Monday, June 10, 2002		Article

Get your partitions in place
Vipul Verma

The task of setting up a new computer for use begins with formatting and partitioning its hard disk. The hard disk is the basic medium of storage and comes unformatted from the factory as standard setting, which means you have to make it usable for yourself by formatting it and only after that can you install the operating system on it.

The task of formatting does not end here. It is followed by partitioning of the hard disk as they are nowadays very large in size. Moreover, the task of formatting followed by partitioning could be needed later on also, in case something goes wrong with the computer. For the purpose of this article it has been assumed that you are using a new hard disk, though the procedure for old hard disks is also same.

For formatting, the most basic tool you would require is a boot disk containing the FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM programs. This is practically the only requirement for formatting. To begin with, insert the floppy in the drive and start your computer. The computer will automatically boot with the floppy drive. However, if by any chance the system does not boot with the floppy, you would need to change the boot sequence in the BIOS setup. By default, floppy drive is set up first in the boot sequence.

On booting from the floppy the system will automatically boot into DOS, A: Now you can give the command Format C: and then press Enter. You should be extra careful using the Format command as one incorrect keystroke can result in major data loss. Particularly in a system with multiple hard disk drives make sure you are working on the right physical disk or you may accidentally end up disturbing the contents of a wrong drive. Also, be clear in your mind that the DOS drive letters can change after creating or deleting partitions, and that with multiple hard disks the partitions may be lettered in an unexpected sequence. This procedure will format the hard disk. If you format an old hard disk, which has partitions on it, you would be required to format each and every partition using the command mentioned above.

Now begins the task of partitioning. In its simplest sense it means dividing your hard disk in a way that each portion works like a separate hard disk for all practical purposes, thus enabling you to load another operating system, install software etc. Before you begin partitioning, be very clear as to how many partitions and of what sizes you want. After you partition your hard disk once and start working, it will be very difficult to alter the partitions.

For partitioning, give the command FDISK followed by Enter. If you plan to have your entire hard disk as only one section (partition), then the procedure is as follows: select from the FDISK menu "1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive". Select "1. Create Primary DOS Partition". FDISK will verify drive integrity. Then it will ask if you want to use the maximum available size of the disk for the primary partition and set it active. Enter "Y". The system will allocate the whole disk to the partition, and you are through. Now press ESC to exit FDISK and restart your system.

However, if you want to set up more than one partition, as is the case normally these days, then there is a little more to the procedure. First of all, select from the FDISK menu "1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive". Select "1. Create Primary DOS Partition". FDISK will verify drive integrity. Then it will ask if you want to use the maximum available size of the disk for the primary partition and set it active. Enter "N". The system will show the size of the entire disk in MB. Enter the size of the primary partition. Since this would be the primary DOS partition or the basic Drive, i.e. C:, you should make this partition the largest. Now press ESC to return to FDISK menu. Now Select "2. Set active partition". Select partition 1. FDISK will report that it has set partition 1 active. Press Esc again to return to the FDISK menu. Take care to press ESC only once. Now Select from the FDISK menu "1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive". Select "2. Create Extended DOS Partition". When prompted, press Enter to select the entire remaining area of the disk for the extended DOS partition. FDISK will report that it has created the extended DOS partition. Now press Esc again. FDISK will now automatically prompt you to create your first logical DOS volume within the extended DOS partition. Enter the size of the first logical partition (the second partition overall). FDISK will create the partition, and would label it "D:". Now with in a few seconds FDISK will prompt you for the next volume. Now repeat the previous step for the remaining partitions that can be made on your hard disk. When all of the partitions have been created and the hard disk space is exhausted, FDISK will report "All available space in the Extended DOS Partition is assigned to logical drives". Now press Esc to exit FDISK. This makes the task of partitioning complete. Once you are through, reboot your machine.

Now you will have to format each partition individually. One thing is very important here: format the hard disk once before you partition your hard disk, because if there are any bad sectors-could be even very small in number-they may get hidden in the process of partitioning as the Windows could use this space for writing necessary information like file allocation table, etc. But formatting the hard disk before partitioning prevents any such problem.

Once your partitions are in place, format each and every partition individually using the command format c:/s. The command format c:/s is very important because this will make your C: drive bootable. Although in this process you will get some warnings also, you can ignore them as you have no data on your hard disk. Format other partitions also in the same way, but the command would be modified a bit for other partitions as it will not have the prefix /s. Therefore, if you have to partition the D Drive the command would be Format D: or Format E:, etc., as the case may be. This makes the task of formatting and partitioning complete.