Setting Up a Just-Installed Drive

Using the setup utility

After the hard disk is physically installed, use your system's CMOS setup program to specify the hard drive type for each drive you installed in your system. In fact, you will probably receive an error message about hard drive configuration the first time you boot after installing the drive. (This is to be expected since you just changed the hard disk setup!) See your Gateway 2000 Computer System Userís Guide for instructions on accessing the setup program, or see document 1140.

1. Enter the setup program

2. Press the down arrow until you have highlighted the line representing your newly installed hard drive. For example, if your new drive is drive C, highlight the "Hard Disk 1" line. Drive D is Hard Disk 2, and so on.

3. Press the right or left arrow key to scroll through the drive types until you find the one that matches the characteristics of your drive. (The drive type number has nothing to do with the size of the disk. It is just the number for that drive's place in the list.) If one of the options is "Auto config," choose that. If one of the lines on the screen below the drive type list says "HD Block Mode," Auto config is one of your choices. Choose "Auto config!" It prevents mistakes. Parameters for several drives are shown in the table below.

4. If the "HD Block mode" is available on your system, set it to "Enabled" for each drive installed.

5. Follow steps 3 and 4 for each hard drive in your system.

6. Follow the instructions on the screen to save the changes and exit the setup program. If the choice is to press Esc or F10, choose Esc.

Setting up partitions and formatting a hard drive

Before you can use your new hard drive, you need to partition and format it. Partitioning is DOS's way of setting aside space on the drive for its files. You can have as many as two DOS partitions (called primary and extended), and two partitions for other operating systems on a drive at once. After partitioning, you can divide DOS partitions into logical drives, each with a drive letter, that DOS treats as separate drives. Then you format each drive. Formatting is like printing a map on the drive surface so DOS can tell where it is looking.

To format the new drive as drive C:

Follow these steps if you want your new drive to be drive C, from which the computer boots. If you want a typical system, this is the set of directions you should follow. If you have not already done so, follow the directions about the CMOS setup at the beginning of this document. Shut off the computer.

1. Insert MS-DOS 5.0 disk #1 into drive A and power up the computer. After a few moments, the welcome screen appears.
2. Press Enter. A list showing the date and other information apears.
3. Press Enter. A window appears asking whether to run the DOS shell. Most people prefer not to run the shell. If you do want to run the shell, press Enter and skip to step 7.
4. Press the up arrow to highlight the line that mentions the DOS shell.
5. Press Enter. A window appears. Press the down arrow to highlight "Do not run MS-DOS Shell on startup."
6. Press Enter twice. A window appears that mentions allocation space.
7. Choose "Allocate all free hard disk space for MS-DOS." Setup automatically partitions and formats the drive. Then it installs DOS.
8. Insert diskettes 2 and 3 when prompted. Finally the screen prompts you to remove the last diskette and press Enter. This reboots the computer using your new hard disk. The new hard disk is your drive C.

To format the new drive as drive D:

Follow these directions if you do not want the new drive to be your C drive. If you have not already done so, follow the directions about the CMOS setup at the beginning of this document. Leave the computer running.

1. At the C:\> prompt, type:

   fdisk

2. and press Enter. The FDISK main menu appears.

3. Choose item 5, "Change Current Fixed Disk Drive." A list of all the hard drives in your system appears.

4. Type the number that represents the new hard drive. The main menu reappears, with the drive number you just typed in the first line.

5. Choose item1, "Create a DOS Partition." Another menu appears.

6. Choose item 2, "Create Extended DOS Partition." You are prompted to choose how much of the drive to include in the partition.

7. Press Enter to include the whole drive in the partition. The Create Logical Drive menu appears. Press Enter to make the whole drive a single logical drive. (If you want more than one logical drive, follow the directions on the screen for doing so.) The main menu reappears.

8. Press Esc to exit FDISK. You return to the system prompt.

9. Type:

   format d:

   and press Enter. A warning message appears.

10. Press Y. DOS formats the disk.

To set up multiple partitions or logical drives on the new drive C:

Follow these steps only if you want to run an additional operating system, such as UNIX, on your hard drive. If you have not already done so, follow the directions about the CMOS setup at the beginning of this document.

1. Follow the first six steps in the first set of directions, about formatting drive C.

2. Choose "Allocate some free hard disk space for MS-DOS." Setup automatically begins the FDISK program.

3. Choose item1, "Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive." The partitioning menu appears.

4. Choose item1, "Create Primary DOS Partition." FDISK asks if you want to allocate all free hard disk space for MS-DOS.

5. Type N and press Enter. The screen shows the amount of space on the drive, and asks you to specify the amount of space for drive C.

6. Type the amount and press Enter. If you enter the amount of space as a percentage, be sure to include the percent sign.

7. Press Esc to return to the main menu.

8. Choose item 1, "Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive."

9. This time, choose item 2, "Create Extended DOS Partition."

10. If you are installing only MS-DOS on the computer, accept the entire amount of space for the extended partition. If you plan to install another operating system, such as UNIX, XENIX, or Novell, type in only the amount of space you want for DOS in the extended partition. The remaining space becomes the non-DOS partition, used for the other operating system.

11. Press Esc. FDISK lists the partitions.

12. Press Esc again. FDISK responds with a message stating that no logical drives have been defined and asks for the amount of space to set up for drive D.

13. Enter the size in megabytes or percentage for drive D and press Enter, then for drive E, and so on. FDISK continues to create logical drives until there is no more space on the extended partition.

14. Press Esc to return to the main menu.

15. Choose item 2, "Set Active Partition" and press Enter.

16. Type 1 and press Enter to set the primary partition active. The screen places an A in the Status column of the list of partitions.

17. Press Esc to return to the FDISK main menu.

18. Press Esc again to exit the program

19. The MS-DOS 5.0 setup program takes over again and offers to format your partitions, one at a time.

20. Choose "Format Partition" each time, and press Enter. Setup formats each partition, then installs DOS on the active primary partition. Follow the prompts to insert diskettes 2 and 3.

To Set up multiple partitions or logical drives on new drive D:

Follow these directions if you do not want the new drive to be your C drive and if you want more than one partition or logical drive on the drive. If you have not already done so, follow the directions about the CMOS setup at the beginning of this document. Leave the computer running.

1. At the C:\> prompt, type:

   fdisk

   and press Enter. The FDISK main menu appears.

2. Choose item 5, "Change Current Fixed Disk Drive." A list of all the hard drives in your system appears.

3. Type the number that represents the new hard drive. The main menu reappears, with the drive number you just typed in the first line.

4. Choose item1, "Create a DOS Partition." Another menu appears.

5. Choose item 2, "Create Extended DOS Partition." You are prompted to choose how much of the drive to include in the partition.

6. If you are installing only MS-DOS on the computer, accept the entire amount of space for the extended partition. If you plan to install another operating system, such as UNIX, XENIX, or Novel, type in only the amount of space you want for DOS in the extended partition. The remaining space becomes the non-DOS partition, used for the other operating system.

7. Press Esc. FDISK lists the partitions.

8. Press Esc again. FDISK responds with a message stating that no logical drives have been defined and asks for the amount of space to set up for drive D.

9. Enter the size in megabytes or percentage for drive D and press Enter, then for drive E, and so on. FDISK continues to create logical drives until there is no more space on the extended partition.

10. Press Esc to return to the main menu.

11. Press Esc to exit FDISK. You return to the system prompt.

12. Type:

    format d:

    and press Enter. A warning message appears.

13. Press Y. DOS formats the disk.

14. Repeat steps 12 and 13 for each logical drive you created.

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