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>> Presently I am having the same problem, so I wish to share what I've
noticed
>> about it.
>> I have an old Fujitsu HD that insn't recognized accordingly to the
product
>> information (2490 cylinders 16 heads 63 sectors - all the possibilities
>> point to 16 heads) but seems to have 128 heads instead (the second setup
>> option), which is absolutely impossible - but it works!
>> Since I have to interchange HDs very often (among different OSes),
sometimes
>> the BIOS accepts one or other set of values, which shows me a 'LI' and
stops
>> booting.
>> When this happens I go to the Pc setup and try the second option and then
it
>> works.

>Please explain exactly what you do here.  I don't follow it.

This is the point: Your HD has a probability of being misrecognized by the
BIOS.

>>
>>

>My muc newer 100GB HD works badly on two computers, including the one
>where I partitioned it, so I think it is a HD problem.  But maybe DOS is
>confused by 100GB.  All of the linux partitions act normally.

I don't know what is your motherboard, but in the '80s and '90s it was
"normal" the recognizing
of 6GB to 10 GB and nothing higher. Many times we needed to run a
manufacturer's program in
order to have the total capacity recognized.
"Modern" PCs don't need that procedure anymore.

>>
>>
>>

>Please explain exactly what I should do to make my HD work properly.  I
>partitioned it with BL3 fdisk (PQMagic would not work at all with it) and
>could format with e2fsck and copy files, but DOS format acts oddly.  Files
>appear and disappear and turn to gibberish and the drive sometimes boots
>and sometime does not boot.  I assumed bad partition table.  It was given
>o me with no files on it, in an XP computer.

>Sindi

I use to be quite "radical" when concerning to "donated" HDs, because the
most of them
were given by Windows users.
Many HDs I've handled were infected by partition viruses which do not allow
us to
work properly on the partitions (and this is totally invisible for us).
Fdisk. cfdisk, qparted, etc. are unable to handle this kind of viruses.
They modify the MBR "conveniently" and everything seems to be Ok.

If the system doesn't show you a "track zero" error, and assuming that your
motherboard is not so old, try the following:
Use  'debug'  from DOS (it also can be found on the Windows 98 rescue floppy
disk)
in the spite of  "breaking" any partition at all, and then start it from
scratch.
It's a low-level modification, so be adviced that this process makes your
data to be lost.
It covers the MBR with spaces (character 20 ASCII)

After typing   debug <enter> enter the following values:

-F  200  L1000  0
-A  CS:100
xxxx : 0100  MOV  AX,301
xxxx : 0103  MOV  BX,200
xxxx : 0106  MOV  CX,1
xxxx : 0109  MOV  DX,80
xxxx : 010C  INT  13
xxxx : 010E  INT  20
xxxx : 0110
-G
-Q

Notes: the "xxxx: 01xx"s are provided by 'debug';
At 0110 just type <enter> with no information.
When G is entered, the system says the program was ended normally;
(If not, just retype the information)
Q is for "quit".

(DX,80 is for the first HD and DX,81 for the second.
But I never use a second HD while doing this).

Having done this, you'll have a "brand new" HD what is to say you have
to partition, format, mount, etc.

I hope it works for you.

Teixeira