Graphic tutorial on using FDISK for hard disk partitioning

Graphic explanation of Hard Disk partitioning

FDISK is the most commonly used tool for partitioning hard disks. It exists in the Windows 98 boot disk or the Windows \ Command directory of the system disk.

The following describes how to use FDISK to partition a hard disk.

Before using FDISK to partition the hard disk, you also need to set the BIOS boot sequence.

Start the computer, press "Del" to enter BIOS settings, and select "Advanced BIOS Features" from the menu, change "First Boot Device" (First Boot Device) to "CD-ROM" (disc Boot) or "Floppy" (Floppy disk Boot ), press the "F10" key to save and exit the BIOS settings.

After you start the system with a Windows 98 boot disk, a prompt (E) appears ).

The first prompt indicates that the computer is started and the optical drive is used.

The second option indicates that the computer is started but the optical drive is not used.

The third item is to browse the Help file.

After the system is properly guided, Enter the "FDISK" command at the DOS prompt, and press "Enter" to display the prompt page shown in 1.

Figure 1

The information shown in Figure 1 indicates that the disk capacity has exceeded 512 MB. to make full use of the disk performance, we recommend that you use the FAT32 File System Format for disk partitioning. Press "Y" and then press "Enter" to go to the main operation interface of the "FDISK" command, 2.

Figure 2 main operation interface of the FDISK command

The meanings of the items in Figure 2 are as follows:

(1) create a DOS partition or logical drive

(2) Set active partitions

(3) Delete a partition or logical Partition

(4) display partition information

⑸ Select the disk to be modified (this option is not available if it is a single hard disk)

If you want to create a partition, press 1 and then press Enter.

Figure 3 create a DOS partition or logical drive

The meanings of the items in Figure 3 are as follows:

(1) create a primary Partition

(2) create an extended partition

(3) create a logical Partition

Tip: partition the hard disk in the following order:

Primary partition → extended partition → logical Partition

Deleting a partition is the opposite.

One hard disk can be divided into multiple primary partitions, but it does not need to be divided too much. One disk is sufficient. The disk space other than the primary partition is the extended partition, while the logical partition is obtained by dividing the extended partition.

I, Create primary Partition

Follow these steps to create a primary partition using FDISK:

(1) FDISK's "create DOS partition or logical drive interface" (3) press the "Enter" key to display the interface shown in 4, showing that FDISK starts to detect the hard disk.

Figure 4 hard disk scan by DOS partition

(2) After the detection is complete, the screen prompts "do you want to take the entire hard disk space as the primary partition and activate it", 5. Generally, the primary partition is a drive C. No one may split the entire hard disk into one partition now !!!, Press N and Enter to continue.

Figure 5

(3) The program scans the hard disk again. After scanning, the user is required to enter the size of the primary partition (6 ).

Figure 6

(4) You can enter a value (in MB) or a percentage. In this example, enter 1000 MB. After entering the information, press Enter to confirm that the system will automatically allocate the logical drive letter C to the primary partition. After the partition is created, a message is displayed, indicating that the primary partition has been created. The size of the primary partition and the proportion of the hard disk occupied by the primary partition are displayed. Primary partition success. 7

Primary partition completed

Ii. Create extended partitions

To create an extended partition, follow these steps:

After the primary partition is created, Press Esc to return to the FDISK main menu (2 ). Select 1 and press Enter. In FDISK's "create DOS partition or logical drive interface" (3), select 2.

The program starts scanning the hard disk to establish the capacity of the extended partition. After the scan is complete, the screen displays all the capacity of the currently scalable partitions. Press Enter. If you want to install an operating system other than Microsoft, you can enter the size or percentage of the extended partition space as needed. 8

Figure 8

In this example, press Enter ". Divide all the remaining space into extended partitions. At this time, the screen shows the size of the extended partition and the proportion of the hard disk, 9.

Figure 9

The extended partition has been created.

