Lab 5-6 Using FDISK

 

Objective

Low level formatting is done using the format command. Low level formatting divides the disk in tracks and divides the tracks into sectors. This must happen before high level formatting when the disk is new, and can also be done when a disk is exhibiting a lot of unrecoverable errors. Generally this is done at the manufacturer. You will rarely perform your own low-level format. The steps to preparing a hard drive are as follows:

o  Perform a low level format

o  Partition the drive

o  Format the drive with a high level format

 

You’ll do the last two, only.

Viewing the current hard drive configuration       

  1. Reboot into your DOS Virtual Machine.
  2. At the C prompt, type FDISK. Your screen should resemble this:
  3. From the FDISK menu, select option 4 by typing 4 and then pressing Enter.
  4. Observe your current hard drive configuration. In particular, note the volume label. Write down what you see below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wor61
  1. You are going to change your current disk drive (remember, you created a new disk in the last lab).
  2. Hit escape to get back to the main menu.
  3. If you do not see 5, that means you didn’t complete the lab 6-2 so go back and do that.
  4. Hit 5.

Wor62
  1. You should see something like shown to the right. You haven’t done anything to your 2nd drive yet. It’s pristine, clean, and ready to be
  2. FDISKed!

Wor63
  1. At the FDISK Main Menu, select option 1 and press Enter.
  2. Type 1 and press Enter.
  3. When the FDISK utility asks if you want to use all the available space for the primary partition and set it as active, select No by typing N and pressing Enter.
  4. When FDISK prompts you to enter the amount of drive space you want to use, type 100 and press Enter.
  5. Press Esc to return to the FDISK Main Menu.
  6. Hit 4 to display partition information and you should see 1 partition, set as primary DOS, 100 MB in size, which is using 20% of your drive.

Wor64

Primary, extended and DOS partitions.

o  There are a maximum of four partitions that can be placed on any DOS or Windows 9x hard drive.

o  These would be primary partitions. However, you can create extended partitions and put logical partitions inside extended partitions. Confused? Good.

o  This allows you to get around the 4 partition limit.

o  You can have only ONE extended DOS partition, but it can be split into lots of logical partitions.

o  Only one partition can be active. The active partition is the one that is used for booting the system.

o  Primary—A partition that can be named active and can hold boot files. There can be up to four. If you need four use:

o  Extended—Used to hold logical partitions. There can be only ONE.

o  Logical—used when you need more than four partitions. Logical partitions may ONLY be created within the extended partition.

o  Why? Because I said so. (No, because that’s how DOS works. No one thought they’d need more than two partitions, four max!)
  1. So let’s create an extended partition. Go back to the FDISk menu.
  2. Select 1 to create a new partition.
  3. Select 3 to create logical DOS drives in the extended DOS partition.
  4. D’oh! You can’t do that! You need to create an extended partition first!
  5. Select 2 to create an extended DOS partition. Make it 300 MB.
  6. It’s going to immediately tell you that you have to create a logical drive. Why? Because you can’t do anything to an extended drive unless it has logical drives. Create THREE logical drives of 100, 100, and 99 MB each (just follow the onscreen prompts).

Wor67
  1. When you are done display partition information. It should look like this:

Wor68
  1. Go ahead and display the logical partitions. What drive letters have been assigned?

Write answer here
  1. Exit out of FDISK. Because you created new partitions, you have to restart.
  2. Test that your partitions are there. Type d:\ and hit enter.
  3. It’s giving you an error? What is the error and why are you getting it?

Write answer here
  1. You have to format it so back at the C:\ prompt type format d:
  2. Format away! Whee! Formatting is fun!
  3. Label it OLDWOMAN

Wor69
  1. What is happening as you format the drive?

 

 

 

 

 

Write the answer here, be specific.
  1. Go into your D: drive and type dir. What do you see?
  2. Why does it say “File not found?”

Write the answer here.

 

 

 

 
  1. Create a text file within OLDWOMAN named fly.txt. Now do a DIR.
  2. What do you see?

Write the answer here.
  1. Format e: name it spider
  2. Format f: name it bird
  3. Format g: name cat

Take a screen shot of these partitions named (go into FDISK) and staple it to your lab report.

Delete a Partition
  1. Head into FDISK again.
  2. Select 3 to delete a partition.
  3. Select 2 to delete an extended partition.
  4. You get an error? What is the error and why did you get it?

Write the answer here
  1. Let’s just delete ONE logical partition.
  2. Do that (figure it out)
  3. You’ll have to reboot after you delete the partition.

 

 

Setting an active partition

  1. Select option 2 from the FDISK Main Menu.
  2. Choose the primary partition that you created by typing 1 and pressing Enter.
  3. Press Esc to return to the main menu.
  4. Press Esc to exit FDISK and press any key. Your workstation will restart.
  5. Note: If you already have DOS installed, the installer creates a single partition and sets it to active, so it will just tell you that it’s already set to active.

 

Define the following terms:

 

Term

Definition

Active Partition

 

Partition

 

Extended partition

 

Logical drive

 

FDISK

 

MBR

 

 

Circle True or False.

  1. When a partition’s size is changed using the FDISK utility, the data contained on the partition is lost. True / False
  2. The FDISK utility is used to partition and format hard drives. True / False
  3. Extended partitions are always placed within logical drives. True / False

 

  1. List three functions of the FDISK utility.

 

    1. ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ _____
    2. ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ _____
    3. ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ _____

 

  1. You are the desktop PC support technician for the Good Job Corporation. John, one of your customers, suspects that his hard drive is not partitioned to use its full capacity. Describe how you would use the FDISK utility to show John his current hard drive configuration.

 

 

 

 

  1. Describe the relationship between a logical drive and an extended partition.

 

 

 

  1. What is the difference between a physical drive and a logical drive?