-> One thing about this FDISK situation keeps bothering me - - based on
-> what Wayne wrote in the Win95 echo, he first tried to install Win98FE,
-> and apparently FDISK did not run,              

Fdisk ran on the first run through as did format.
The software started to install with executables in temporary directory
that activate upon rebooting to complete the installation.

-> and the installation went OK to a
-> point, but he says it failed for lack of a driver.  
   
The installation _appeared to run OK until the reboot but failed safe
because the Windows software was defective for a 65 Gig drive.

-> On his next attempt
-> to install, he says FDISK ran without permission.  Seems clear to me
-> that something changed in between those two attempts.  The question is -
-> - what? 

Well so you won't be bothered about it anymore I followed
some advice to "load Windows first."
As I knew Linux saw the drive perfectly well off the Ultra66 
card with no limitations I ran Linux fdisk from ramdisk
which partitioned the hard drive with ease.

I setup 8 Gig 1st partition type 0C which is Linuxspeak for Windows FAT
32 and toggled it for bootable.
Then I partitioned the rest of the drive into two Linux native
partitions type 83 and one type 82 swap partition that was in fact the
second partition.

Then I ran the H.P. labeled OEM software CD which killed the drive
in an eyeblink.
Had I refrained from injstalling Windows from that CD I'd have Liux up
and running now on that drive.

-> One other question about FDISK running un-authorized - do you know if it
-> will sometimes do that when running Win98 SETUP direct from HDD, after
-> copying over the contents of the WIN98 directory from the CDROM disc?

No setup.bat file on this OEM CD or if there is one the first thing it
calls is fdisk.
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5