Help with new build

  • Thread starter Thread starter OrmesbyJohn
  • Start date Start date
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OrmesbyJohn

Just received nice new Abit NF7-S board. Going to install this, together
with
PSU, Athlon XP cpu, graphics card, memory units and new Western Digital
120gb hard drive into existing box.
This being my first upgrade I'd be glad of advice....

1. Should I aim to keep installation of drives and cards etc to a minimum
in first instance or is it ok to include at the outset eg both the new and
an existing hard drive, and both existing CDRom and CDRW?

2. I'm a bit hazy about the next bit...after all hardware installation is
complete and power turned on for the first time...when do I need to and how
do I format/partition the hard drive and load the OS - W98?

Thanks.
 
OrmesbyJohn said:
Just received nice new Abit NF7-S board. Going to install this, together
with
PSU, Athlon XP cpu, graphics card, memory units and new Western Digital
120gb hard drive into existing box.
This being my first upgrade I'd be glad of advice....

1. Should I aim to keep installation of drives and cards etc to a minimum
in first instance or is it ok to include at the outset eg both the new and
an existing hard drive, and both existing CDRom and CDRW?
Click to expand...

not really sure what you are asking here. Build the system. It is probably
best if you install on the fresh hard drive. I would do the following.

put winXP disc in and follow instructions to format/install..

ok bad joke.

really....

put a boot floppy into your machine.
turn machine on
goto Dos prompt
type "fdisk" (without quotes)
enable large disc suppot.
If you have your other drive in make sure you select the right drive to
fdisk.
create a partition of about 6-8GB.
create the rest of the disc however you want.
exit.
restart and go back to dos prompt with cd support.
type format c: and wait (if you really don't want to lose everything on your
old disc I would leave it out of the system until the OS is installed on the
new drive)
goto D (or whatever the cd drive is)
type setup (i can't actually remember... "dir" will give you a directory
listing and the install file should be fairly obvious.)
follow your nose.

when done. format the other partitions from inside windows. I do this cause
it take a damn long time for dos to format anything. inside windows will
not take nearly as much time.

then go about installing all the hardware that windows didn't know about on
install. (this is the fun part)

then put your other hard drive in. Get whatever you want off it and format
it.

If when you put the old hard drive in and it comes up booting off it then
check your bios for a boot order.


that should be about it really.
 
OrmesbyJohn said:
Just received nice new Abit NF7-S board. Going to install this, together
with
PSU, Athlon XP cpu, graphics card, memory units and new Western Digital
120gb hard drive into existing box.
This being my first upgrade I'd be glad of advice....

1. Should I aim to keep installation of drives and cards etc to a minimum
in first instance or is it ok to include at the outset eg both the new and
an existing hard drive, and both existing CDRom and CDRW?

2. I'm a bit hazy about the next bit...after all hardware installation is
complete and power turned on for the first time...when do I need to and how
do I format/partition the hard drive and load the OS - W98?

Thanks.
Click to expand...


Hook all drives up, just BE SURE that the jumper settings on all the drives
are correct. You should have one drive on each IDE cable as master and one
drive on each IDE cable as slave

BEFORE you tear apart your current system, make a boot disk (See windows
help for boot disk, creating). After you create your boot disk, MAKE SURE
that the "fdisk" and "format" files are on that boot disk. If not, copy
them from c:\windows\command to the boot disk. Then TEST the boot disk to
make sure that it ummmmm, boots to a dos prompt (A:\> , or something like
that)

Now that you have verified you have a working boot disk with the fdisk and
format programs, you are ready to tear apart your current system.

After putting the hardware together on your new system, enter the BIOS (hit
"DEL" as the computer is starting, probably) and LOAD DEFAULT SETTINGS.
After that, check the boot sequence and make sure the floppy disk drive (A:)
is set to boot first. Insert boot floppy disk. Save settings and exit
bios. (system reboots to floppy boot disk)

From floppy boot disk, run fdisk (just type fdisk at the prompt)
Be aware that you have TWO physical drives, so you will need to specify
which one you are working with. Create a primary dos partition on one of
them and a extended DOS partition on the other one. Then you will need to
create a logical drive in the extended dos partition. Then you will need to
exit fdisk. Then you will need to format your new drives (format c:, then
format d:)

