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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)

As far as I know, BL3 uses only primary partitions.

>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).

In DOS it is costumary to make a lot of logical partitions to handle a HD
that cannot be fully used by the Pc's BIOS.
This means if one has a 20gb HD but the system "sees" only 4gb for example,
someone needs to make a 4gb primary partition and 4 (or more) extended or
logical partitions up-to-4gb each.

>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.

PC BIOSes provide booting directly from IDE0, the first floppy driver,
CD/DVD rom,  or a master HD on IDE1, and even a pendrive on USB, but not
from a SLAVE HD, whatever the IDE can be.
Linux allows redirecting the boot after booting  from a "legal" device.

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

It really slows down if the two HDs are of different architectures and
installed on the same IDE.
Normally they are. The system does not assume a medium, but the lower speed.
It really doesn't concern to the size itself, but to the architecture.
But you can try it as follows:

Master on IDE0
CD drive (master) on IDE1
HD (slave)  on IDE1

This way it's supposed not to slow down the CD neither the HDs.

Teixeira

>Sindi