Dealing with DOS - Part 4


This week takes a look at one of the most feared DOS commands - FDISK, the program that allows you to change the structure of your hard disks in your computer.

**** WARNING ****

Use FDISK with extreme caution as this program can remove ALL data from a hard drive. There is no getting it back once FDISK starts. You have been warned!

What does FDISK do?

With a hard disk it is possible to split it into separate disk drives. This allows you to further separate your system, which is useful, if you want.

· To separate types of programs such as Games and Windows from each other.

· To run more than one operating system on your computer.

· To keep "live" data away from other sources (such as development or test work)

Therefore, you can have one physical hard disk split into a number of drives (each with its' own drive letter such as C:, D:, E: etc). Each drive is known as a partition.

The job of FDISK is to create each of these drives (even if you only have the one drive, you will still need to run FDISK). It's worth pointing out that most PC's purchased these days come preformatted and preloaded with at least Windows. Therefore, FDISK does not need to be run. You only to run FDISK if you decide to change the disk partitions (either in number or size) or if you add an additional hard disk.

What happens when you run FDISK?

There are potentially 2 main phases to running FDISK consisting of up to 3 steps. A summary is shown below.

Phase 1

Remove existing partition set up.

Phase 2

Create new partitions.

Phase 1 is carried out in reverse order of phase 2 and is only needed if you are changing the structure of an existing hard disk, which is usually the case.

The steps are as follows (this is the order for phase 2).

· Create the primary DOS partition

· Create the extended DOS partition

· Create the logical DOS drives

Primary partition

This denotes the drive that will be the boot disk (which will inevitably be drive C:) You should (if possible) make this at least 1GB in size. That gives ample room for the operating system, Windows and your main system files.

Extended DOS partition

The extended partition is used to either use the rest of the space of a single hard disk or for 2nd and subsequent hard drives. Basically, you need to use the rest of your disk space up. For example, suppose you have a 2GB hard disk and you assign a 1GB primary partition then you would assign a 1GB extended partition in order to use the rest of the disk space up.

The copyright of the article Dealing with DOS - Part 4 in PC Support is owned by Chris Cruickshank. Permission to republish Dealing with DOS - Part 4 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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