Hi.
>
> Axelrod, Marc wrote:
> >
> > Hi:
> >
> > I happened on a problem yesterday which is a new one on me.  I was
> > working on a friend's computer.  He has a maxtor 1.2 gig HD, but it only
> > formats to about 520 meg.
>
> Marc,
>
> Your friend's computer is not capable of "seeing" a drive bigger
> than 520 meg. You need to use FDISK and set up TWO partitions, a
> primary(50%) and an extended (50%), then you can format C: and
> format D: and your friend will have two hard disks.
>

        No, FDISK will not suffice (would be too easy); there is a generic
limitation in your bios that makes it not to see anything after the 1024th
disk cilinder, which comes from IBM reserving 10 bits in first PC's for the
cilinder number (2^10=1024) in INT 13 services. You need a bios upgrade, a
new mobo, an IDE controller with LBA bios or the following:

> +++OR++++
>
> Use the software that came with the hard drive to set up the Dynamic
> Drive Overlay so that DOS can see the whole disk at once.
>

        This is possible, but nobody likes it for obvious reasons.

        BTW, I have now the doubt if Linux (and may be others) can work well
in such an old bios. If you have the disk fdisk'd by DOS, the bios would
jump to code in the MBR, which through INT 13 (1024 limit) would jump to
the bootable partition; if this is Linux, it may contain code to read the
bios info about the disk, make its own assumptions, read the disk, and
insert its own routines without the 1024 limit. So the condition should
be: have the bootable partition before cilinder 1024. Am I right?
        (If fdisk'd with Lilo, the same limit appears: on the MBR, being
small, probably it uses also INT 13 for first disk access).

************************************
Javier Vizcaino. Ability Electronics. [log in to unmask]

Starting point:        (-1)^(-1) = -1
Applying logarithms: (-1)*ln(-1) = ln(-1)
Since ln(-1) <> 0, dividing:  -1 = 1
     (ln(-1) is complex, but exists)