4. I Found It And bought It……What Next??

This section will touch on the steps involving component assembly, and operating system installation. Although it is aimed primarily at the user who is building their system from scratch, much of this information will eventually apply to someone who already has a system, or is purchasing a pre-built computer. You may one day need to re-install or update your operating system, or just might want to understand the steps involved with putting all of the individual components together.

The actual process of assembling your computer is fairly basic, and includes the following steps:

Installing the memory and processor onto the motherboard.
Installing the motherboard into the case
Mounting the hard drive, floppy drive, and CD-ROM drive into the case, and connecting them to the motherboard with the supplied IDE ribbon cables.
Putting your graphics card into the designated AGP graphic card slot, and choosing a PCI slot to install your sound card into.
Connecting the power leads to the installed devices.
Hooking up the monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Just about every motherboard manufacturer will supply you with a manual that will cover the features and installation procedures for their product in the box, or on their website. The other consideration regarding the setup of the motherboard is to pay close attention to is the setting up of the devices on the IDE buss (hard drives and CD-ROM). Most motherboards come with at least a “Primary” and “Secondary” IDE Buss. Your hard main hard drive will connect to the primary connection, with the CD-ROM drive connecting to the secondary one.

Any additional devices such as a CDRW or second hard drive will need to be slaved off of these primary devices. Setting this up is merely a matter of designating the role of each chained device by designating it as a “Slave” or “Master”. On the hard drive, CD-ROM, or other IDE device that are installed, there are a set of pins on the rear of the device. By attaching a set of small jumpers, you are able to designate the specifics (Slave and Master) of how the device will function within the computer. Jumper settings for a drive are usually shown on the drive itself. If not, it is always readily available on the manufacturer’s website. Be sure that you pay close attention to how you are defining each installed component. This is a common source of problems if it is not done correctly.

Formatting The Drive And Installing The Operating System
You’ve got the hardware put together, and now you are ready to install the Operating System or “OS” as it is commonly referred to. Windows 98SE, ME, and 2000 are the most common and most current operating systems for the PC. When it comes to choosing the right OS for your system, it is merely a process of researching the differences and benefits that one OS might offer from another. The operating system provides an environment for the computer to exist and function in…without it, you have a brand new car without any gas in the tank.

To install the OS onto the hard drive, the drive must first be partitioned and formatted. Partitioning will allow you to set the size of the space on the drive by letting you take a 20 gig drive and make one 20 gig partition, or two 10 gig partitions, etc. This can be advantageous if you need to setup multiple OS scenarios on one computer, or if you want to segregate certain software programs and establish different working modes. For example, you could have an audio-only partition set up to run only your audio applications, and a second partition set up on the drive to run all of your gaming, internet, and other home computing chores.

Formatting is a process of encoding rudimentary information onto the drive itself to make it available for the system to write data to it. It functions much the same way that Adat and DA-88 tape formats work. Until you format them with information that the machine can recognize, they exist as unidentified storage media. Here is a step by step procedure for partitioning and formatting a drive, and then installing the OS.

1. Put a Windows Startup Disk into the floppy drive of your computer, and power up the system. If you do not have a Start Up disk available, one can be created from any other computer with a version of Windows installed on it. To create a startup disk on a Windows computer, click on Start/Settings/Control Panel/Add or Remove Programs/Startup Disk. Insert a blank Windows formatted floppy disk into your floppy drive, and follow the prompts. 2. Put the Startup disk into the system you are installing Windows on. The system will initiate a boot from the Start Up disk when you power up with the Startup disk in the floppy drive.

Once this process begins, it will ask you if you want to continue with CD-ROM support. Select Yes

3. The necessary files and drivers will be loaded onto the virtual drive D from the Startup Disk. What this means is that since your actual hard drive is not being used, the system will create a place to put the rudimentary information necessary to do basic functions in the installed memory.

4. At this point you will be led to an “A/>:” prompt. If there is a brand new drive installed, it will need to be partitioned. You should run FDISK at this point:

A:/>fdisk

Fdisk will set up the basic file partition for your system. Think of this as apportioning a plot of land. You are merely telling the system that you want to establish a specifically sized partition for your hard drive.

5. Once the basic partition has been established, you will need to format the drive for use.

A:/>format c:

C is always designated as the primary computer hard drive in a single hard drive system. Be careful when formatting multiple drives…it is very easy to format, and in the process DESTROY information on other hard drives!
The system will ask you to confirm your action, do so if you are certain that you are formatting the correct drive. Be sure of the desired drive letter before you initiate a format command.

6. Initiate the OS installation by first putting the OS disk into the CD-ROM drive. Next, you need to tell the system where you want it to look for installation information. Usually, the CD-ROM is designated as the E drive. At the A:/> prompt, merely type E: and press Enter to switch to an E:/> prompt. To initiate the setup process:

E:/>setup

Pressing enter will start the installation process. From here merely follow the OS installation prompts.

Custom Installations
When doing a clean install of an operating system (OS), it is usually recommended that a person planning to use the system for audio recording purposes do a “custom” install of the OS. When the install process has been initiated, you will be asked if you want to do a standard, portable, compact, or custom install. A custom install is recommended. If you choose a custom install, it is safe to not include:

Handicap Accessibility (unless you need it)
Accessories
Address book
Communications
Games
Online Services
Multimedia (You may choose to keep some or all of the elements within this header, highlight and then click Details to look at what is included in this folder)

Excluding these extra “features” will reduce the size of the OS installation, further reducing the extra “fat” that is not necessary on a lean, mean, streamlined machine. One final thing to remember is to always update your system’s hardware element drivers (graphics cards, SCSI controllers, sound cards, etc.) from the company’s website. There are always updates and improvements ongoing with these critical elements of your system.