Category: Geeks r Us
As I've written a few times, I'll soon be getting another computer, my 14th in the collection so far. It's a Dell Optiplex GX110 (not RX as I wrote earlier). I can't for the life of me find the hard disk specifications but since I've seen it in person I do know that it's got two hard drives. The second I'm installing XP on without a problem. But I need to partition the first for DOS. This version can only handle hard drives with a capacity up to 10 gb , unless there's a new patch that I don't know about yet. So can I partition it so that the os runs in one section and my documents and programs are available in the other one? If so, how do I do this? Do I need to make a boot disk of the os and partition it from there before actually installing the system or can I install the os and then partition the drive?
If you're installing DOS, use the FDisk utility to do this; you need to delete the primary partition (option 4 if I remember), create the primary and extended partitions, I don't remember what options those are, and yes you need to do one partition - your primary - to match the size your OS will recognize. As to the second one, this may require effort, because you would be creating FAT partitions for DOS, no? You would either need to make them Fat32 or use a utility like Partition Magic or Norton has one, to do this. I haven't messed with that stuff in years; and now with drives the size they are, you're getting into quite an area of challenge. If DOS - some version of it - could work on NTFS, you'd really be in business.
Hmmm, I'll have to look at the features and updates to Enhanced DR-DOS. I know as a fact they have an FDisk utility or an equivalent. Must ask around on this. Oh boy... Can I do it on my own, after the os installation, or do I need sighted assistance? I really need to buy DOS for Dummies or get up off my lazy butt and crack open that DR-DOS manual.
To do it on your own, you'd need a boot disk with a screen reader such as JAWS for Dos or ASAP, if they still have it.
Ah okay. I'll go for the help then. *smile* I've got several screenreaders but didn't know you could put one on a boot disk.
What's wrong with just partitioning the drive under xp?
As far as the 10 gig limit goes, i'm not sure how this would work in practice. My understanding was that the os just couldn't see anything over 10gb, regardless if it was on your os partition or not.
I don't want too different operating systems on one drive. I can't partition with XP cause I need to do a full format of the drive which would wipe out XP in any case. But I'm wondering why I'd need to use FDisk and then Partition Magic? I've never played with either but they appear to do the same thing. Would it be easier to just create a partition with DOS and my documents/programs in it and create another one for my music or just leave it empty, instead of making one just with the os?
I'm not sure I understand you.
To confirm, this system (Which is actually a really lovely one) will have 2 harddrives in it, one containing xp and another containing dos or what ever it is.
The xp drive will have one partition, but you intend to split the dos drive into 2 partitions?
If this is correct, then you can just boot into xp, selectthe other drive in disk management and partition untill your hearts content.
In actual fact, even if it is on the same drive, if you use something like partition magic, you'll be able to repartition it inside xp anyway.
Hmm. I'll have to consider that one. I never even knew XP had that kind of feature. So format, then partition, then install the os?
Pretty much, yeah.
Assuming your running xp pro, you can go control pannel > administrative tools > computer services > storage > diskmanagement. If the disks got a partition already, right click it and choose deleet partition.
Now, you'll get unalicated space. Right click that and then click new partition or words to that effect. Keep on clicking next untill you get to the size screen.
By default, xp will put the hole of the drive into one big partition, but this is changeable using the edit box.
You have to enter the size in bytes, and remember, 1024 bytes is 1k, 1024 k is 1 meg and 1024 mb is 1 gig, not 1000. Assuming that you didn't use all the space on the drive, once your done making the first partition, you should still see unalicated space, on which you can do the same.
I'll be running XP home. And this right click, left click, double click stuff confuses me. What are the keystrokes?
Since you are a fan of dos, use xp's command line to partition your drive.
While it is true that you can use computer management to basically do the same as diskpart, I rather prefer command lines to control the partitions.
Also, command line bypasses the left/right mouse clicks. yes, you can still do that via the keystrokes, but then you'll need to route jaws to pc and vise-versa.
Why bother with all that?
Use diskpart to partition your hard drives
e.g.
start, run, then type cmd from in xp
then type diskpart
type list disk
select the disk you want to work with
type clean (this clears everything from that disk); so make sure that is the disk you want to work with.
type help to see all the possible commands
google diskpart commands to see what does what. I can list them here, but that would be me being redundant.
If you still need more assistance, ask here, or pm me should you catch me online.
This is truly amazing. So many ways to do one thing. I can't believe there was a whole section of XP that I didn't know about until now. So just out of curiosity, what is the difference between using the command line for this in XP versus using FDdisk?
for one, diskpart is good to use when having a 2nd hd. However, you can not use it to manipulate the drive that currently in use by the OS. The fdisk is outside of windows thus it can be formatted etc.
Well, I'll need to format the drive anyway. *smile* But it sounds like this one I can do on my own, assuming I have a clue as to what I'm doing, since I can work from the drive with XP installed on it. Otherwise, I'd have to either have a sighted person use a boot disk and do it that way or perhaps put something like Vocaleyes or Provox on the disk and attempt to do it myself. I actually just thought of something else. Would it be possible for me, using XP on the second drive, to install Enhanced DR-DOS on the first and then install the screenreader etc? Wow. That would be so cool. I've never worked with a machine that had two drives.