Hello, I put a 4.1 gig hard drive into my Versa 2400 laptop. I fdisked the unit and partitioned it into a main and to small sections, a total of 3 drives. When I rebooted, as instructed by fdisk, the computer freezes (lockup) after the system check. There is no access to either the CD Rom or the A drive (complete lock-up). How can I again fdisk the HD so I can place it for sale so one can work from a a promp with DOS? If I take the drive and put it into an identicle machine, it does the same thing. The computers are OK. Is the drive shot or just locked up? I find very little information on this subject on the web. I am spending too much time, I'll just be satisfied with a 2.1 HD which I know will work in the computer. Your expertise is needed.

Are you leaving the boot floppy (I assume this is where you got fdisk from) in A: drive? If not, there is nothing to boot from - the HD is empty. HTH

When rebooting the WIN98 start-up disk is in the drive, as it should be. What can be done? I have two drives that this has happened with. One an IBM 3.3 and the other a Toshiba 4.1Gig. I am assuming that my machine has a limitation of 2.1 Gig, that is why the drives do not work with the machine even though the machine will correctly report the 3.3 and 4.1 Gig. I was able to use IBM drive Zap on one of the units and it reported that nothing worked on the drive. It reported that there was no power to the drive - but I can hear the motor spinning in the drive. This is a tuffy, who is the expert?

You say it has happened with more than one drive? This sounds like an autodetect BIOS problem, or maybe you have to enter the drive perameters manually and did not. What does FDISK say if you boot with a floppy? I know you said the computer freezes up, but won't it boot if you unplug the hard drive? Does a laptop system have a CMOS battery? Is there some bios restriction on what kind of drive can be installed? Did you make the first partition active? (I think the symptom suggests a bad or restrictive BIOS or a bad drive, but there is a lot unanswered here)

I removed the drive, placed the WIN98 boot in the A drive then on power up went into the BIOS and by chance selected RSVD for the IDE. The clock and date are keeping good time, indicating a good battery. I then shut down, replaced the 4.1 gig Toshiba drive and turned on. The computer booted to the A drive and I was in DOS. Next I went to the C drive to fdisk. A message came up stating "No fixed disks present." Next I placed the IBM ZAP program into the Adrive. The program came up with a litaney of at least 30 problems with the drive. I tried this a second time and now it states, "ZAP of Fixed Disk Aborted" Now I am again on the C:\> prompt. Remember that I was able to fdisk this drive when it was first installed. This is a real puzzler. I would like to either install this drive, get it to an operable C prompt or sell it knowing that it is good. I seem to be stuck in limbo with it. Any experts? Could it be that I am not placing proper paramaters into the BIOS IDE? What values should I plug in? Your expert help is needed.

...I can input values into the IDE Adapter 0 Master (C: 4099 Mb). Type Cylinders Heads Sectors/Track Write Precomp What is write Precomp?