-> -=> WAYNE CHIRNSIDE wrote to JEAN PARROT <=-

->  ->         Hello Matt !

->  ->  MM> Oh yes, Windows DOES do that!  :-((  If it fails to
see the drive for
->  ->  MM> any reason, it believes there is no data to be careful
of and starts
->  ->  MM> the installation with FDISK.

->  ->         Windows does FDISK ?

->  WC> The OEM CD does.

->  ->  MM> If I read all of this correctly, Wayne's system now no
longer 'sees'
->  ->  MM> the drive at all.  If this is true, he will most
likely have to put it
->  ->  MM> on a newer system first that will 'see' the drive just
to be able to
->  ->  MM> zero the MBR.

->  ->         Wayne has some hope for his HD as he said that he is keeping
->  ->   it to install it as slave on another system. Then he would be able
->  ->   to do an FDISK on his own and then format the HD again. That would
->  ->   redo the MBR.

->  WC> I was thinking Roy's advice might have some value in the
->  WC> command line syntax he provided but on rethinking it
->  WC> if fdisk /dev/hde doesn't see the drive his zeroing syntax
->  WC> won't see it either :-(

-> Wayne will you put the damn thing on /dev/hda because you are making
-> things impossible by having it on /dev/hde. ;) It doesn't matter what 
-> size the BIOS sees for the time being. 

I was advised otherwise, that advice was flawed.
The Ultra I/O card doesn't hardware support ATAPI
as does the card I'd been planning on purchasing.
I was advised to save my money.  

-> If it can see only 8gig then
-> so be it. Give the entire disk over to Windows after you have destroyed 
-> all partitions. Then split it in half using "fips" and
Linux the rest.

Yeah, had I run FIPS even in it's -t option I could use restorrb
and rewrite the MBR.

-> When or if it works then move it to /dev/hde and see if it will boot.

-> By the way did it boot when you installed Linux the first time?

Oh absolutely, Linux saw the drive perfectly and fdisk -l
listed all partitions as I'd allocated them.
Then came Windows :-(

-> If that works then you can fdisk using Linux to get the larger size.

I don't think anything will work now as neither Linux fdisk -l       
or fdisk /dev/hde works failing to see a hard drive.
This after Windows installation attempt.

-> If you want to make the Linux partition larger then it shouldn't be a
-> problem. You should also be able to use some space for another
-> Windows
-> partition. Don't forget once you have grabbed the lower portion of the 
-> disk (notional 1024) cylinders you can do as you please with the rest.

Nope, no more Windows for me thank you.
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5