Texas Microsystems, Inc. 2003 - Preparing the Hard Disk Drive; Partitioning the Hard Disk

3.2 Preparing the Hard Disk Drive
Computer Initialization re£ers to the procedures used
to power-up the computer £or the £irst time and to load
the disk operating system. The 2000 Series Computers
are designed to accommodate several operating systems:
however, the procedures described in the £ollowing
paragraphs are valid £or International Business Ma-
chines PC/DOS or Microso£t's MS/DOS versions 2.0 or
later.
Be£ore the hard disk
to accept data. This
tion is done in three
level £ormat which is
second step partitions
£ormats the disk.
can be used, it must be prepared
initial one-time £ormat prepara-
steps. The £irst step is a low
completed at the £actory, the
the disk, and the third step
The low level £ormat erases all data £rom the disk and
writes the sector in£ormation £or each sector
throughout the disk. A map o£ bad tracks is compiled
£or use by the operating system.
Partitioning writes the partition sector on sector 1 o£
track O. This sector tells the operating system how
much o£ the hard disk is available, and where it is.
Several partitions may exist on one disk.
The upper level £ormat is operating system dependant.
Bootstrap code and £ile allocation in£ormation is
written to the disk and i£ the partition is to be
"bootable", the operating system is also copied £rom
£loppy during this format procedure.
CAUTION
When
the hard disk is formatted for the
first time, the disk is blank and spaces
are created to accept data. However,
any time the hard disk or £loppy disk is
£~~~£~~~~~9, all data recorded on the
disk/diskette is ERASED. Use the format
procedure carefully.
3.2.1 Partitioning the Hard Disk
!i2j;:!!
The following procedure assumes that DOS
is loaded and the DOS diskette is in
drive A.
1. The A-prompt is displayed. Type: u:£disk" next to
the A-prompt and press the ENTER key.
Preliminary AT Users Manual
18 11/26/86