Then you should think about copying your windows setup files to drive c:
(commands follow)
c:
md win98
cd win98
copy e:\win98\*.*
(the above assumes "e" is the drive letter assigned to your first cd-rom
device, and that the windows install files are in a folder named "win98" on
that cd-rom)

Then if you chose to copy the windows setup files to drive c, you should be
able to cd run "setup" from there (setup)

By the way, if you are asked if you want to enable large disk support,
choose YES. If you are not asked if you want to enable large disk support,
you will need to get a more current version of Windows 98 or a later version
of Windows. -Dave
 
OrmesbyJohn said:
Just received nice new Abit NF7-S board. Going to install this, together
with
PSU, Athlon XP cpu, graphics card, memory units and new Western Digital
120gb hard drive into existing box.
This being my first upgrade I'd be glad of advice....

1. Should I aim to keep installation of drives and cards etc to a minimum
in first instance or is it ok to include at the outset eg both the new and
an existing hard drive, and both existing CDRom and CDRW?

2. I'm a bit hazy about the next bit...after all hardware installation is
complete and power turned on for the first time...when do I need to and how
do I format/partition the hard drive and load the OS - W98?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
When you first power up, you will need to go into BIOS and configure a few
settings.
When you have done that:
Get yourself a W98 boot floppy with cd drivers, fdisk, format etc on it.
Boot from the floppy, run fdisk and partition the HDD. If I remember
correctly W98 won't do partitions bigger than 32Gb, so you will have to make
them that size or smaller (unless someone here knows of a way of doing
bigger partitions).
Exit fdisk whaen you've done all your partitions and reboot the PC to the
floppy again and format the C: drive.
When formatting is complete, reboot to the floppy again and insert the W98
CD. Change drives to the cd drive and run setup from the CD and install W98.

HTH
SteveH
 
cowboyz said:
not really sure what you are asking here. Build the system. It is probably
best if you install on the fresh hard drive. I would do the following.

put winXP disc in and follow instructions to format/install..

ok bad joke.

really....

put a boot floppy into your machine.
turn machine on
goto Dos prompt
type "fdisk" (without quotes)
enable large disc suppot.
If you have your other drive in make sure you select the right drive to
fdisk.
create a partition of about 6-8GB.
create the rest of the disc however you want.
exit.
restart and go back to dos prompt with cd support.
type format c: and wait (if you really don't want to lose everything on your
old disc I would leave it out of the system until the OS is installed on the
new drive)
goto D (or whatever the cd drive is)
type setup (i can't actually remember... "dir" will give you a directory
listing and the install file should be fairly obvious.)
follow your nose.

when done. format the other partitions from inside windows. I do this cause
it take a damn long time for dos to format anything. inside windows will
not take nearly as much time.

then go about installing all the hardware that windows didn't know about on
install. (this is the fun part)

then put your other hard drive in. Get whatever you want off it and format
it.

If when you put the old hard drive in and it comes up booting off it then
check your bios for a boot order.


that should be about it really.
Click to expand...
--------------------------
Excellent. TVM.
Just one prob I have - I don't have a boot floppy for W98 and that machine
is now in bits awaiting upgrade. You wouldn't happen to know how to make and
which files I need to make a boot floppy would you ? I presume I'd get these
from the W98 CD? My other system uses XP Pro.
Thanks.
 
Dave C. said:
Hook all drives up, just BE SURE that the jumper settings on all the drives
are correct. You should have one drive on each IDE cable as master and one
drive on each IDE cable as slave

BEFORE you tear apart your current system, make a boot disk (See windows
help for boot disk, creating). After you create your boot disk, MAKE SURE
that the "fdisk" and "format" files are on that boot disk. If not, copy
them from c:\windows\command to the boot disk. Then TEST the boot disk to
make sure that it ummmmm, boots to a dos prompt (A:\> , or something like
that)

Now that you have verified you have a working boot disk with the fdisk and
format programs, you are ready to tear apart your current system.

