Hi! Thanks for your help! Bob> What is your current status? Is anything already installed on
Bob> this disk? If not, all partitions should be removed and recreated. Not really, I can delete everything on the disk again. Bob> If some things are installed that need to be saved, it would be Bob> advisable to back them up, and start over. If you want to try to Bob> repair this instead of replacing it, please send me a copy of the Bob> partition tables from fdisk (including the disk geometry data that Bob> fdisk prints at the top of the partition table) _and_ from DOS fdisk, Bob> noting which partitions have files installed on them. Here's a little more detail: At startup the BIOS recognizes the size of the first drive on the primary controller correctly (519 MB), the second drive is a CD-ROM, and the first drive on the second primary controller is another hard-disk, the one with the 4-fold partition. BIOS does NOT recognizes the size correctly. It says 82 MB, really it is 4.3 GB ! It has 14848 Cylinders, 9 heads, 63 sectors. I already did as you suggested and cleared the partition table, rewrote it, but the effect was the same. DOS FDISK doesn't even recognize the size of the whole disk (4.3 GB) it says 283 MB ! DOS FDISK gets confused about the CDROM and the 4th partition. Its output is: Partition Status Type Name MB System Percentage 1 Non-DOS 64 23% # used (Linux swap) 2 A Non-DOS 1200 100% # used (Linux native) D: 3 Pri-DOS Chip 2000 CD01 100% # empty E: 4 Pri-DOS Test 847 FAT16 100% # empty You see, it recognizes the sizes of the partitions correctly, but it thinks the CDROM is the third partition and gets confused about the drive letters D: and E: ! Here's more info: BIOS: ===== User Size Precomp LANDZ SECTORS MODE 82 14848 9 65535 14847 63 NORMAL 82 524 255 0 14847 63 LBA 82 7424 18 65535 14847 63 LARGE I'm running LILO. Maybe DOS FDISK is confused because Lilo rewrote the MBR ? Here's what cfdisk prints: ====== # Type 1st Sec LastSec Offset Length Filysystem Type Flags 1 Primary 0 130976 63 130977 Linux Swap (82) None (00) 2 Primary 130977 2588354 0 2457378 Linux (83) Boot (80) 3 Primary 2588355 6684362 0 4096008 DOS FAT 16 (big) (06) None (00) 4 Primary 6684363 8418815 0 1734453 DOS FAT 16 (big) (06) None (00) Here's what fdisk prints: ===== Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hdc1 63 63 130976 65457 82 Linux Swap /dev/hdc2 * 130977 130977 2588354 1228689 83 Linux native /dev/hdc3 2322431 2588355 6684362 2048004 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M /dev/hdc4 6386687 6684363 8418815 867226+ 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M There's the errors (I guess): 2588355 - 2322431 = 265924 6684363 - 6386687 = 297676 (v)erify gives: Warning: partition 2 overlays partition 3. partition 3 overlays partition 4. 60 unallocated sectors. (x)perts, then (u) and (p)rint gives: Nr AF Hd Sec Cyl Hd Sec Cyl Start Size ID 1 00 1 1 0 8 63 230 63 130914 82 2 80 0 1 231 8 63 1023 130977 2457378 83 3 00 8 63 1023 8 63 1023 2588355 4096008 06 4 00 8 63 1023 8 63 1023 6684363 1734453 06 Many many thanks for your help ! Helmut ----------------------------------------------------------- Accept the challenge! http://fbma.tuwien.ac.at/~e8426331/ ... and write to me ! ----------------------------------------------------------- -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .