Hopefully by now, you have downloaded my Boot Disk and put it onto a stiffie disk. I am also assuming that you have either printed out these instructions (rather then print out the web site straight off the net, download my printer friendly version of the website from the meu bar on the left; it has at least got black writing on a white background... much nicer for printer's to handle), or are using VMware to simulate the installation procedures. NOTE to VMware Users: To create a virtual HD above the 2047 limit, you need to create a Plain Disk type of HD and have 4 Gigs of free space that a file can be created on.

This will start Partition Magic, which is a program that will allow you to setup partitions on your HD, resize partitions already there, or move existing partitions, without losing any data.

This will run NTFSdos, which is a program that gives you READ access to your NTFS drives. I have used this on many an occasion to rescue information sitting on an NTFS partition after WinNT could no longer see the partition.

Once you have created a small FAT16 partition at the start of your Drive, you can install this mini-version of DOS 6.22, if you wish.

This will take you to a second menu, where you will be able to change the Master Boot record from whatever Operating System it currently is, to any M$ operating system you want it to be (Linux LILO is not supported, sorry).

This will also take you to another menu where you will be able to edit any of the editable files on the disk. If you wish to edit a different file then the ones given, the exit out of the menu system, go to the directory where the file you want to edit exists, and type in:

ted <filename>.<ext>

If you have any partitions on the drive that you want to delete, then use this option. This is a very elegant, though very destuctive program, called Delpart (found, I think, on the NT 4.0 Sever Resource pack). It is able to "see" all the partitions on your HD, and delete the ones you no longer need.

This is just a .BAT file. But be very careful. This is a sledgehammer approach. It will delete ALL data and all partition information on your entire HD, as well as the Master Boot record. So, if you have already setup a data drive, this will be deleted as well (unless it is on a seperate physical disk). If you suspect that you have a boot record virus (like the Chernobyll virus), using this option will delete it... along with everything else on the hard drive. You will be asked to confirm the deletion THREE times. Each question will wait for 15 seconds, and if no decision is made, it will NOT delete anything.