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> > First of all, you did not use the BL3 fdisk.
> > You used the one from busybox 1.3.2.
> >
> > Second, I have consistently advised people
> > to make primary partitions, not extended.

First, I would suggest keeping things simple, like wiping out that
20GB drive with whatever fdisk works to get no (as in zero)
hda-numbered partitions, then do 'badblocks -svn /dev/hda', then 'dd
if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda' (or third-party disk-wipe utility)
Second, I would advise people to make one PRIMARY PARTITION(yes!) for
fat16 DOS, though ***.  Use DOS's FDISK for this first C: partition,
and with 20GB, go ahead and make that C: as a 1.0 or 2.0 GB.  Then
make an extended partition WHILE STILL USING DOS FDISK (shouting here
to make this point). After this, make as many large DOS logical
partitions up to 2GB that you think you'll need with FDISK, C:,
D:,E:...etc,  while leaving enough unpartitioned space for BL3's
native ext2 partitions.
*** Yes, if this is the 12MB fd non-DOS BL3 install and there is
justified concern with the 1024 hd cyl install issue, then you'd
definitely use Linux fdisk to make a small PRIMARY partition for /boot
even before using DOS FDISK. Okay, there would then be only two
primary partitions then.
Point with DOS here is that you fdisk/FDISK primary partions before
making FDISK Extended.

> Why is that?  I was able to make DOS extended
> partition (I forget how - with BL3 fdisk?) and linux
> logical partitions (in the DOS extended
> partition, or with cfdisk 1999 version from BL2).
> The only real problem was the lack of hdb5 and hdb6
> devices.  BL3.50 was working find in hdb5.

After ensuring that the DOS logical partitions work fine in the _ONE_
DOS extended partition already created above, you know for certain
that these are good even before installing BL3x.  Once you start
installing BL3, you use the  fdisk that works in order to partition
type 83 (ext2) logical partitions that should follow _AFTER_ your DOS
logical partitions, e.g., hda8, hda9, hda10... etc. -- assuming for
samples-sake here that they are after three DOS logical drives D: E:
F:

The main point here is that there is no need to change the fdisk type
of the Extended partition from type _DOS_ Extended to type _Linux_
Extended.  Just like hdb5 worked fine in BL3.50, so such logicals
partitions as hda8 onwards should really work fine for BL3.50 using
ANY fdisk (BL3 fdisk, busybox fdisk, cfdisk... etc.) by doing these
steps.

Fairly standard here for good use of a dual-boot 20GB drive anyway.
-itfactor36