Help Me

[DanthePCBuilder]

Hi, I am thinking of building my own PC and i have read alot on the internet and i would like to know how to install my os once i have finished building it. Thanks for your help

[BigBlue66]

Hi and Welcome to the Guide!

The answer to your question depends on the OS you plan to install. The WIN 9X versions typically require a bootable floppy to boot the system with CDROM support.

Newer OSes, like Win200 and XP come with bootable CDROMs that you can install the OS from. With this procedure, you must make sure that you set the first bootable device in BIOS as the CDROM.

[DanthePCBuilder]

Ok thanks, i was thinking of using xp. I was just wandering when i first boot what should happen. I don't really know what should come up when there is no os installed. Does it open up into DOS and how would i get to the bios from there, can i still use delete key

Also, do i need to partition my drives on first boot because i read on www.waterwheel.com that i would need a program called WD Hard Drive Utility.

This is my first time so i do need all the help i can get!!

Thanks

[Budfred]

Welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

You are putting the cart before the horse. You need to build the PC and get it working, then worry about installing the OS. Generally that will be very simple with WinXP. You can use the XP installation disk to partition, format and install. You could also use the hard drive utilities to partition and format from DOS, but you don't have to with WinXP. I am not sure why you are asking about getting into BIOS, but you can get into BIOS without even having a hard drive if the computer is working. I also am not sure what you are asking about "delete" unless you mean to access BIOS, it should work fine for that if the computer is working.....

So get the system working and if you have trouble with that or when you start to install the system, come back with more questions.....

And good luck...:)

[deddard]

A new HDD needs formatting and partitioning.
If you bought a new HDD, it probably came with a disk with the utilities on it.
If so, you can use this to format the disk; if not, then at first boot, winXP will drop you into the right place to begin formatting and partitioning.

Bear in mind that you will be offered the choice of FAT32 or NTFS as your formatting options - go for the latter as it is more secure (unless you have other computers running win 9X which will need to access this computer's disk)
When you partition the disk, it's a good idea to have more than one partition - simply having the entire disk as one partition is a recipe for disaster (if it crashes and you need to reformat, you have to wipe EVERYTHING:eek: ) Another thing to remember is that if you wish to dual boot with win 98, then you MUST install win 98 first, as it does not understand NTFS formatting.

If you have a 60GB disk, create partitions of: 2 partitions 20 GB, and 2 partitions of 10 GB, this will allow you to keep stuff you don't use often on one of the smaller ones, and use the second smaller one as a backup drive.

[DanthePCBuilder]

Just another quick question to you all - What spec PC do you think i should be thinking of getting. I haven't bought it yet but i am looking at pc kits on www.microlanduk.com

[DanthePCBuilder]

I am looking at a 80gb hd so how should i partition it. On my originally bought pc i don't think it is partitioned. How would i know

[pentachris]

We're a friendly bunch, and don't mind helping anyone.

But the scope of your question is a bit broad.

Try looking here (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/honeycutt/02october07.asp). Don't be afraid to give it a try once you've got your computer built! After all, with a spankin' new system, it's hard to mess anything up too bad while your installing your OS.

The only place you can really start messing things up is in the BIOS. You'll want to go there to set the date & time and configure your hard drive and cd-rom or dvd drives (just set them to "auto"). Other than that, I wouldn't mess around with too much in the BIOS unless you really know what you're doing.

Check out the link and post back with any more questions.

edit: a few posts popped in while I was typing - the last post I saw was Budfred's before I started composing mine. ;)

[DanthePCBuilder]

On my existing pc, how would i know it is partitioned

[pentachris]

All hard drives are partitioned (if they're in use).

Does your hard drive have more than one partition?

Hold down your Windows key and tap E. Your hard drive letters will (almost always unless you've done something fancy) start with C:. If D: is your cd drive/dvd drive/removable drive, then you've only got one hard drive partition.

If D: points to your hard drive, then you've either got more than one partition on your hard drive or you've got more than one hard drive.

[DanthePCBuilder]

I have c: as my hd
d: as my cd-rw/dvd combo drive
a: as my floppy drive

Does this mean that i only have 1 hd partition. is it a good idea to partition my current pc and how should i split the 40gb

[pentachris]

Yes, you currently only have 1 hard drive partition.

General consensus among techies is that more than one partition is better. How you do it is up to you - personal preference. Just think about what sort of data you're going to be storing on your drive and the size/number of files.

