Gary,

>  A 4.3gb drive on an old 486 was probably running with a boot mgr.  If this
>is the case, go to Western Digital's web site and download the software or
>reload it if you have it and diagnose from there.

Nope, no boot manager. I had a BIOS Extender card installed which avoided
that requirement.


>If you were not using boot mgr. software, then you are likely not getting
>the original BIOS readings for your IDE drive that you originally used when
>you installed the OS ie: LBA, Normal, Auto.

I'll have a peek at that.

>When you run FDisk from a boot floppy, are you able to "see" the drive? If
>not, then you need to try different BIOS settings for the drive on the
>motherboard/controller or assume the drive is dead (highly unlikely since
>you would've noticed that it now makes no noise if it were dead).

I hadn't thought of running FDisk from a floppy.  Will give that a try.

>just a few ideas.

Well appreciated I assure you

Gary

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