Dell USA L P

Alexander Krigsfeld

Alan E Beelitz

Andrew W Wilks

Method and apparatus for partitioning a hard disk during installation of a network OS. In one embodiment, a computer system is booted from a CD-ROM containing a computer server setup (&ldquo;CSS&rdquo;) program. The CSS program prompts a user for certain disk preparation data, including the primary and utility partition sizes and volume label. The CSS program then writes a self-loading binary image (&ldquo;SLBI&rdquo;) to the first track of the first hard disk immediately following the master boot record (&ldquo;MBR&rdquo;). The SLBI includes a bootstrap loader, disk preparation code, and the disk preparation data. The sector address of the SLBI bootstrap loader is placed into a partition descriptor within the master partition table (&ldquo;MPT&rdquo;) of the MBR. The computer is then rebooted and control transferred to the SLBI, which the prepares the hard disk by partitioning the disk to include a utility and primary partition of the desired sizes and volume label (primary partition) and formatting these partitions appropriately. The SLBI then removes itself from the first track and updates the MPT with the new descriptors, at which point the computer system is again rebooted.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Alexander Krigsfeld