Epson 20020, 20040 Preparing a Hard Disk for Use, Appendix E

Appendix E

Preparing a Hard Disk for Use

If your Apex computer came with a hard disk, it has already been physically formatted, partitioned, and formatted for MS-DOS. You should not need to do anything to prepare it for use. However, if you have installed a new hard disk in your computer or you need to repartition or reformat the disk you have been using, you may need to perform part or all of the procedures described in this appendix.

This appendix explains how to do the following:

Use FDISK to create a primary MS-DOS partition

Use FDISK to create an extended MS-DOS partition on the Apex 200\40

Use SELECT to format the partition for MS-DOS and install MS-DOS on the disk

Use COPY to copy the remaining MS-DOS files to the hard disk

Create an AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

Before you can use FDISK and SELECT, your hard disk must have received a low-level format. This type of formatting is usually done by the manufacturer and you should not need to do this yourself. If you are using an Epson drive, it has already been formatted. However, you may need to perform a low-level (also called physical) format if one of the following is true:

The hard disk is new and has never been formatted. Some manufacturers do not format their hard disks.

The number of read/write errors on your hard disk is increasing with time.

Preparing a Hard Disk for Use E-1