STUDENT DATE PERFORMED

SECTION/ GROUP RATING

Activity No. 4
Partitioning and Formatting HDD

Purpose
The purpose of this activity is to be able to partition and format an HDD as a
preparation for OS (Operating System) installation. The student should be able to
understand the importance and effects of partitioning and formatting an HDD. The utility
fdisk.exe and format.com will be used to partition and format an HDD respectively.

Recommended Readings/ References

Upgrading and Repairing PC’s, 11th ed. Chapter 24- Building or Upgrading
Systems

Materials
ƒ 1 unit PC System
ƒ 1 Windows 98 startup disk
ƒ 1 PC Tools Kit

Procedure
A. Partitioning an HDD.
This part of the activity partitions an HDD into two logical drives (i.e. drive
C: and drive D). Fifty percent of the total disk space will be allocated to drive
C and the remaining disk space will be allocated to drive D. The procedure
assumes that no partitions are created in the disk.
1. Turn on the system and boot from the Windows 98 startup disk.
2. At A prompt, type fdisk and press <Enter> to run the program to partition
the drive.
3. Press <Y> if prompted “Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)?”

4. Select “Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive” on the “Fdisk Main
Menu” and press <Enter> to create DOS partition.

5. Select “Create Primary DOS Partition” on the menu and press <Enter> to
create primary DOS partition.

NOTE: Primary DOS partition should be set active if you want your
system to boot at this partition.

6. Allocate fifty percent of the total disk space for your primary DOS
partition.
7. Go back to the main menu and select “Create DOS Partition of Logical
DOS Drive” then press <Enter>.
8. Select “Create Extended DOS Partition” and press <Enter>. Allocate the
remaining disk space for the partition. You will be prompted to create
logical DOS drives in your extended DOS partition.
9. Allocate all the space available in your extended DOS partition to create
the logical DOS drive..
10. Press <Esc> to exit the “Fdisk” and restart the system for the changes to
take effect.
B. Formatting an HDD
This part of the activity formats the two partitions newly created from the
previous section. Drive C will be made bootable and drive D will be formatted
with no system files.
1. Turn on the system and boot from the Windows 98 startup disk.
2. At A prompt, type format c: /s and press <Enter> to run the program to
format the drive C with system files.
3. Press <Y> if prompted “Proceed with formatting?” and press <Enter> to
confirm formatting.

A:\>format c: /s
WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK
DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!
Proceed with Format (Y/N)?Y

4. After formatting the drive C, type format d: and press <Enter> to format
the drive D without system files.

C. Partition the HDD following the disk space distribution shown in the graph
below.

C: D:
25% 25%

E: F:
25% 25%
Review Questions
1. What is the maximum number of partitions you can make in one physical
drive? Support your answer.

2. What are the advantages of partitioning an HDD?

3. Why do we need to format an HDD?

4. What is the difference between FAT16 and a FAT32?

5. What other utilities, aside from fdisk.exe and format.com, are used to
partition and format an HDD?

7. What files are copied to the drive C in a format /s command?

 8. What happens to the system if there is no active partition in the HDD?

Observation

Conclusion