-=> TOM WALKER wrote to JEAN PARROT <=-

 ->         I have this new Thinkpad with 4 USB ports and they are seen in
 ->   the BIOS, when starting from an ERD. I was able to FDISK the dead HD
 ->   connected to the USB to FAT 32. Before, I would have to instal the
 ->   dead drive in a system as Master on IDE 0 and the FDISK always saw
 ->   it. Now why is Wayne C.'s HD not visible to FDISK in this same
 ->   circumstances ?

TW> He must of messed it up with some Funny LINUX stuff in hte MBR that Win
TW> dosne't see.

Wayne has given so much conflicting information it's difficult to know
exactly what he has tried and what he has done. If he has fdisked with
an OEM after he fdisked with linux it is possible he has over lapping
partition boundaries. That would make the disk unreadable to the MBR
and the BIOS. If he puts it on IDE 0 jumpers it master the old BIOS can 
only see 8 megs or so i'm led to believe but i find it difficult
to believe that a celeron 433 can only see 8gig because that would be
the 16 bit limit and it should be 32 making it 16gig minimum(?). 

He says he intends using it as a slave but how can he do that if it is 
unreadable? He needs to put it in the proper master position and see
if Linux fdisk can see anything at all. If not then it may really be 
toast. If he can see a partition and it shows only Linux he needs
to destroy that partition and reboot. First view the disk with 
Linux and then with dos. Obviously he needs a Linux boot disk and a
DOS boot disk the latter capable of fdisk 32 bit. If either can 
see the first partition then that one must also be destroyed.

If that works then he should try and do things properly and stop
frigging around. 

First install a proper installation of Windows using as much disk space
as it can take. Next he should use a utility called "fips.exe" which 
comes with nearly every Linux distribution and is run in DOS, to par
back the Windows partition to the required size. This will ensure that
when he goes to partition it with Linux there will be no overlapping
of the partitions. If he wishes to use lilo as his boot loader it
is advisable Linux has at least slightly more than half the disk.

L8r. ;)

  
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.46