Lab 6-4 Installing a Second Hard Drive

Objective

You must format a hard drive to install a file system. In this lab exercise you will learn how to properly install and optimize the FAT file system.

After completing this lab, you will be able to:

• Format a partition.
• Use the SCANDISK utility to optimize performance.
• Use the DEFRAG utility to optimize performance.

Materials Required

• Operating system:Windows 9x
• Lab workgroup size: 2 students
• You MUST do this on your LAB computer (not the classroom DELLs. We never open those.)
• One DOS boot disk that includes the Format and SYS commands
• One DOS disk that contains both the SCANDISK and DEFRAG utilities

Lab Setup & Safety Tips

• Each workstation’s hard drive should contain one unformatted primary partition that has been set as active during lab 6-1.
• Be sure that the data stored on your lab workstation has been backed up before you proceed with this lab exercise.

Formatting the new drive

1. Power off your lab workstation.
2. Install a second hard drive that does not have anyone else’s OS on it! You want a plain drive. Get it from me.
3. Be sure that second drive is mounting in your CMOS.
4. Insert the boot disk into drive A. If you do not have a boot disk, make one. You should have it in your disk set!
5. Power on your lab workstation and allow it to boot from your DOS boot disk.
6. At the A prompt, type FORMAT driveletterofnewdrive
7. When asked to confirm before proceeding, type Y and press Enter. The format command begins to format drive C.
8. When formatting is completed, type a volume label of DRIVE 1.

aking drive bootable

You can use many different commands to make a drive bootable. Following are two examples of command sequences:

Using the SYS command

1. Power off your lab workstation.
2. Insert the boot disk into drive A.
3. Power on your lab workstation and allow it to boot from your DOS boot disk.
4. At the A prompt, type SYS A: driveletter: and press Enter.

Using the Format command

The /S switch tells DOS to add system information to the drive after it has been formatted. Use the /? option to view other FORMAT switches.

1. Power off your lab workstation.
2. Insert the boot disk into drive A.
3. Power on your lab workstation and allow it to boot from your DOS boot disk.
4. At the A prompt, type FORMAT driveletter: /S.
5. When asked to confirm before proceeding, type Y and press Enter.
6. When formatting is completed, type a volume label of DRIVE 1.

Using the SCANDISK utility

1. Insert the disk that contains the SCANDISK utility.
2. At the A prompt, type SCANDISK and press Enter.
3. Allow SCANDISK to verify your file and directory structure, and to complete a surface scan.
4. When SCANDISK has completed, use the View Log option to view any errors that SCANDISK might have encountered.
5. After examining the view log, exit the SCANDISK utility.

Using the DEFRAG utility

1. Insert the disk that contains the DEFRAG utility.
2. At the A prompt, type DEFRAG and press Enter.
3. Allow DEFRAG to reorganize the hard drive (this should happen quickly if the drive was formatted recently).
4. When the defragmentation is completed, exit the DEFRAG utility.

Review Questions

Circle True or False.

1. Using the SCANDISK utility will delete all files less than 512 K in size. True / False
2. The DEFRAG utility places file clusters in consecutive order. True / False
3. You should run the SCANDISK utility only once every three months. True / False

4. Describe the functionality of the DEFRAG utility.

5. You are currently employed as a PC desktop support technician at My World. One of your customers, Jamie, calls to tell you that her computer is running more slowly than it did last month. List two utilities that Jamie might use to improve the performance of her computer.

6. John is currently running DEFRAG, and it is taking a long time. John called you to ask what the DEFRAG program does, and why it seems to be so slow. Over the last year John has never run the DEFRAG utility. Describe to John both the purpose of the DEFRAG utility and explain why it is taking so long to run.