After putting the hardware together on your new system, enter the BIOS (hit
"DEL" as the computer is starting, probably) and LOAD DEFAULT SETTINGS.
After that, check the boot sequence and make sure the floppy disk drive (A:)
is set to boot first. Insert boot floppy disk. Save settings and exit
bios. (system reboots to floppy boot disk)

From floppy boot disk, run fdisk (just type fdisk at the prompt)
Be aware that you have TWO physical drives, so you will need to specify
which one you are working with. Create a primary dos partition on one of
them and a extended DOS partition on the other one. Then you will need to
create a logical drive in the extended dos partition. Then you will need to
exit fdisk. Then you will need to format your new drives (format c:, then
format d:)

Then you should think about copying your windows setup files to drive c:
(commands follow)
c:
md win98
cd win98
copy e:\win98\*.*
(the above assumes "e" is the drive letter assigned to your first cd-rom
device, and that the windows install files are in a folder named "win98" on
that cd-rom)

Then if you chose to copy the windows setup files to drive c, you should be
able to cd run "setup" from there (setup)

By the way, if you are asked if you want to enable large disk support,
choose YES. If you are not asked if you want to enable large disk support,
you will need to get a more current version of Windows 98 or a later version
of Windows. -Dave
Click to expand...
----------------------------------------------------
Many thanks for the useful info.

I was assuming I'd need to boot off a boot floppy...which is where I have a
problem..I don't have one.....and have already taken the pc apart :-(

I presume I could transfer the necessary files
...if I knew which ones are important...from the 98 CD onto a floppy? My
other pc has XP Pro.

Ah...damn..ref large disk support or not...that rings a bell...I think it
doesn't support that. May have to have 4 or 5 partitions...
Thank.
John
 
SteveH said:
When you first power up, you will need to go into BIOS and configure a few
settings.
When you have done that:
Get yourself a W98 boot floppy with cd drivers, fdisk, format etc on it.
Boot from the floppy, run fdisk and partition the HDD. If I remember
correctly W98 won't do partitions bigger than 32Gb, so you will have to make
them that size or smaller (unless someone here knows of a way of doing
bigger partitions).
Exit fdisk whaen you've done all your partitions and reboot the PC to the
floppy again and format the C: drive.
When formatting is complete, reboot to the floppy again and insert the W98
CD. Change drives to the cd drive and run setup from the CD and install W98.
----------------------------
Click to expand...

Many thanks for the advice. As mentioned elsewhere I don't have a boot
floppy. Will I be able to create one from the W98 CD via my XP machine?

Anyone know about small partition work around for W98?

Thanks.
 
CB said:
Yes but with a lot of difficulty! Just boot from the Win98 CD! Don't need a
bootdisk.

BTW Do you have a Win98 disk or just an upgrade?
Click to expand...


I could be wrong here so I'll put my flame proof suit on first (it's been a
while since I've install 98) but I thought if you boot off the win98 cd it
does not ave provision for partitioning. just formatting and 120G partition
in FAT32 (only filesystem for 98) will suck big time.
 
OrmesbyJohn said:
Just received nice new Abit NF7-S board. Going to install
this, together with PSU, Athlon XP cpu, graphics card,
memory units and new Western Digital 120gb hard drive
into existing box. This being my first upgrade I'd be
glad of advice....

1. Should I aim to keep installation of drives and cards
etc to a minimum in first instance or is it ok to include
at the outset eg both the new and an existing hard drive,
and both existing CDRom and CDRW?
Click to expand...

Test bare bones first (no disk drives except floppy, only 1 memory
module) in order to minimize the cost of any damage if something goes
wrong and make diagnosis of problems easier. Set up the BIOS for
conservative memory timings and to enable any temperature alarms.
Then run Memtest86 (www.memtest86.com) or Gold Memory
(www.goldmemory.com) to test the memory for several hours. Only after
this should you install the hard drive. The hard drive manufacturer's
setup utilities are usually the easiest way to partition and format
the drive, and they often include diagnostics and a program to copy
any existing drive to the new one. Run the diagnostics for several
hours, before or after you copy your original drive to it. Add one
piece of equipment at a time and get it debugged before adding the
next piece.
 
do_not_spam_me said:
"OrmesbyJohn" <[email protected]> wrote in message

Test bare bones first (no disk drives except floppy, only 1 memory
module) in order to minimize the cost of any damage if something goes
wrong and make diagnosis of problems easier. Set up the BIOS for
conservative memory timings and to enable any temperature alarms.
Then run Memtest86 (www.memtest86.com) or Gold Memory
(www.goldmemory.com) to test the memory for several hours. Only after
this should you install the hard drive. The hard drive manufacturer's
setup utilities are usually the easiest way to partition and format
the drive, and they often include diagnostics and a program to copy
any existing drive to the new one. Run the diagnostics for several
hours, before or after you copy your original drive to it. Add one
piece of equipment at a time and get it debugged before adding the
next piece.
Click to expand...

why the hell would you want to go to all the effort for a system without
faults. That is the precedure if you have problems after building it.
Pull it to bits and follow what is laid out above. Bugger going to all that
effort for nothing.
 
cowboyz said:
need


I could be wrong here so I'll put my flame proof suit on first (it's been a
while since I've install 98) but I thought if you boot off the win98 cd it
does not ave provision for partitioning. just formatting and 120G partition
in FAT32 (only filesystem for 98) will suck big time.
Click to expand...

