Boot to the floppy drive (ensure that A: is the first boot device in the BIOS) and when you get the command prompt (A:\>) type FDISK. Depending on version the first screen you may get is one that finishes with the question "Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)" (some newer versions don't ask the question and assume yes by default) . The answer will almost always be Y (yes). The only reason you may want to choose NO is if you intend to load windows NT4 - which is not covered by this page.

Next screen will give you 4 options
1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive
2. Set active partition
3. Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
4. Display partion information

(if you have more than one hard drive you will get a fifth option to change between drives)

We want option 1 so we type 1 and press return which takes us to the next screen with 3 options
1. Create Primary DOS Partition
2. Create Extended DOS Partition
3. Create Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition

Once again we want option 1 so we type 1 and press return. FDISK will then verify the disk integrity and ask us the question
"Do you wish to use the maximum available size for a Primary DOS Partition and make the partition active (Y/N) "
Generally speaking we will say yes to this (if you want to have the drive partitioned into 2 or more drives then you will need to see the article on multiple partitions) which will then give us our primary C drive. FDISK finishes with the warning message that we must restart our computer for the changes to take effect. If we hit ESC to exit fdisk it will take us back to the A:\> prompt and we will need to restart the computer (hit the reset button or switch it off and back on again). Let it Boot to the floppy drive again until you get the A:\> prompt.

Before the drive can be used it now needs to be formatted. Type Format C: and press return. You will get the following warning message

WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK
DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!
Proceed with format (Y/N)?

Now since this is a new drive with no data on it this is not a problem, but if you have more than 1 drive installed then please be careful. If we type Y and press return then it will format the drive (which can take some time dependant on how large your drive is). When it finishes it gives the following message

Formatting xxxxxxxM (the size of the drive)
Format Complete
Writing out file allocation table
Complete
Calculating free space (this may take several minutes)...
Complete

Volume label (11 characters, ENTER for none)?

Here you can name your drive for example "Dave" or "Joe Bloggs" or "Dads" etc or simply leave it blank by pressing the return key without typing anything.

Once you have pressed return you will get a message about the drive size and the A:\> prompt and the drive is ready to load an operating system.