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> > > > My much 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 zeroed out the entire drive with a Seagate/Maxtor hard disk utility on
> the Ultimate Boot CD, and repartitioned with BL3 fdisk and mke2fs and DOS
> format.  sys'ed it.  It still acts the same as when I used PQMAGIC.
> Won't boot (I can boot to floppy disk and cd to it) on two computers.
> I think yesterday it was booting on the third computer (but D: and E: were
> full of gibberish).

Not a virus.  It was a partitioning problem.  My 40GB drive is okay but I 
may have partitioned it with PQMagic 8.0.

The problem was fixed by starting PQMAGIC 8.0 (I had used 5.0 the first 
time and then BL3 fdisk) which said the extended partition crossed the 
1024 cylinder boundary, which would cause problems, and changed it to 
ExtendedX partition, and now all the DOS partitions work -
hda1 - FAT32 primary 500MB
hda5 - FAT32 logical 200MB  (or 500 before)
hda6 - Fat32 logical 300MB   (or 500 before)
hda7 - ext2 logical (and more of these)

The extended partition contains all the logical partitions and crosses 
the 1024 cylinder boundary (the same one that BL3 lilo cannot handle 
unless you copy boot.b and the kernel to the first 1024 cylinders).

The linux extended partitions had worked to start with.  Files would 
appear and disappear and turn to gibberish in the DOS partitions.

Ranish partition manager might also handle this.

Using slightly over 1024 cylinders (1GB?) for primary partitions might 
also work.  Including just four primary partitions (25GB each?!).

Steven keeps warning about using extended partitions.  My last problem 
with them was if you have two drives, the second with extended partition, 
and DOS partitions on both, the second DOS partition on the first drive 
has invisible files in dos (it looks fine under linux).

So this was a BL3 problem.  The drive, which came as a SL, still won't 
boot in two computers (I think it booted in a third computer) and one 
other drive still won't boot in this computer (PQM 8 complaint about drive 
geometry) though it boots in another.  To use donated computers, you need 
to work around problems.

I can try it as a slave, with DOS on a 2GB master, but that is said to 
slow down the larger drive.

Sindi