I, @Macarlo, registered user and beta tester of Power Boot, use computer only for work. I need total efficiency, absolute guarantee. In the some machine I' m using actually Red Hat Linux 5.2, OS/2 Warp 4.0, OS/2 Warp 3.0, Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0. No OSs betas here. I replaced IBM Boot Manager by Power Boot (actually I' m running version 3.0.5). With Power Boot I can boots fine all OS I have on all HDD that I want. The Power Boot bundle - in a little zip - includes PDISK.EXE, a separate programm. Here I show PDISK.

To read about Power Boot 3.05 click here>###

Contents:

1. What is PDISK?

2. What are Primary Partitions?

3. What are Extended Partitions and Logical Drives?

4. Using PDISK

a. Warning!

b. Before running PDISK

c. Running PDISK

d. Error messages

5. What next?

1. What is PDISK?

This is a version of PDISK that allows you to define up to 10 partitions in any hard disk in your PC.

Of the 10 partitions, up to 4 can be primary partitions, meaning that you can install operating systems like MSDOS in any (or all) of them and boot.

If your hard disk is larger than 2GBytes, you can also choose to use FAT32 or not in defining your partitions.

2. What are Primary Partitions?

Primary Partitions are partitions in which you can install an operating system

like MSDOS or Windows95 and then boot from it.

MSDOS and Windows95 must be installed in a Primary Partition so that you can

boot.

If you want to install more than one operating system in your PC, you will need to create more than one Primary Partition on your first hard disk. Each operating system you install will then reside in its own primary Partition.

3. What are Extended Partitions and Logical Drives?

Extended Partitions define the rest of the hard disk space that is not occupied or used by a Primary Partition. Most systems will have at most one Extended Partition.

To make Extended Partitions useable, Logical Drives are defined within an Extended Partition.

A Logical Drive can occupy the Entire Extended Partition or you can have more than one Logical Drive in the Extended Partition. Each Logical Drive is given a drive letter by the operating system.

Logical Drives are usually used to store data or programs.

Some operating systems like OS/2 Warp or Linux can be installed in a Logical Drive and still be able to boot.

4. Using PDISK

PDISK is a very small program. There are no special installation instructions.

You can use run from a diskette or a hard disk. To uninstall it, just delete from the directory or disk where it is found.

a. WARNING!

Before you start using PDISK, you must realise that you can destroy information on your hard disks if you partition the wrong drive.

Therefore, find out more about your PC, especially the sizes of the various hard disks you have installed and what drive letters they use. This is so that when you are running PDISK, you know which drive to select for partitioning.

If you are going to repartition a hard disk that already has information on it, you might want to back up its contents. Alternatively, explore the use of Partition Magic or Partition-It for non-destructive means of repartitioning your drive.

Using PDISK on a hard disk that has already been partitioned will destroy its contents!

b. Before running PDISK

Before running PDISK, plan on how you are going to partition your drive.

If you are going to install more than one operating system, you will most likely want to create one primary partition for each operating system.

If you want your different operating systems to share data, you might want to create a logical drive in an extended partition. You would put all your common application software and data into this logical drive.

If you need more than 3 partitions, a version of PDISK is available that lets you create more partitions. This version is available free for registered users of Power Boot.

Finally, plan on how much disk space to allocate to each partition.

If you only want to install the operating system files in the primary partitions, you might want to allocate only about 200-300MBytes of space for each primary partition and then give the remaining space to one or more logical drives. If MSDOS is one of the primary partitions, it might only require 50-80MBytes if you are going to install Windows 3.1 as well.

c. Running PDISK

PDISK is a DOS program and needs to be run in a DOS box under Windows95 or in MSDOS mode.

When you start up PDISK, it will check with the BIOS on all hard disks that have been detected and display then on the screen as Drive 0, Drive 1 etc.

Drive 0 would be your Drive C.

You will then use the up/down arrow keys to highlight the drive you want to partition. Press ENTER to make the selection.

PDISK will display the size of the drive that has been selected. It will also check if the drive has already been partitioned and warn you about it.

If you still want to partition the drive, presss 'Y'.

If the hard disk is larger than 2GBytes, you will be shown the following message:

--------------------

DOS & early versions of Win95 only allow partitions of up to 2048

MBytes.

You can create up to a maximum of 3 partitions including extended

partitions.

Do you want to use FAT32? Y/[N]

--------------------

When you answer Y(es), the partition ID used will be that of a FAT32 partition. This is so that when you format the drive later on, the format program, assuming it is FAT32-aware, will format the partition using FAT32.

You will then be prompted if you want to create one single partition. If you answer Y(es), the entire hard disk will be used for a single primary partition.

If you answer N(o), you will then be allowed to select the size of each partition.

The first prompt you will see is this:

--------------------

Create primary/boot partition(MBytes, max/default x MBytes) :

--------------------

x is the maximum or default size for that partition. Pressing ENTER without entering a number will create a partition using the default size.

Note that the maximum partition size you can create is 2GBytes whether or not you use FAT32. This will change in a later version of PDISK.

If you want smaller partition size than the default, just type in the size in megabytes you need and press enter.

The second prompt you will see is this:

--------------------

Create second partition(MBytes, max/default x MBytes) :

--------------------

Press ENTER or type in a value and press ENTER.

--------------------

Is this an alternate primary partition? Y/[N]',0

--------------------

If you are creating more than one primary partition, press 'Y' to define this second one as a primary partition.

If you answer N(o), an extended partition will be created instead. Once you create an extended partition, you cannot create another primary partition.

You will be prompted to define new partitions until there is no more hard disk space left or until you have reached the limit of 3 partitions.

You will then see a summary of the partitions defined:

--------------------

Partitions defined are:

- x MBytes

- y MBytes

- z MBytes

LAST CHANCE! Confirm partition drive [Y/N] ?

--------------------

Answering Y(es) will overwrite data on the hard disk. So think before you do anything here.

Answering N(o) will not do anything to the hard disk. You can also press ESC to quit.

When you decide to answer Y(es), the new partition data will be written to the hard disk. You should see:

--------------------

Disk Successfully Partitioned

--------------------

Press any key to quit.

You must now restart your computer so that the operating system will recognise the new partitions.

If you just want to use the partitions without installing any operating systems, do not forget to format the partitions first.

Note that at any point, should you change your mind and want to abort the operation, press the ESC key.

d. Error Messages

You may see one of two error messages:

a. Error writing to disk

b. Error reading from to disk

In either of the cases, check your hard disk with a good diagnostic program.

5. What Next?

What next for PDISK?

The current free version is a very simple program. You might already have noticed some limits to it like the 2048MB limit.

PDISK will be upgraded in the future. However, priority will still be given to products like Power Boot and The Z-pA/ZppA.

On the other hand, if you feel that PDISK is useful and you really want better/more features, please let us know about it so that we have an excuse to upgrade it earlier than planned.

CONTACT AUTHOR

Bluesky Innovations
530 Berryessa Road #321,
San Jose, CA 95132, USA.
http://www.blueskyinnovations.com/pboot.html

@Macarlo, Inc.
@Macarlo's Shareware & Web
OS/2
Java Lobby Member
Java Site Accredited

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