Creating Partitions Of a Hard Disk Win 98 And Me

1. Start the computer with a bootable disk. It may be the disk of dos or emergency disk of windows 98. This disk must contain the fdisk command to create the partitions of the hard disk.

2. The steps to create the partition are as follows:

(a) Type fdisk on the command prompt.
(b) Press y to accept the support for the large disk.
(c) The next screen shows the options available for the fdisk. Select one of these option according to your requirement:

1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive
2. Set active partition
3. Delete partition or Logical DOS drive
4. Display partition information

You have to choose one number out of these four to do the desired task or you can select to press esc button to exit from the fdisk.

CASE1 UNPARTITIONED HARD DISK
CASE2 REPARTITIONING OF ALDEARY DEFINED PARTITIONS



CASE 1
DEFINING NEW PARTITIONS

1. For a hard disk with no partitions defined select first option by typing ‘1’.
2. The following option will be available:

(a) Create Primary DOS partition
(b) Create Extended DOS partition
(c) Create Logical Drives in Extended partition

5. Select the first option to create primary DOS partition by typing ’1’.
6. The system will verify the integrity of the disk to create the partition.
7. Then the system will ask that whether the whole available space is to be used for the primary partition of the disk. You can select to press y to use the whole space for the primary partition or n to create more then one partitions.

Creating a single partition.

8. If you want to create only one partition press ‘ y’ the system will make only one partition of the disk and it will be active automatically. (It is recommended not to use a single partition on your hard disk)
9. You must preview your partition by using the fourth option of the first screen.
10. Press esc to quit from fdisk
11. Restart the system to make the partitioning effective.

Creating more than one partition.

12. If you want to create more than one partition press ‘n’
13. The system verifies the disk space and then displays the Total Disk Space.
14. It will inquire the size of the primary partition, to be specified in megabytes.
15. Type the size in numbers then press enter.
16. A screen will display the properties of the primary partition.
17. Press esc to go to the first screen.

Creating Extended DOS partition.

18. To create the extended partition of the remaining hard disk space select option2 by typing’2’(option of Create EXTENDED DOS Partition)
19. The system will verify the hard disk and will inquire the space for the extended partition.
20. Accept the whole available space for the extended partitions
21. Press enter
22. The next screen shows the primary and extended partition with no defined logical partition.

Creating Logical Drives.

23. To create logical drives in the extended partition select the third option by typing ‘3’ ( Option of Create LOGICAL DRIVES)or press ‘y’ after completion of the extended partition.
24. Specify the size of the logical drive in MB.
25. The next screen shows the logical drive with the allotted space.
26. You can define the next logical drive according to your hard disk usage plan.

Set Partition Active.

27. If there is only one partition then it will be active by default, but if the disk is divided in to primary and extended partition then the primary partition must be set active.
28. On the first screen of the fdisk, select the second option by typing ‘2’ (option no 2 set active partition).
29. Provide the number of the partition to be set active. Mostly primary c drive has number 1.
30. Press esc to go back to the main screen then esc to exit from fdisk.
31. You must restart your system

CASE 2
REDEFINING PARTITIONS


If you want to refine the partitions of the hard disk then follow these steps
3. Select the third option of the fdisk (option to Delete partition or Logical Drives) by typing ‘3’ on the first screen.
4. You will get the following options:

(a) Delete Primary partition
(b) Delete Extended partition
(c) Delete Logical drives in the Extended partition
(d) Delete non-dos partition

5. You can select any option by selecting the associated number of the option. But you must remove the logical drives before removing the extended partition and extended partition must be removed prior to primary partition.

Deleting Logical Drives in the Extended Partition

5. Type ‘3’ to remove the logical drives of the extended partition.
6. Provide the drive letter of the drive to be removed.
7. Repeat these two steps for all defined logical drives.
8. Press esc to go back to the main screen.

Deleting Extended Partition

9. Type ‘3’ to select the third option on the main screen (option to Delete partition or Logical Drives)
10. Select the second option by typing ‘2’ (option to Delete Extended Partition)
11. Press ‘y’ to confirm the deletion of the extended partition.
12. Press esc

Deleting Primary Partition

13. Type ‘3’ to select the third option on the main screen (option to Delete partition or Logical Drives)
14. Select the second option by typing ‘1’ (option to Delete Primary Partition)

15. Provide the number of the partition to be deleted and its label then confirm it by pressing ‘y’.

16. Press esc to go to the main screen.