In one post you say you've got 40GB, in another you say 80GB. Which is it?

Any easy, of-the-top-of-my-head example for a 40GB drive. Suppose you and your wife/roommate/other both use the computer:

10GB - Windows and any installed programs
5GB - your personal storage space for your pictures, documents, etc
5GB - your wife/roommate/other's personal storage space
15GB - mp3's, movies & other large media files
5GB - backups

Look here (http://partition.radified.com/) for more info & strategies.

[Budfred]

If you want ideas about what kind of equipment to look for, post details about how you use your system and how you expect to use the new system. Also, some idea of you budget. We can tell you how to build a super system, but it will cost you. We can also tell you how build a budget system, but it will lag. What are you looking for....

Also, you don't need to PM anyone for help, we all come and go and will give you ideas if we have them....

[DanthePCBuilder]

I am looking at standard PC Kits on www.microlanduk.com If you click on Barebone kits then you can see all the kits that are there.
My budget is about £300-£400 as this is my 1st time!!

Here are the specs for the different AMD kits

Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2200+ & AK 785 SE Cooler
Memory: Quality 256 MB PC 2100
Motherboard: Elite K7 S6A Motherboard
Hard Drive: 80 GB ATA 100 7200 rpm
Floppy Drive: 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Case: Mercury KOB-24 Midi ATX Case 300 watt PSU
Ports: 2 USB/ 1 Serial/ 1 Parallel
Keyboard/Mouse: PS/2 Windows KB/ PS/2 Mouse
£241.27

I will post the others l8r as i am out of time

[Budfred]

The nice thing about a barebone kit is that you can be pretty sure the components are compatible. The bad thing is that you end up with whatever they decide they want to give you for brand and quality. The kit you list is ok, kind of middle level quality. If you assemble the package yourself, you may be able to get more quality for more money... Just depends on what you want....

[DanthePCBuilder]

Here are the other Barebone kits that i am looking at:
(I am only looking at AMD cos Intel is a lot more expensive for the same specs)

Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2200+ & AK 785 SE Cooler
Memory: Quality 256 MB PC 2100
Motherboard: Elite K7 S6A Motherboard
Hard Drive: 80 GB ATA 100 7200 rpm
Floppy Drive: 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Case: Mercury KOB-24 Midi ATX Case 300 watt PSU
Ports: 2 USB/ 1 Serial/ 1 Parallel
Keyboard/Mouse: PS/2 Windows KB/ PS/2 Mouse
Complete kit, ready for you to build
£241.27

or

Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2400+ & AK 785 CU Cooler
Memory: Dual Quality 256 MB PC 2700 333 DDR (512MB Total)
Motherboard:MSI K7N2G-ILSR nForce 2 IGP Motherboard
Hard Drive: 80 GB ATA 100 7200 rpm
Floppy Drive: 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Case: Mercury KOB-24 Midi ATX Case 300 watt PSU
Ports: 2 USB/ 1 Serial/ 1 Parallel
Keyboard/Mouse: PS/2 Windows KB/ PS/2 Mouse
Complete kit, ready for you to build
£356.18

I am also getting


CD/DVD & CD-RW CD ReWriters
LG CDRW/DVD 48x24x48 -16x Combo
(£55.27 Inc VAT)

Product Description -
This fantastic drive not only does the work of both a CD-RW and DVD-ROM drive, it does those jobs in spectacular fashion. It burns CDs at a blistering 48x max, rewritables at up to 24x, and reads CDs at up to 48x. And if that were all it did, it would be an impressive drive. But it also reads DVDs at up to 16x! It even ships with two impressive software packages: Nero Express CD burning software.

and a standard 56k modem, which kit should i get

[Budfred]

The first kit doesn't mention RAM, is it included?

I don't know enough about the different motherboards to advise you on that, but others here do, so hang on for ideas. I didn't see that either board can handle USB 2 and I would want that if I were buying a board today. I did build a system with the K7S5A and it seems to be a good middle of the road baord with a lot of tolerance for tinkering, but the manual is poor....

For the CDRW/DVD drive. I recommend getting a CDRW and a separate DVD drive. In the USA these days you can get a good CDRW for about $20US and a DVD for about the same price, so 2 drives cost less than the one you are looking at. With two optical drives you have a lot more options for copying from one drive to the other.

