10 Operating System The last piece to complete your computer build is installing the Operating System (OS). Before we start getting more in-depth into installing the OS you will need to have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and blank flash drive. For the OS, we recommend Windows 10 since there are lots of ways to download it for free, or you can have a paid version of Windows, either one will work just fine.
Let’s install the OS! First, you will want to use another computer like a laptop or a friend’s computer, and download the Windows 10 OS to a blank flash drive that has at least 8GB of free space. Next, you will plug in the keyboard, mouse, and monitor to your computer. Then plug in the USB flash drive with the OS on it into your newly built computer.
56 // How to Build a Computer
The first thing that you will see on your monitor is a screen that tells you to press a key to open the BIOS. This is where the computer will show you all the parts that are connected and installed. Here is where you check to make sure that your computer is recognizing all of the parts we installed so far. Next, you will want to look around the BIOS page and locate the boot page, this could have other names such as boot order or boot priority. Once you have found this page you will want to change the boot order to your flash drive. This will put the flash drive first and the second thing should be the drive you want to install the OS on, which in our case is the SSD that we installed earlier. Finally, restart your computer to now boot from the USB, then the OS installation screen will show up. From here just follow the instructions to finish the installation.
