Go to the manual partitioning screen.

To do this under System Commander, reboot the system and at the OS Selection menu, select Partitioning.

Remember that you can have 4 primary partitions or 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition on a hard drive. While you can have multiple logical drives residing in the extended partition, Microsoft operating systems cannot boot from a logical drive.

You can only create a partition in a free space area. Free space, by definition, is unpartitioned space. You may need to manipulate existing partitions in order to generate the free space, such as resize an existing partition smaller.

Once you have the desired contiguous free space, click on the free space so it is highlighted by black bars and click on the Create button. Chose to create a primary partition with the desired size. Partitions under 2 GB are formatted as FAT16 partitions by default. This can be changed by selecting Custom Partition Type during the partition creation to create a FAT32 partition.

Once the partition is created, reboot your computer.

Important Note: Windows 95A, the first Windows 95 release is NOT compatible with FAT32, and cannot handle a partition larger than 2 GB. Only Windows 95B supports FAT32 and larger partitions.

There are two versions of Windows 95. You will need to know what version you have because there are important differences where they can be installed on the hard drive. Windows 95 version A, can only exist in a FAT16 partition. It can only boot if the beginning of the FAT16 partition is within the beginning 2 GB of the hard drive. It can not see any partition over 8 gigs on the hard drive. Windows 95 version B (OSR 2) can exist on a FAT32 partition and has normal capabilities with a large drives. Windows 95 A will have a copyright date of 1995.

The reason to do this is to prevent this operating system installation program from corrupting or writing over other operating systems and data (the Wizard would have done this automatically).

When you reboot, a new selection appears on the OS Selection Menu. This corresponds to the new partition you just created. For a created FAT16 partition it will be labeled "No OS (FAT)", for a FAT32 partition it will be labeled "FAT-32 OS".

Select "Settings" and then the "Specific OS options.

In the current selection area, select the partition you are going to install the new OS.

Move down to the Partitions Visible/Hidden field. For "Drive-0" press Enter and mark all partitions as hidden.

Press the Esc key 3 times to return to the OS Selection Menu.

With the new partition still highlighted on the OS Selection Menu, press Enter to boot into the new partition.

You should get an error of "Non-System Disk". However you have accomplished an important step. You have made this new partition "active". This partition is now the computer's C drive. This is important because the operating system will choose to install into the C drive by default.

Go to Installing Windows 95 below.

If this fails to boot, you may need to configure your computer BIOS to boot from the diskette before other devices. Your computer and/or BIOS manual should provide instructions to do this.

Depending on the boot diskette, it should provide an option to Load CD support. Select this option. Watch your screen closely. It should tell you what drive letter is assigned to your CD drive (where it places the MSCDEX driver). For systems with a single visible hard drive partition, the CD drive will normally be drive D.

When you get to the a:\ prompt, place the installation CD for Windows into the CD drive. Type in the CD-ROM drive letter and press Enter. For example, type: d: Enter (where D is the CD drive letter). If that is not valid, the hunt for the CD drive letter, try e:, f:, g: etc.

Type: setup. This will begin the installation from Windows 95.

From this point on, you are in the hands of the operating system's installation program. Remember that you are installing into the new partition, whether created manually or with the OS Wizard. This is the active partition, C drive.

During some point in the installation, it will ask you where you would like to install Windows. The default is: C:\Windows. Keep this default drive to install into the new partition. Expert users could install Windows on another partition if previously set up, but we strongly recommend installation to the default C drive. Some users prefer to change the name to C:\WIN95 to easily identify which Windows is installed.

Windows will typically overwrite the Master Boot Record during installation. When your OS is completely installed, you may find that at every reboot, you will boot back into the new OS. System Commander needs to be "re-enabled" in the MBR in order to get the OS Selection Menu back. Boot from the System Commander CD and select "Enable System Commander". This will run the program checkmbr automatically, and restore System Commander's OS Selection menu.

When you next reboot, the OS Selection menu will appear, and the OS name Windows 95 should appear as an OS selection. Select this to go into your new Windows.