename FDISK.EXE to FDISK.old. Then copy the new FDISK into the boot floppy.

Make sure you have your Windows Installation CD Product Key! This is vital! If you format your drive but do not have the key, you will be unable to re-install Windows! Search for it on the CD package. If you cannot find it but you have the Win98se already installed you can find the product key in the registry. Click Start > Run... and enter REGEDIT. When the registry editor is open look to the left and navigate to: HKEY_Local_Machine > Software > Microsoft > Windows > Current Version. Highlight Current Version on the left and scroll down the list on the right until you see ProductKey and to the right of it the key, which is five groups of five characters similar to this: A2BB3-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX. Copy this down carefully at least three times until you get it right! If you don't and you format this key will be lost forever!

Also make sure you have all your device drivers: video adapter, audio adapter, printer, etc., especially your modem or network card driver! If you don't have these you won't be able to get online to find them.

In case you run into any errors it is a good plan to read and print off my Win98se Setup.txt. This runs about 23 pages long and gives you many setup tips and also setup errors to help you troubleshoot any problems you may encounter. If you don't want the entire page printed off then just highlight and print those sections that interest you.

WARNING!: Make sure your CD is a full installation CD before you proceed! I have written this guide step by step while actually performing the steps on my old backup computer so I KNOW THIS WORKS! When I copy my Windows CD to HDD it is a retail copy. Some OEM copies cannot be copied to disc, then started by entering "setup" in DOS. They must be inserted into the drive and the machine booted to start the installation process. Please follow the instructions that come with your particular computer/Windows CD combination.

DISCLAIMER: Use this information and proceed at your own risk! I assume no responsibility for anything you do to your system. I cannot be responsible for that which I cannot see or control!

PART 1: DELETING OLD PARTITIONS

1) Start your computer with the boot floppy. Select 1. Start computer with CD-ROM support. You don't need CD-ROM support yet but it's nice to know that it's working.

2) At the A prompt type fdisk then hit enter.

3) You should see a descriptive paragraph. Read it, then note the prompt at the end: "Do you wish to enable large disk support (y/n)?" Enter y. You will see the following screen:

FDISK OPTIONS

Create DOS partition or logical DOS drive.
Set active partition.
Delete partition or logical DOS drive.
Display Partition Information.

5) Choose 1. You should see the next screen:

DELETE PRIMARY DOS PARTITION

Warning! data...will be lost.
What primary partition do you want to delete?[ ]

6) Enter 1. When prompted, enter the volume label if it has one. If not, enter blank. You should now see: "Primary DOS partition deleted." Hit ESC to continue.

PART 2: CREATE NEW PRIMARY PARTITION

1) Continue back to the main fdisk screen. Select 1. Create DOS partition or logical DOS drive. You should see the following screen:

CREATE DOS PARTITION OR LOGICAL DOS DRIVE

Create primary DOS partition.
Create extended DOS partition.
Create logical DOS drive(s) in the extended DOS partition.

2) Choose 1. It will display "Verifying drive integrity...". When finished it will display: "Do you wish to use the maximum available size for a primary DOS drive and make it active?. Choose N. It will again verify drive integrity. When complete, it will display the following screen:

3) CREATE PRIMARY DOS PARTITION

You should see: "Total space is...(depends on the size of your hard drive). Enter partition size in Mbytes or percent of disk space (%) to create a primary DOS partition..." Choose 50%. It should then show: Partition C:1, Status,..., Usage 50%.

PART 3: CREATE NEW EXTENDED PARTITION AND CREATE LOGICAL DRIVE ON IT

1) At the main FDISK OPTIONS screen choose 1. Create DOS partition or logical DOS drive. You should be back at the CREATE DOS PARTITION OR LOGICAL DOS DRIVE screen. Choose 2. Create extended DOS partition. It will verify again then show total disk space and maximum space available. Enter 100%, or the displayed amount. It will say extended DOS partition created.

2) Next you should see: "No logical drives defined. Total extended DOS partition size... Maximum space available for logical drive is...(100)%. Enter logical drive size in Mbytes or percent of disk space." Enter 100%. You will then see "All available space is the extended DOS partition is assigned to logical drives."

3) At the main screen choose 2. Set active partition. Select 1 and you should see an "A" next to C:

4) When back at the main menu choose 4. display partition information. You should see C: displayed and: "The extended DOS partition contains logical DOS drives. Do you want to display the logical drive information?" Choose "Y" and you should see D: with its Mbyte size.

5) Exit fdisk and at the A:\ prompt press CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot.

PART 4: FORMAT YOUR NEW LOGICAL DRIVES

1) Start with CD-ROM support. You should notice RAMdrive virtual disk E: At this point your CD-ROM drive will be pushed back temporarily to F:

2) At the A:\> type format C:. Formatting will begin. The time required will depend upon the speed of your system. When you see the new C: information and the A prompt again type format D: and allow it to run also.

PART 5: COPY WIN98se CD TO THE HARD DRIVE AND START SETUP

Some Windows Installation CD's cannot be copied to the hard drive and run from DOS. My girlfriend's Dell is like this. If you have such a disc, after you format simply put the CD in the drive and reboot the computer and installation should commence. If you receive a message stating that no OS was found you will have to enter the BIOS and set CD-ROM as the first boot device.

1) At the A prompt type C: You should then have C:\>. Type md windows (this creates a windows folder on your C: drive). Type md windows\options (this creates an options folder in your windows folder). Type md windows\options\cabs (this creates a cabs folder in your options folder).

2) Type cd windows\options\cabs. This puts you in the cabs folder. You should see C:\windows\options\cabs>.

3) Put your Win98se CD in the drive and type copy F:\*.* (in DOS the star is a wildcard. The entire line means "copy (to the cabs folder) from F: all file names with all file extentions).

4) You should see a long list of files scrolling on the screen. Most of them will have .cab extentions. When copying is done you should see a line like: 101 file(s) copied.

5) Once you have the C:\windows\options\cabs prompt back all you need do is type setup and installation will begin! Then all you need do is follow normal installation procedures. And by installing from the HDD you should notice a faster than normal installation.

~Jim

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