Probably you are right! My mistake ;-)
--
Craven Birds

Bird sightings based around 'Craven' Skipton, North Yorks.
http://cravenbirds.mysite.freeserve.com/
http://mysite.freeserve.com/cravenbirds
 
cowboyz said:
why the hell would you want to go to all the effort for a system
without faults. That is the precedure if you have problems after
building it. Pull it to bits and follow what is laid out above.
Bugger going to all that effort for nothing.
Click to expand...

How do you know it has no faults unless you test it first? Most
modules sold now don't have factory branded chips but instead house
marked or used chips screened by a machine costing much less than the
one at the chip factory.

It doesn't take more time to install one device at a time and test it
before installing the next one because the computer case is left open
anyway, and the drivers have to be installed either one by one or all
at once.
 
larrymoencurly said:
"cowboyz" <[email protected]> wrote in message

How do you know it has no faults unless you test it first? Most
modules sold now don't have factory branded chips but instead house
marked or used chips screened by a machine costing much less than the
one at the chip factory.

It doesn't take more time to install one device at a time and test it
before installing the next one because the computer case is left open
anyway, and the drivers have to be installed either one by one or all
at once.
Click to expand...
 
larrymoencurly said:
How do you know it has no faults unless you test it first? Most
modules sold now don't have factory branded chips but instead house
marked or used chips screened by a machine costing much less than the
one at the chip factory.

It doesn't take more time to install one device at a time and test it
before installing the next one because the computer case is left open
anyway, and the drivers have to be installed either one by one or all
at once.
Click to expand...

Look up the word "paranoid" in the dictionary and see if your name is there.

To start with, it takes alot longer to install one device at a time.
Especially if it is on a fresh install because windows will install 90% of
the hardware on install anyway. It takes me 15 mins to build a system. 30
or so to install windows and provided you are not using exotic hardware you
should expect windows to find and install all the hardware. Maybe a few
left out if you have a raid array or something new-ish like that.
You know if the system has no problems if you are using it and it doesn't
give errors.
If it does give errors it is not difficult to single out the hardware that
is causing it by following your instructions above. If you can follow your
instructions above and get a new system up and running in under an hour then
either you are not testing the devices properly or you are not testing the
devices properly.
 
|> I thought if you boot off the win98 cd it
|> does not ave provision for partitioning. just formatting and 120G
|partition
|> in FAT32 (only filesystem for 98) will suck big time.

On the CD (98SE, but non-SE it probably the same), there is an
fdisk.exe in Base5.cab, and Extract.exe is available in the clear.

Note, however, that that fdisk doesn't handle a drive that big. (I
think it actually works, but the partition sizes are not displayed
correctly). However, a revised fdisk (it may be SE-specific, I'm not
sure) is available from:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/Win98/Update/8266R/W98/EN-US/263044USA8.EXE

Phil
 
cowboyz said:
Look up the word "paranoid" in the dictionary and see if your name is there.

To start with, it takes alot longer to install one device at a time.
Especially if it is on a fresh install because windows will install 90% of
the hardware on install anyway. It takes me 15 mins to build a system. 30
or so to install windows and provided you are not using exotic hardware you
should expect windows to find and install all the hardware. Maybe a few
left out if you have a raid array or something new-ish like that.
You know if the system has no problems if you are using it and it doesn't
give errors.
If it does give errors it is not difficult to single out the hardware that
is causing it by following your instructions above. If you can follow your
instructions above and get a new system up and running in under an hour then
either you are not testing the devices properly or you are not testing the
devices properly.
Click to expand...
--------------------------------------------
Job done.
Decided to be cautious...added the minimum to start with then unit by unit
thereafter.
Also got XP and that helped...no boot up floppies required...and held hand
through the hard drive partitioning and formatting procedure.
 
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