[DanthePCBuilder]

Here are the motherboard details.

Elite K7 S6A Skt A SIS

(£37.09 Inc VAT)

Product Description -
The K7S6A is an ATX Socket A board that will support Athlon and Duron processors up to 266 MHz FSB. The board comes with the high performance SiS® 745 chipset and the user-friendly Award BIOS. There are 3 184-pin DIMM DDR sockets for up to 1.5GB of DDR SDRAM (DDR266/200) or 1GB of DDR SDRAM (DDR333), thus supporting the latest memory technology. For expansion options, the K7S6A comes equipped with 5 PCI slots, an AGP 4X slot and CNR slot. There are 2 USB ports, an EPP/ECP parallel port and two 16550 high-speed serial I/O ports. A range of audio ports is supplied, comprising line-in, line-out, microphone-in, CD-in and game port. Two PCI IDE interfaces support 4 IDE devices (PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, ATA 33/66/100). There are also PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors. The K7S6A comes with our Magic Setting 1V feature that allows the CPU frequency and CPU core voltage to be adjusted via the BIOS. Vcore adjustment can be done between 1.1v-1.85v in 0.025v increments, with a multiplier of between x5 and x12.5 (in 0.5 increments).

and for the second kit

MSI K7N2G-ILSR nForce 2 IGP

(£119.22 Inc VAT)


Product Description -
Special Features - NVIDIA IGP+MCP2-T. Integrated Ethernet 10/100 LAN. IEEE1394 FireWire. Serial ATA RAID. 8X AGP. Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio. Format Encodes in APU. Supports Socket A processors @FSB 100/133/166. Supports 600MHz up to Athlon XP 2700+ processor or higher. Chipset nVIDIA nForce2 IGP Chipset. Integrated TV encoder. Supports DDR266/333 with internal graphic core, DDR266/333/400 with external add-on card. AGP 3.0 8x interface at 533MHz. nVIDIA nForce2 MCP2-T Chipset. AC97 Interface supporting up to two concurrent codecs Ultra ATA133 for the fastest hard disk throughput. USB 2.0 EHCI/1.1 OHCI controller. FireWire and USB 2.0 for the fastest digital connectivity. Audio Processing Unit(APU) encodes audio in Dolby® Digital 5.1 format for full surround sound effects. Supports six memory banks using three 184-pin DDR DIMMs. 3GB PC3200/2700/2100/1600 DDR SDRAMs. Five 32-bit PCI bus slots (support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface). An IDE controller on the MCP2/MCP2-T chipset provides IDE HDD/CDROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66 operation modes. Can connect up to four IDE devices. Serial ATA Interface. Support 2 serial ATA plus 1 ATA133. RAID O or 1 are supported. RAID function works w/ATA133+SATA H/D or 2 SATA H/D. Connect up to 2 Serial ATA devices and 1 ATA133 device. In-Chip TV-out. Integrated TV-out encoder, through external bracket. nVIDIA MCP2-T IEEE1394 controller. Integrated 10/100 Base-T Ethernet/Fast Ethernet.Realtek ALC650 6-channel audio.


As you can see both kits have 2 USB ports

[Budfred]

I am talking about USB 2 (2nd version). Usually when they just say USB, they mean USB 1 ports and these can't handle the much faster USB 2 port devices. You can always add a USB 2 card later, but I would want a board with it already installed.

[old dude]

One thing to avoid is using the setup disk that comes with new drives, especially EZ-BIOS.

Set the bios to read CDrom first until you get XP up and running and then go back in and make the floppy the first choice.....There's a reason for that...later

Get it clear in your head about partitioning and why.

Make a choice between FAT32 and NTFS and why...there are benefits both way. (Longhorn, due in 2005, will offer SQL file system, but that's a long way off)

XP is best choice, don't need Win98 now if you get XP...... The bios is included on the motherboard you buy, it's a beginning boot strap for your machine to get up and running as it proceeds to POST.

Get 512 ram for XP

Learn about ATA controller, IDE controller and floppy controller

Learn about 80 wire flat cable, DMA 5 and why.

Learn about MASTER, SLAVE jumpers or CS and why.

OS comes along AFTER all that. I give you this challange, remembering my first beginning......

Find out where the battery is on the MOBO, what it does.......

Ground yourself with a wrist strap when you begin, especially handleing RAM....

You can do all this, I did.....and I'm a carpenter.....