How Do I partition And Format My Hard Disk Using XP Setup
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There comes a time when it becomes necessary to either reformat your hard drive or else, if you have just installed a new hard drive, create a new partition. This can easily be achieved during the installation of Windows XP or simply from the setup procedure of the XP CD. One point worth drawing your attention to, however, is that, if your hard disk is not empty - in other words it contains data - at the time you come to reformat or create a partition, all of the data on the drive will be destroyed. Therefore do not attempt to reformat or create partitions using the XP setup unless you have backed up all your important data to CD or tape media. The object of the exercise of partitioning is to create a master partition for you to install a copy of XP onto your pc. Further partitions can easily be created either during the XP installation or else after XP has been installed. To create a partition from within windows use the disk management options from within Administrative Tools. 1/ Before starting make sure that your CD-ROM is the first boot disc. You may need to make alterations in the BIOS. see How do I Enable CD-ROM support in the BIOS 2/ Insert the Windows XP CD into your CD-ROM and reboot your machine 3/ The Windows XP files will begin loading into memory 4/ When the Welcome to Setup screen appear press Enter 5/ The next screen should be the license agreement 6/ Press F8 to accept 7/ Set up will now search your hard drive to see if any other installations of XP exist on your drive 8/ If a copy of XP is found you will be given the option of either Repairing or Installing a New Copy 9/ Select Install New Copy 10 The next screen will show all existing partitions and unpartitioned space 11/ Use the arrow keys to select the partition or unpartitioned space you require 12/ Now if you want to Delete a partition press D followed by L on the next screen 13/ Repeat this procedure for all partitions you wish to Delete 14/ After all partitions have been deleted you can select the unpartitioned space and begin creating the new partition 15/ To Create a partition in the unpartitioned space press C 16/ On the next screen type the size of your new partition in megabytes and then press Enter 17/ If you now want Windows XP to continue its installation select the partition you want to install XP on and press Enter 18/ NOTE: If you don't want to install XP and instead you want to Quit the installation press F3 twice 19/ If you are continuing with installation the next screen will be the format screen 20/ The available format options are:
21/ If the partition has already been formatted then the 'Leave the current file system intact' is highlighted. 22/ using the Up and Down Arrow keys select the file system you want your partition to be formatted in and press Enter 23/ As a general rule the following file system rules apply
24/ After the partition has been formatted Windows XP will continue to install as normal |