Partition terminology and facts:

Hard drives are divided into primary and extended partitions.

Typically, one of the primary partitions is set as the active partition and is the one used to boot the system. Primary partition will contain volume that contains the files needed to boot an operating system. On most systems, the active partition is the system partition.

The boot partition can be (and often is) the same as the system partition, which in turn can be the primary partition.

Only one of the primary partitions can be active at a time.

An extended partition can be logically subdivided into as many as 23 logical disk drives.

Partition that the OS boots from must be active (only one partition is marked active), so you boot from the active partition.

First partition usually is the primary partition.

Primary means that DOS can recognize only one primary, hence its name - primary.

Primary partition cannot be subdivided into multiple logical volumes.

FDISK recognizes both primary and extended DOS partitions.

On XP/2000 you may create up to 4 primary partitions or 2 primary + 1 extended partition.

An extended partition allows you to create logical drives inside the partition. Having 1 partition on hard drive means that it will be active, primary, and named logical volume C:.

On Win 9x FDISK can create either FAT16 or FAT32. However, FDISK no longer exists in Win2000/XP, since on 2000/XP, to create a new partition, you can use the 2000/XP Setup program, which replaces FDISK as a way to set up the hard drives.

The metrics:

Microsoft MS-DOS versions 4.0 and later allow FDISK to partition hard disks up to 4 gigabytes (GB) in size. However, the MS-DOS file allocation table (FAT16) file system can support only 2 GB per partition. Because of this fact, a hard disk between 2 and 4 GB in size must be broken down into multiple partitions, each of which does not exceed 2 GB.

FAT16: This file system has a maximum of 2 gigabytes (GB) for each allocated space or drive letter. For example, if you use the FAT16 file system and have a 6-GB hard disk, you can have three drive letters (C, D, and E), each with 2 GB of allocated space.

The 2-GB partition limit is imposed by the maximum number of clusters and the largest cluster size supported by the FAT file system.

MS-DOS versions 5.0 and later support up to eight physical hard disks.

DOS supports only File Allocation Table (FAT); also known as FAT16.

FDISK divides the disk into logical subdrives that are addressed as separate drives; for example, C, D, and E

FDISK can create separate areas of the disk to hold multiple operating systems, such as Windows and Linux, in their own partitions

Before MS-DOS is installed, hard drive(s) must be properly prepared. System utility named FDISK creates the space for disk partitions. Microsoft's FDISK is the closest thing there is to a partitioning standard.

1. Insert the DOS 6 boot disk into the floppy drive A: and start the computer.
   
   
2. Boot from the floppy. (If your computer still boots to the C: drive or continues to load into Windows, then you make sure the boot sequence of the computers BIOS/CMOS is set to boot from the floppy drive, (A,C) first.)
   
   
3. At the command prompt, type FDISK.
   
   
4. FDISK presents a menu with five options if you have multiple drives installed. Or, if you only have one drive, the Change Current Fixed Disk Drive option does not appear
   
   
5. To view what partitions, if any, already exist on the hard drive, select option 4 from the menu by typing 4 in the Enter Choice field. Press Enter.
   
   
6. You will see all existing partitions and available hard-drive space in the Display Partition Information screen. If you have extended partitions, you can choose to view the extended partition information. Make a note of any existing partition information:
   
         Status:
   
         Type of partition:
   
   
7. Press the Esc key to return to the main screen
   
   
8. If the disk has existing partitions, you need to delete them. Type 3 then press Enter.
   
   
9. From the Delete Partition Screen, select the partition to be deleted and then press Enter. Repeat these steps until all partitions have been deleted.
   
   
10. Press Esc until you are returned to the FDISK Options screen.
    
    
11. You will now create a new partition. Enter 1 in the Choice field and press Enter.
    
    
12. In the Create Partition or Logical Drive screen, select option 1 to create a primary DOS partition.
    
    
13. Press N in the Use Maximum Space Available field. FDISK will prompt you for the amount of drive space you want to allocate for the drive (in megabytes.)
    
    
14. Type 3000 to create the 3GB drive and hit Enter to complete the action.
    
    
15. 3GB partition for the C: drive is adequate for most operating systems. If your hard drive is smaller than 4GB, then use all of the available space. The rest of the hard drive can then be used for your applications and data.
    
    
16. Press Esc until you are back at the FDISK Options screen. Select option 2 to set the active partition. In the Set Active Partition Screen, select partition 1 and press Enter.
    
    
17. The system must reboot in order to use the new partitions. Press Esc until you are asked to reboot the computer for the changes to take effect.

Next, before MS-DOS is installed, hard drive(s) must be also properly formatted. Formatting creating a file system on each volume. System utility named FORMAT makes the partition usable by installing the file system.

NOTE: You must be at the A: prompt, not at the C: prompt. After the computer restarts from the previous exercise, you need to format each newly created partition.

At the command prompt, type

FORMAT C: /s
FORMAT D:
FORMAT E:
...
                    

Type Y to confirm the action. Now FORMAT will format the C: drive with FAT.

After a hard drive is partitioned, the first sector on cylinder 0 (the outermost track) is reserved for the master boot record that contains the partition table.

Partition table in the master boot record contains the mapping for all partitions on all drives.

Sizes are automatically assigned in proportion to the disk size. The bigger the disk, the bigger the clusters, and large clusters can result in slack space (wasted disk space). Reducing the size of the disk through partitioning also reduces the cluster size.

Master boot record uses the partition table to locate and use the active primary partition to boot the system.

• Removing an existing partition: http://freepctech.com/pc/001/001.shtml
• How to partition a hard drive: http://www.ehow.com/how_6027_partition-hard-drive.html
• Fdisk command reference: http://www.computerhope.com/fdiskhlp.htm
• Format command reference: http://www.computerhope.com/formathl.htm