Very Computer

| At my company we're having no success in getting our hard drives to
| be usable by DOS once they have been set up with native Linux
| partitions (i.e. totally reconfiguring the hard drive to be DOS
| only).  We are using mostly Western Digital Caviar's (21200's &
| 31200's), but I doubt that has anything to do with it.  We have
| tried using fdisk from both DOS and Linux, but neither seem to help.

That is good and normal.  You should never return to MSDogs, stay with
us forever ahhhahahahah. :)

..but I know a hack to get back into prison: FDISK /MBR

Fdisk with that option will install a basic boot record in the
partition tabel, even though it can see that already seems to be one.

| This doesn't seem right.  Are we missing something?  I must admit we
| have not messed with setting boot flags and the like; maybe our
| problem is in this area?

Yep.  More general, if you're uneasy about the state of the disc,
eg. the partition table and boot records, try wiping it clean like
this: Install it in my machine and boot Linux (yes), somehow.
Assuming the disk is hdc fire away this command: cat /dev/zero >
/dev/hdc This will fill your disc with zeros.  When MSDogs later sees
this, it assumes it is a fresh disk and you should have no problem
installing it.

/Tommy

Hello, all.

At my company we're having no success in getting our hard drives to be usable
by DOS once they have been set up with native Linux partitions (i.e. totally
reconfiguring the hard drive to be DOS only).  We are using mostly Western
Digital Caviar's (21200's & 31200's), but I doubt that has anything to do with
it.  We have tried using fdisk from both DOS and Linux, but neither seem to
help.

This doesn't seem right.  Are we missing something?  I must admit we have not
messed with setting boot flags and the like; maybe our problem is in this
area?

If you can, please help!

regards,
H.Cross

   *poof*  No more boot sector

                 ____

                  \/

I guess the problem is removing the LILO bootloader ?
Try booting a DOS floppy with the fdisk program and after partitioning
switch over to the C:> prompt and type A:\fdisk /MBR
This will restore a DOS bootsector on the harddrive and the drive will
be fine.

Gert

--
--------------------------------------------------------
--    Linux =  Unix_the_next_generation(no_args)      --
--------------------------------------------------------

: >Hello, all.
: >
: >At my company we're having no success in getting our hard drives to be usable
: >by DOS once they have been set up with native Linux partitions (i.e. totally
: >reconfiguring the hard drive to be DOS only).  We are using mostly Western
: >Digital Caviar's (21200's & 31200's), but I doubt that has anything to do with
: >it.  We have tried using fdisk from both DOS and Linux, but neither seem to
: >help.

:    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hd{whatever} bs=512 count=1

:    *poof*  No more boot sector

or...

REALLY BIG MAGNETS!!!!!

just kidding, but it might be fun.:)