Fire up the computer and see what happens. If
everything was done correctly you will see the computer POST. Hit the delete key
to enter the BIOS. From there you can set the date, detect the IDE devices and
adjust the CPU speed from the soft menu.
While it's very tempting to overclock the
comp right away, it's best to install the operating system first then overclock.
However, seeing that I have a pre-tested Celeron that I know does 550Mhz, I just
set the thing to 550Mhz and went from there.
Put the Windows 98 boot disk into the floppy
drive and reboot. Chose the "start computer with CD ROM support" when the boot
disk ask you to chose how you want to start the comp. The boot disk will make a
virtual drive where it will put all its tools. For this computer it ended up
with an A drive, C drive and D drive. The C drive is the virtual drive made on
the systems RAM. The D drive is the CD ROM drive. The virtual drive will
disappear once Windows is installed. Where is the hard drive? It's not there
yet. That's because you have to fdisk the drive and partition it.
From the boot disk or virtual drive type
fdisk. This will allow you to partition your hard drive. Chose Y when it ask if
you wish to enable large disk support. This is allowing your hard drive to be
formatted with FAT 32. If you chose N, it will format the drive using FAT16.
There are many way to partition a hard drive.
The most common being a large FAT32 partition. If you want to do that then just
answer Y when the comp ask if you wish to make all available space to the
partition. I don't like to do one partition. I prefer to partition my drive into
2 drives, C and D. C drive will hold Windows and a few business applications. D
drive will hold the games and a complete copy of Windows 98. For this 13 Gig
drive, I made C drive 2 Gigs and D drive 11 Gigs.
The reason for this is quite simple. I like
to only put Windows and non important stuff into C drive and the good stuff on D
drive. If something should ever happen to the comp that it would require a
reformatting and re-installation of Windows, I just need to reformat C drive and
put Windows back on. D drive and all the programs in it remains in one piece.
The reason I put a copy of Windows 98 onto D drive is in case I lose the CD. I
can reformat C drive and install Windows from D drive.
After you have partition the drive the way
you want you will need to reboot again. Now type format c: This will format your
hard drive. Some people like to use format c:/s This will format your hard drive
and put the systems file into C drive so you can boot without the floppy. I
prefer to use the floppy. After C drive is formatted you can format the other
drives in the partition.
Now switch over to the CD ROM drive (in my
case it was F drive), put the Windows 98 CD in and type setup. Follow the on
screen instructions and you should have Windows 98 up and running in about 30
minutes. Here's a little trick you may not know. During the install, Windows
will ask you to make a boot disk. Since you already have a boot disk, just hit
cancel when it ask you to put in a disk in A drive. It will then continue with
the install.
Once Windows has been installed, you might
find that it didn't installed all the drivers for all the devices. In my case,
it didn't install the sound card driver or the Voodoo 3 drivers. Follow the
manufacturer's instructions on installing these drivers. The first thing you
should setup is the modem. This way you can log onto the net and get the latest
drivers for your devices. The drivers that comes with the box may be outdated.
Now put the covers back on the case, install
Quake 3, open the Coke and have some fun! :-)
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