This will be the “Next” menu item once you have created one disk
partition. You have the choice of initializing and activating a new
swap partition, activating a previously-initialized one, or doing
without a swap partition.
A swap partition is strongly recommended, but you can do without one
if you insist and if your system has more than 4MB RAM. If you wish
to do this, select the “Do Without a Swap Partition” item from the
menu and move on to the next section.
It’s always permissible to reinitialize a swap partition, so select
“Initialize and Activate a Swap Partition” unless you are sure you
know what you are doing. This menu choice will first present you
with a dialog box reading “Please select the partition to activate
as a swap device.” The default device presented should be the swap
partition you’ve already set up; if so, just press Enter.
Next you have the option to scan the entire partition for unreadable
disk blocks caused by defects on the surface of the hard disk
platters. This is useful if you have MFM, RLL, or older SCSI disks,
and it never hurts (although it can be time-consuming). Properly
working disks in most modern systems don’t require this step,
because they have their own internal mechanisms for mapping out bad
disk blocks.
Finally, there is a confirmation message because initialization will
destroy any data previously on the partition. If all is well, select
“Yes.” The screen will flash as the initialization program runs.