Formatting A Brand New Hard Drive

I recently purchased a whole new drive and I have no clue how to format it. 2 people on another board were suppose to help me, but I am kinda in a hurry since this drive is causing many problems and I would like to get the new one up and running as soon as possible.

If anyone can give me details on how to set up the OS partiton and other partitions, please let me know. I am aware that I can use Fdisk for this?


I only need partitions for:

programs
graphics, images, etc.
Operating System

I am not sure what size to make them or what other partions may be useful. I might need one for another OS, so I can dual boot at a later time.

I am doing a clean install of basically everything. I jhave the original Windows 98SE cd with the keycode and all my other tsuff is being burnt to cd. I also have all my drivers burnt to cd as well.

For Windows 98 SE... You need to bootup with a startup diskette and use fdisk to partition the drive. I recommend 2 FAT32 partitions. One for your system and one for your data. In fdisk you need to set one as Primary DOS partition (C:) and the other as an Extended DOS partition with one logical drive (D:).

You can then format from the DOS prompt and launch the Windows setup from the CD.

Also, if your lucky, you might have an OEM version of Windows 98 SE. That version is a bootable CD and has built-in utilities so you wouldn't need the startup diskette.

Note to others: Don't use fdisk for Windows XP.

what size is the actual disk?

edit: as if its a 80 gig you may be better with 3 partitions as i think win98 has problems with partitions over 32gb i think???

@livy i think that is a bios limitation isnt it? windows 98 should be fine as long as you follow the fat32 guidelines. not sure what they are.

yeah some bioses have a 32gb disk limit, but can be overcome. i was sure i seen somewhere aboutw in98 32gb partition limit. ill go look

edit: it seems as though it is win2000/xp/2003 cannot format a fat32 partition bigger than 32gb

http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials/print...10825_2239651_2

A newer version of fdisk (that has been out for a long time) support larger partitions

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;EN-US;221829

You might have to refresh it as it doesn't always open first time round,Microsoft at they best. :lol:

thank you guys for your help.

okay so i only need to make 2 partions instead of a bunch. the people on the other board were having me make multiple partitions for different stuff.


how big should i make these partitions? so the OS should only be on C:\ partition?


here is a link i got from the other board that i understand pretty good, let me know if this is of any use:

http://www.hexff.com/win98_install.html

Quote:

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Originally posted by Virtualbody1234@3 February 2004 - 12:44
Also, if your lucky, you might have an OEM version of Windows 98 SE. That version is a bootable CD and has built-in utilities so you wouldn't need the startup diskette.

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I do have this cd :)

Quote:

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what size is the actual disk?

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I don't see the answer please give.

If you plan to install all your programs on another partition, I'd recommend setting the C: partition to 1.5 to 2GB for Win98.

Bear in mind that if Windows is shut down incorrectly or there's a power cut or some such event then the next time you boot Windows will run scandisk. Not a problem normally but if it's running in Thorough mode, it'll take absolutely forever to complete with a very large partition.
I know you can exit before it's finished but it's a good idea to let scandisk run it's course once in a while.