Setting up your Computer with Windows 2000

1. Turn on the computer and activate the computer's BIOS by pressing the key sequence indicated in your motherboard's instruction booklet.  Allow the BIOS to auto detect your IDE drives.  You may have to go to "IDE Autodetect" or a similar feature in your BIOS.

2. In the Advanced setup settings, set up the boot sequence to boot from the CD-ROM first, and the Hard Drive second.  This will allow you to set up Windows.

3. Save settings to the BIOS and exit.  Put the Windows 2000 CD in the CD-ROM drive and restart the computer.  When you get the message "Press any key to start Windows setup from CD-ROM," press a key to start the Windows 2000 setup.

4. Windows setup will then load.  It may take a few minutes to load all the installation files.  You will then need to set up your hard drive partition.  Unless you also plan on adding another operating system, you should partition all of your unpartitioned space.  It is also recommended that you use a NTFS partition, since it handles file sizes much more efficiently than FAT32.

5. Once the partition is created Windows will then format your hard drive.  Depending on the size of your hard drive, it may take a long time.  Windows will then copy files.  When it is complete,  remove the Windows CD from your computer and restart your computer.

6. Windows will now ask for your personal identification and Windows serial number (located on your Windows license.) After you type in this information, the only other information you will need to enter is the network configuration.  In most cases, a typical configuration works best.  About 30 minutes to an hour later the installation will finish and the computer will restart.

7. Once Windows loads up, install drivers for any hardware that was not set up by Windows.  You can see what was setup by Windows by right clicking on My Computer, going to Properties, selecting the Hardware tab, and clicking Device Manager.

8. Once you set up your internet connection, go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com to install the latest updates for Windows.

Your hard work has finally paid off.  You are not ready to use your new computer!