How to partition hard drive
Partition Hard Drive
How to partition hard drive into logical drives
This article explains how to partition a hard drive into 2 or more logical drives. I recently did this with a 15 gigabyte hard drive, and made
it into two 7.162 gigabyte drives. To do this you will need a windows 98 boot disk.
Partition Hard Drive Step 1
Boot your computer up with your windows 98 boot disk. When you get to the A: prompt type in fdisk, and press enter. you will be then asked if
you want to enable large disk support. Say yes if you want FAT32, and no for FAT16. You Will be asked the following:
1. Create DOS Partition or logical DOS Drive. 2. Set active partition. 3. Delete partition or logical DOS Drive. 4. display partition
information.
If you are doing a new hard drive install, select option 1, and skip to part 3
Partition Hard Drive Step 2
if you are partitioning a used hard drive that ready has data on it, you should first select option 4, to display the partition information.
Press esc to return to the fdisk options screen. next step is to select option 3 and delete any logical drives that may exist.
After selecting 3, you will be asked the following options;
1. Delete primary dos partition 2. Delete extended dos partition 3. Delete logical dos drive(s) in the extended partition 4. Delete non-dos
partition
you selection depends on how the hard drive was previously partitioned. if it has an extended partition, and logical drives they will have to
be deleted. After you delete the logical drives, you can the delete the extended and primary dos partitions.
enter option 1 to delete primary dos partition, you would do this if the hard drive had only one partition. your next screen displays your
current partition information and you get this message
"warning" data in the deleted primary dos partition will be lost. What primary partition do you want to delete. [1]. enter volume label, here
you put in the used for the volume label, if there is one. After enrering the volume label, it asks you Arer you sure? (Y/N)...? Enter [Y]. After
deleting the partition(s), you are now ready to Create new a partition(s).
Partition Hard Drive Step 3 Back to fdisk options screen
1. Create DOS Partition or logical DOS Drive. 2. Set active partition. 3. Delete partition or logical DOS Drive. 4. display partition
information.
Enter choice [1]
The next screen is Create Primary DOS Partition. Here is asks Do you wish to use the maximum available size for a Primary DOS Partition and
make the partition active...(Y/N)? Enter [N] if you are going to make more than one partition. Enter [Y] if your are just making one
partition.
Your computer will verify drive integrity, then display the total disk space that is available in mybytes. Your screen should say something
like this: Maximum Space available for partition is "X no of mybytes" (100%). Enter partition size in mbytes or percent of disk(%) to create a
Primary DOS partition...
Here is where you make the size of your primary partition. If you are dividing your Hard drive into 2 drives, enter 50%. An example would be
to take a 40 gigabyte hard drive and make into two 20 gigabyte drives.
Another example would be if you want to take 40 gigabyte hard drive, and divide it into four 10 gigabyte drives, Here you would make your
primary partition 25% or enter the amount of mybytes. This would leave your extended partition size of 75%. Where you would then divide it into 3
logical drives at 33%. (Auctually, 2 would be 33% and 1 would be 34%) This would give you 4 drives, C, D, E, and F. all around 10 gb each
Just rember that you are first dividing the drive into a primary and extended partitions. Then dividing the extended partition into logical
drives. This can seem a bit confusing, the first time you do it.
Now, after you create your primary DOS partition, the next step is to set the active partition.
You will be asked the following options:
1. Create Dos Partition or logical DOS drive 2. Set active partition 3. Delete partition or logical drive 4. Display partition information
Select [2] to set the partition. You will next be asked to enter the partition you want to make active, select [1] to make partition 1 the
active partition.
Partition Hard Drive Step 4
Next is to make an extended DOS partition,
1. Create Primary DOS Partition 2. Create Extended DOS Partition 3. Create Logical DOS Drives in the Extended Partition
Select option [2] to create the Extended DOS Partition. It will verify the drive, then tell you how much maximum space available for the
extended partition. Here you have the amount of mbytes already entered for you.
Note: If you are dividing your drive into two even partitions it should say 50% beside the amount in mybytes. Anyway, you want to use the
maximum amount that it says is available.
Say [Y] and create the partition. After you create the extended partition you will get a screen displaying the partition information.
Partition Hard Drive Step 5
To make a Extended partition with just one logical drive you would enter the maximum mybytes available, or 100%
Note: If you want to make more than one logical drive in the extended partition enter the percentage or size in mybytes that you want the
logical drive to be. Example: If I wanted to divide my EXT DOS partition into 2 logical drives i would enter 50% or the amount in mybytes,
divided by 2.This would give me a total of 3 logical drives on one hard drive, C:, D:, and E: If I wanted to divide my EXT DOS partition into 3
logical drives, i would enter 33%, or the amount in mybytes divided by 3. This would give me a total of 4 logical drives on one hard drive, C:.
D:, E: and F:
Partition Hard Drive Step 6
Display your partition information by selecting option 4 from the FDISK options screen:
1. Create Dos Partition or logical DOS drive 2. Set active partition 3. Delete partition or logical drive 4. Display partition information
If every thing looks ok press esc to exit fdisk
You get the following message: "You must restart your system for your changes to take effect. Any drives you have created or changed must be
formated after you start.
Partition Hard Drive Step 7
Restart again with the start up disk. When you get to the A: prompt, you can format your drives, to do this type in format c:, eg.
A:>format C: and press enter. You will get a warning saying " All data on non-removable disk c: will be lost. Proceed with format (Y/N)...?
Press [Y] After the format, you will be asked to enter a volume label for the drive.
Do this for all the drives that you have created. Such as format D: or format E:, and so on until all drives are formated.
Partition Hard Drive Step 8
Last step is to install the operating system. Put in the operating system disk into the CD-ROM, and change from your A: prompt to the letter
asigned to your CD-ROM. In my case it was the E: drive, as I made drives C: and D: in my hard disk, and E was the next letter available.
Once you are in the CD-ROM drive press setup and then enter. eg E:>setup
This will get your operating system CD started. You will be asked to perform scandisk. After scandisk is complete press [Exit], then enter.
Your operating System will start to load.
Thats it, you just learned How to partition hard drive into logical drives.
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