First Build

[PokerDegenerate]

Windows 7 is stable as far as I can tell I have had a few different builds now and they all have been stable while I was using them. The only thing is some drivers may not totally work with it but as far as that goes I haven't run into any problems with any of my drivers at all either.

Depending on what OS you are using there are a couple different ways to partition you HDD. Vista has a built in feature to do it if your using vista you go to control panel >Administrative tools > Computer management> Storage> Disk management. Then click on your drive you want to partition go to the bottom where it shows your drive right click and click on shrink volume. Then specify the size you want to use for the partition. (it is in MB's NOT Gb's so just multiply 1024 times the number of Gb's you want it to be) and then hit ok. After that you will right click on the new partition and click new simple volume. and poof your done.

Yes and Yes to the other questions It will not let it boot off a game tho so it will either come up with an error like unable to boot from media or just not boot which means you gotta take out the disk. So I always just set it to HDD as the first boot media after I have installed the OS the first time. And disable the Floppy if your not using one also. It wont hurt anything if you dont but its just something i do also.

 

[ndatoxicity]

ok.... so how do you get into the BIOS after first boot?

 

[worshipme]

ok.... so how do you get into the BIOS after first boot?

You will be prompted to enter the BIOS at the POST screen. Usually, it's DEL. but the key will be indicated any way.

 

[PokerDegenerate]

Yeah if your motherboard has a splash screen it will list the key to press..

Some are delete key, some are one of the F keys (F1, F2, F10) it all depends on your motherboard tho. Your motherboard manual will tell you what key it is also.

 

[ndatoxicity]

no no no... i mean AFTER you do this... because you set it to boot off of your drive first boot, then HD second boot.... but one of you said you can disable it.... how would you go about doing that and overclocking and such AFTER you do what you guys are talking about

 

[PokerDegenerate]

Oh I was talking about disabling the floppy drive if you don't have one. there will be an option in the bios for that too. it will say something like floppy and have dimensions if you hit enter there will be options to change its dimensions or there will be an option of either disable or none or something like that. Again it depends on your mobo because different mobos have different bios settings, options, and layouts.

I actually think the default bios setting for the boot order is floppy, HDD, then CDRom. So you most likely wont have to change it at all. It just goes through all the different options until it finds a bootable OS and goes from there. Since your first time there isnt one on the HDD it just goes to the next option which is the CD/DVD drive.

 

[ndatoxicity]

Oh I was talking about disabling the floppy drive if you don't have one. there will be an option in the bios for that too. it will say something like floppy and have dimensions if you hit enter there will be options to change its dimensions or there will be an option of either disable or none or something like that. Again it depends on your mobo because different mobos have different bios settings, options, and layouts.

I actually think the default bios setting for the boot order is floppy, HDD, then CDRom. So you most likely wont have to change it at all. It just goes through all the different options until it finds a bootable OS and goes from there. Since your first time there isnt one on the HDD it just goes to the next option which is the CD/DVD drive.

ok... lol.... let me explain to you what im asking

when you first boot up and press DEL, and go into the bios, and change first boot to cd/dvd drive... and second to HD to install ur os.... how would you go back into the bios once you have installed your os to change the first boot back to the hard drive, so you dont get the error messages and it is faster... or is this really necessary?

also, i wont be having a floppy drive in my build because i dont find it necessary, since i wont be running RAID

 

[PokerDegenerate]

There is no need to go into your bios before setting up the OS at all. Even if the boot order has the HDD before the CD/DVD it will still load from the CD/DVD. Your computer will look through all the different peices of hardware available until it finds the boot media. If there is no boot media on your floppy it will go to the Hard Drive, If there is no boot media on the Hard drive it will go to the CD/DVD drive.

But just to answer your question about going back to the bios after your OS has been loaded there will be a post screen before the OS loads at that time you will push delete the same way you did before the OS was installed. Your BIOS is always accessible before and after the OS is installed. All you have to do is restart your computer and access it on the post screen before your OS loads or you can do it from a cold start in the same manner. You don't lose access to the BIOS once your OS is installed.

 

[ndatoxicity]

There is no need to go into your bios before setting up the OS at all. Even if the boot order has the HDD before the CD/DVD it will still load from the CD/DVD. Your computer will look through all the different peices of hardware available until it finds the boot media. If there is no boot media on your floppy it will go to the Hard Drive, If there is no boot media on the Hard drive it will go to the CD/DVD drive.

But just to answer your question about going back to the bios after your OS has been loaded there will be a post screen before the OS loads at that time you will push delete the same way you did before the OS was installed. Your BIOS is always accessible before and after the OS is installed. All you have to do is restart your computer and access it on the post screen before your OS loads or you can do it from a cold start in the same manner. You don't lose access to the BIOS once your OS is installed.

ok, thanks thats what i was asking (about the reboot into bios part) so once you load ur computer up for the first time, and set the BIOS up, etc.... if i wanted to disable these other boot devices, i would just reboot, press F whatever, and go in and change primary boot device to HDD right?

if one was to install windows 7, and it runs out in march 2010 or whatever.... how would you wipe this off the drive w/o deleting all the data? and also, how would you reinstall another OS onto this (partitions?)

thanks for all the help you have given me, and sorry for all the questions lol

 

[PokerDegenerate]

You could just delete that partition and then create a new partition for a different OS later on.

But you are going to lose all the data unless you do an upgrade which will keep all of your drivers and programs intact just upgrade what is necessary for the new OS. Then after you install the new OS you will need to do a disk cleanup or manually go in and delete the windows.old file to get rid of all the unneccesary files left over from your old OS. You can also keep as many partitions on your Hard drive as you have room for so you can dual boot, triple boot, or whatever you want. The only thing is though you will have to install all of your programs on each different OS because it is like having 2 different computers so you will not be able to access the programs you have installed on the vista partition from the windows 7 partition so make sure you make the partition big enough for whatever you want to run on it.

I only have the bare essentials on my windows 7 right now because I don't want to end up losing it all when the RC period is up. What I do also is save anything I need to use on both on a flash drive so that I can use it on either partition. that way you can use your vista partition as a "backup" for the data on the 7 partition. But if your drive fails its really not a "backup" though cuz it will all be lost anyways but atleast that way you can use your files on both partitions. You could also use an external HDD as well.