DOS instillation

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Step 1

Now that you have all your hardware installed correctly, you will need to install the Disk Operating System.
In this section we are going to give you an overall instillation guide as well as some pointers to help you understand what is going on as well as some great resources.
Assuming that you have your hardware installed correctly, restart your computer with the first disk of the DOS program in the floppy drive.

Step 2

   When you come to the Microsoft DOS instillation guide, press F3. What we are doing now is making sure that all the necessary settings are correct so that we will not have any problems.
   At the (DOS) prompt, type fdisk so that it looks like:
   A: >Fdisk
   Press Enter (or Return) to execute program.

Step 3

In FDISK we are setting up something that is known as a partition, what these do is designate or breakup the size of the hard disk, here you can choose to have one large drive or break it up into smaller separate drives known as logical drives. For the beginner you will want to have one large hard disk but with DOS you are faces with a problem, DOS uses a system called FAT16 to locate data on the hard disk, the problem is that it can only see 2 GB of the hard disk. This and many other problems may force you to have multiple partitions or maybe you want to include the security of having multiple partitions, in this case please refer to the advanced section by clicking the following link.

Advanced setup (Comming soon)

With that said and done you will want to check to see if there are any partitions on the hard disk by choosing option 4, display partition options. If you see that the full capacity of the hard disk is used "100%" then you may want to proceed with step 5.

Step 4

Lets say that you have a situation other then having no partition installed, simply click on the links below to accommodate your needs.

I want to alter the partition information?
How do I delete a primary dos partition?
How do I delete an extended partition?
I don't see a drive installed?
Why can I only see 540 MB of my hard disk?
Why can I only see 2 GB of my hard disk?

Now that your hard disk has no partition you will need to install one, to do this you will want to do the following steps.

A) Press Esc to back out to the first screen.
B) Select option 1) Create Dos partition or logical DOS Drive
C) Select option 1) Create Primary DOS Partition
D) Now press Enter (or Return) to accept to creating a drive with the maximum capacity.
E) Make the partition Active so that your computer can see the drive.
F) Restart your computer with the floppy disk still in the drive.

Step 5

   When your computer restarts and enters the DOS Setup process you will need to get out by pressing the F3 key twice.
   At the prompt you will want to format the drive by typing format c: so that it looks like the looks like the following:
   A: > format c:
   This process will take anywhere from 3 to 30 minutes to complete, depending on the drive size.

Step 6

Now that the drive is completely installed you will need to restart the computer with the floppy disk still in the drive and proceed with the DOS instillation.

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