->         Hello Wayne ! 

->  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 :-(

->         I was going to suggest a PRG that I use at times, called
->   BAKTRAK, it also zeroes in all tracks/sectors. But if the HD is not
->   even seen on your system, you can not address it with any CLI.

That's  what I'm thinking.
The only outside possibility I see is I powered down 
IDE channel 1 in CMOS on one of the later attempts after the 
defective Win 98 fdisk messed it up.
Doubt this however.

Next time at bat all Linux and no Windows.
Even the ramdisk Linux is still up after 4 weeks of use!

BTW you sig line says you won't be without a OLR but it looks
like you switched to one that's not year 2k compliant.

Two of your posts to me had a numeral preceeding the W in Wayne,
a known defect of BlueWave without the fix applied to it.
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5