Installing BootIt NG

Installation Tutorials

If you are new to BootIt NG, you may find it helpful to watch the two video tutorials below before proceeding:

Installation Step 1: Creating the Installation Media from Windows
Installation Step 2: Installing BootIt Next Generation to the Hard Drive

Installing BootIt NG for the First Time

1. After you boot from the BootIt NG Setup floppy disk or CD/DVD, at the Welcome to setup prompt, click OK.
   
   
2. When asked if you want to enable more than four primary partitions, click Yes or No:
   
   
   • If you click Yes, then you must partition your hard drives only using BootIt NG.
   • If you click No, then you can continue to use any other partitioning software (such as FDISK or Windows Disk Management).
     
     
3. When asked how you want the partition chosen, click Yes to have Setup choose the partition for you or click No to choose the partition manually (as described in the article Choosing the BootIt NG Installation Partition Manually).
   
   
4. When asked if you want to install BootIt NG to its own partition, click either Yes or No. Installing BootIt NG to its own partition requires unpartitioned space and takes up one primary partition which could be an issue if you chose not to enable support for more than four primary partitions. If Setup can’t accommodate your choice, it notifies you later and gives you the option to change your selection.
   
   
   • If you would like to create the small amount of free space necessary to install BootIt NG to its own partition, please refer to the article Creating Free Space for BootIt NG Installation.
     
     
5. When Setup indicates that it has all of the needed information, click OK to begin copying files to your hard drive. Then refer to the Complete the Installation section below.

Complete the Installation

1. If you installed BootIt NG from a floppy disk, use your operating system’s disk copy feature to create a backup copy of the startup disk, and keep it in a safe place. You will need the startup disk to recover from any problems or situations that may arise in the future. If you ever update your startup disk or use a new one, be sure to update your backup disk as well.
   
   
2. Consider changing the BIOS Boot Order to boot from drive C: first if your BIOS can change the boot sequence to C:/A: (hard drive, floppy). If you have a CD or DVD drive, consider setting up the sequence to be C:/CDROM/A: (hard drive, CD/DVD-ROM, floppy) so that you can use the Next BIOS Device option in BootIt NG.