Is your drive a Western Digital? If so, go to their web site and download their free utility package.  When you unzip the file to a floppy it makes a bootable disk that has a utility that will write zeroes to the entire drive, including the Master Boot Record.  I read about it after doing a google search, and they say it's like taking your car down to bare metal. There is nothing left on the drive, which may rid you of the infernal IBM stuff. After that you should be able to fdisk and format it.

><< Just a thought...I just joined, and may have missed all of your messages,
> but in case this has not been mentioned, did you check the boot order in
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