James Byrnes wrote to All on 04-20-1998
JB> I had to buy my daughter a new hard drive and ended up with a 2 GB
JB> Seagate.  Now Warp's Fdisk will not let me set a partition
JB> "installable".
JB> 
JB> She has a home brew machine with a AMD 133mz cpu, AMI bios date
JB> 10/10/94 with 32MB ram.  The bios supports Auto IDE detection and
JB> LBA, both of which were enabled.
JB> 
JB> I tried the following hard drive partitioning scheme:
JB> 
JB> c:    win95          fat    149mb
JB> d:    win apps     fat    350mb
JB> e:    os/2           hpfs   250mb
JB> f:    os/s apps    hpfs   remaining space.
JB> 
JB> When trying to install os/2 Fdisk will only allow me to set C: as
JB> installable,  on all other partitions that option is grayed out.
JB> 
JB> I assume I am up against the 1024 cyl limit, but thought the above
JB> partitioning scheme would be ok.  I would appreciate any help you
JB> could give me in installing os/2 on this drive.
Pardon me if I sound a bit pedantic or patronizing, but I've seen a
lot of these questions lately so I'll take a cut at a step by step -
even tho I realize you don't really need it.
Gonna need an FAQ for this one shortly!  But you have a couple of
unique elements:  You did what you were supposed to and you looked
before you jumped!  From the been-there-done-that file, I would
suggest that you first kill ALL the partitions - wipe the table clean. 
Boot to the BIOS setup and NOW select LBA - make a note of the
'cyl/hd/sec' numbers it gives.  Older Bios's had some funny notions
about what LBA was!  On your OS/2 install disks, add the above geometry
to the IBM1S506.ADD line - just to be safe!  Now, boot like you were
going to install.  At the first chance you get, hit F3 and go to the
command line.  Use OS/2's FDISK to partition the disk:  first install
BootManager, then a primary drive for C:, a logical drive for D:, a
logical drive for E: and F; While you are in FDISK, see if you can add 
all the partitions to the BM menu (take out the ones you don't want)  -
you  will then have to re-boot. .  Reboot, use the same trick to get a
command line, then format ALL the partitions the way you want them. 
When done, type EXIT and proceed to install OS/2.  Don't forget to
specify the advanced install and add E: to the boot manager menu.
From there on, you can screw it up on your own - you don't need my
help  :-}  Just remember to boot the OS/2 install disks and use OS/2
FDISK to re-enable BootManager after W95 hides it.  AND NEVER, NEVER,
NEVER - UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES - LET W95 TOUCH THE PARTITION TABLE OR
THE OS/2 PARTITIONS!!!!
 
Will Honea 
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