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.

Important note- Microsoft NT can only boot within the first 2 gigs of the hard drive. What that means is that the partition created for NT needs to be located at the beginning (or bottom) of the hard drive. We have made locating that area for you very easy. On the Manual Partitioning Screen, the NT partition needs to be at the bottom of the cylinder. If there is another partition occupying that space, you will need to manipulate the drive so the required free space results at the bottom of the drive. With the free space at the bottom of the drive, you will now be able to create a partition in the free space.

Once you have the desired contiguous free space, click on the free space so it is highlighted by black bars and then click on the Create button. Chose to create a primary partition with the desired size. Windows NT can be installed into a FAT16 or NTFS partition. We would recommend that you create and install into a FAT16 partition and then later convert it to NTFS, if you prefer a NTFS file system, during the installation procedure. If you need more than 2 GB, then start with NTFS.

FAT16 partitions are limited by size. The maximum FAT16 partition is 2 GB (2047 MB). NTFS has no real size limitations.

Once the partition is created, reboot your computer.

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

Once the installation is complete, you can perform this step again to make all of the primary partitions or selected primary partitions visible to the new OS.

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)".

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 NT 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.

The Windows NT installation will begin.

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 NT. This screen will show you all of the partitions and free space on your drive. It is possible to direct the installation to another partition or even another hard drive. You can even create a partition here to install into.

Most users will continue to install into the partition where they began the installation. You will then be given the option to convert the file system from FAT16 to NTFS. This is optional. You should continue with FAT16 if you would like to be able to access your Windows NT partition from within Windows 9X or Me. The advantage of a NTFS file system is primarily system security and some advanced Windows NT features will only run in NTFS.

Important note- Different versions of NTFS can corrupt other versions of NTFS. System Commander will automatically hide all NTFS primary partition from the active NTFS. Keeping these partition hidden from each other is the safest way to proceed. For more information on Super Hiding, please see System Commander FAQ Why can't I see a NTFS data partition from NT/2000/XP?. If you wish to unhide these partitions you must install Service pack 4 or later, or NT will become unusable after the installation of Windows 2000 or XP.

When you finish the installation, the OS Selection menu will appear, and the OS name Windows NT will appear as an OS selection. Select this to go into your new Windows.

Continue on with the installation.