Abstract: A method and apparatus for creating a new partition in a hard disk drive of a computer system and installing software (e.g., system software) into the new partition. The method of the disclosed invention reads a diskette for a unique diskette signature which, if present, indicates that the diskette contains software to be installed in a new partition. If the unique diskette signature is found to be present on a diskette, then a new partition is created on the computer system's hard disk drive. The new partition can be of any size, and the size can, for example, be either fixed based upon predetermined settings or user-selected. After the new partition is created, it is assigned to logical drive 80h, the DOS boot drive. Once assigned to logical drive 80h, the invention boots to the diskette and the partition installation software contained on the diskette is executed. The installation software contained on the diskette then installs the software into the new partition.