3. Create logical partitions

After the extended partition is created, press the "Esc" key, and the screen prompts that there is no logical partition, 10. Okay, then we will create a logical partition.

Figure 10

To create a logical partition, follow these steps:

In figure 10, enter the size or percentage of the first logical partition. The maximum value cannot exceed the size of the extended partition. In figure 10, 2000 MB is used.

Press Enter to start scanning for the remaining disk space, 11.

Figure 11

After the first logical partition is complete, a page of 12 appears. You can enter the size of the second logical partition and create the second logical partition.

Figure 12

Figure 13

Next, the third one. 14

Figure 14

Page 15 after all logical partitions are created.

Figure 15

The logical partition is complete.

4. Set active partitions

Tip: only primary partitions can be set as active partitions. When both primary partitions and extended partitions are created on the hard disk, the primary partition must be set as active partition to activate the primary partition, otherwise, the hard disk cannot be booted. Do not forget this step.

To set an active partition, follow these steps:

After all the logical partitions are created (15), press the Esc key to return to the main FDISK interface (2), and then press 2 to set the active partition. 16.

Figure 16

Press Enter to Enter 17. At this time, the screen shows all the partitions on the hard disk for you to choose from. Only primary partition 1 and extended partition 2 can be selected for activation.

Figure 17

Select 1 and press Enter to set drive C as an active partition. A Under Status in 18 indicates that drive C is an active partition.

When the hard disk is divided into multiple primary partitions, you can set any of them as active partitions.

After partitioning, you can select 4 on the main interface of FDISK to view partition information, 19, 20, and 21.

Now, the hard disk partition is complete.

Figure 18

Figure 19

Figure 20

Figure 21

If your machine has more than one hard disk, the interface shown in Figure 22 will appear on the FDISK main interface. Here you can select the hard disk to be partitioned.

Figure 22

5. delete partitions

TPY birds may not have a few fuel-efficient lights! It's not a good thing to have a hard disk in three days.

Next I will talk about how to delete a partition.

If you want to repartition a hard disk that has already been partitiOned, you must first Delete the old partition.

To delete a partition, follow the following sequence: (opposite to the order in which the partition is created)

Delete non-DOS partitions → Delete logical partitions → Delete extended partitions → Delete primary partitions

To delete a partition, follow these steps:

On the FDISK Main Interface (2), select 3. 23

Figure 23

Press the "Enter" key to Enter the page shown in 24.

Figure 24

The meanings of the items in Figure 24 are as follows:

(1) Delete A primary DOS partition

(2) Delete an extended partition

(3) Delete logical partitions in extended partitions

(4) Delete non-DOS partitions

Non-DOS partitions are not generated unless you have installed a non-Windows operating system. If no non-DOS partition exists, the logical partition must be deleted first. In this example, there is no non-DOS partition, so select 3 directly to enter the 25 interface. In Figure 25, Enter the drive letter and volume label of the logical partition to be deleted (the volume label is not set in this example), Enter "Y", and press "Enter". The page in Figure 26 is displayed, I will not go into details. See Figure 26 ~ 28

Figure 25

Figure 26

Figure 27

Figure 28

After the logical partition is deleted, select 2 on the FDISK partition Deletion page to go to the interface shown in 29. Select the extended partition to be deleted, then press "Y" and then press "Enter" to delete the entire extended partition.

Figure 29

Finally, delete the primary partition.

On the FDISK Delete partition page, select 1 to go to the interface shown in 30. Enter the partitions to be deleted and the volume label, and then confirm the deletion. After all partitions are deleted, the interface shown in 31 is displayed.

Figure 30

Figure 31

In this case, if you select 4 in the main interface (Figure 2) of FDISK to view the partition information, the 32 interface appears, prompting that no partition exists.

All partitions are complete. Check the partition information.

The procedure is as follows:

On the FDISK Main Interface (2), select 4 and press Enter to display information about the primary partition and extended partition.

Figure 33

Figure 33 shows whether you want to display information about logical partitions. Press "Y" to display the details of the logical partition. 34.