Okay, it is time to install your operating system. This is the final step necessary to make your new PC a fully workable PC.
There are many operating systems on the market today, but for the sake of this tutorial, we are assuming you will be using Microsoft Windows. There are, of course, other OSes out there including many varieties of Linux, and you are certainly welcome to try those other operating systems if you wish. As things stand now, though, simple statistics will show that an overwhelming majority of PC users make use of some version of Windows. For that reason, we are focusing on the Windows operating system in this step.
Your first step is to buy your Windows operating system. The first thing you will notice is that Microsoft distinguishes between “full versions” and “upgrades”. The upgrade is cheaper, but it will ask for and check to make sure you have a previous version of Windows installed before proceeding. Often you do not need to have a prior version installed physically to get it to work, but you must have a prior version available on floppy diskette or CD-ROM, because whether it checks your hard drive or a removable medium, it will check for a prior version. A full version, of course, is designed to be installed when no other version is there or when you have no valid license to a prior version.
TIP: Instead of installing Windows from a CD, some people prefer installing directly from the hard drive itself. The basic reason is speed. Hard drives are many times faster than a CD drive, and since the Windows install procedure will be moving a lot of data from the CD to the hard drive anyway, many people prefer to simply skip the bottleneck and do everything from the hard drive. Basically, this is done by copying the entire Windows setup from the CD to the hard drive before installing anything and then running Setup directly from the hard drive. Just copy the whole CD over to a directory on your hard drive, and then run Setup from that directory. This is also helpful later down the road if you need to install a Windows component and cannot find your Windows CD.
NOTICE: The full installation procedures for Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP are included in the Build Your Own PC e-book.
I installed a new hard drive. Tried to install windows xp sp3
Went through formatting the disk, when it restarted system won’t boot up or work from hard drive. What do I need to do?
This hard drive is sata, I used a connection adapter to hook it up. Should I set jumper pins in this application?
I replaced my crashed SATA hard drive and purchased Windows 7 Ultimate for my new op system. When I turn the PC on I get a quick Bios set up screen ( press F10 for set up message) and then the screen jumps to Disk Boot Failure- insert system disk and hit enter. Is it asking for the Windows 7 disk ? I tried it but nothing happens when I hit enter. Please help this 19th century dummy. Thanks !
I bought a 16GB SSD drive to upgrade the factory installed 8GB SSD and was installing the OS win XP pack3 CD when it produced an error report saying that the CD XP pack3 CD needed to be installed to find the file it was up able to detect called the ‘asms’ file’
THe CD it was requesting WAS the CD in the External CD/DVD driver that i was using (My Dell mini 9 doesnt come with built in CD Drive!).
In attempting to restart it..reboot it, what ever the correct terminology is… i believe in the process that i cancelled the Operation and from that point each time i rebooted the computer it would announce the same error report and on selecting the CANCEL button, a Fatal Error WARNING would appear with the comment
Fatal Warning THe operating system can not proceed (not exact words but the essence of the msg) and that the Operation was cancelled by the Owner!
Can someone get me the correct information for my Dell mini 9 computer to complete the windows XP OS install or to Wipe the existing content from the 16GB SSD so i can return it!
Im really really unhappy with the lack of real service from Dell …Basically out of 6 fruitless months of correspondence with Dells Tech help Desk i have found I person that knows what they are doing and even then they didnt provide the important information about the extent of the service from there Technician ( I can work a frickin Screwdriver…. ) NEVER mentioned Id be doing the OS install myself and therefore provide the necessary step by step instruction for MY PARTICULAR COMPUTER TYPE, after all THEY know what i own,. They HAVE my service tag ID!!!
HEEEEEELP PLEEEEASE!!
I do not know how to format a harddisk nor intalling an operating system from a hard disk please advice me.
How do you copy the cd to hard drive before you have installed an OS?
Is this an option?
with some kind of bootdisk. most likely a DOS bootdisk since you'll be running the setup file as well. i actually do something similar, i mount the install disk's image to a jump drive and boot from the jump drive, which in today's lack of floppy drives seems more plausible.
from my experience this would require a second computer in which you attach your hard drive to and then copy the windows file to that hard drive, unplug the hard drive and load it into your new PC
how to install d windows OS in the hard drive.. thanx.. need help because my OS is in the drive D..
how do i install windows operating system in PC????????
Try going into the BIOS setup. There should be something that says something like “boot order” or “boot sequence.” Change the order so that your hard drive is the first thing to boot up. That should solve the problem.