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 The NOSPIN Group provides a monthly newsletter with great tips, information and ideas: NOSPIN-L, The NOSPIN Magazine Visit our web site to signup: http://nospin.com