HD installation HELP

[tomsky]

I have strange problem to install HD in my old 486.
BIOS detected it no problem, partition and format goes fine but when I re-boot my PC HD is gone (still exist in BIOS).
Controller and HD is OK-checked on another PC. Any ideas?
Any answer will be appreciated.
Tomsky

[Vernon Frazee]

What type (IDE, SCSI, etc.) and size is the hard drive?
What Operating System are you using to partition and format the drive?
When you partitioned it, did you set the boot partition as Active?
When you formatted the boot partition did you use FORMAT's "/s" parameter?
What error message are you getting when the system tries to boot from the hard drive?

[This message has been edited by Vernon Frazee (edited 03-13-2000).]

[tomsky]

It's any IDE drive (Quantum 250 Mb or WD 270 Mb checked and verified on another PC)
I tried DOS and WIN98 boot disk also ONTRAC Disk manager.
Can not format cause after partitioning, setting partition active you have to reboot.
One more thing even if I removed floppy from BIOS system always ask me for a disk in drive A:

[MarkhP]

It's possible that the master boot record is damaged. You might try running FDISK /MBR
This should recreate the boot record on the hard drive.

[tomsky]

Hard drives are been checked and the one I'm using now is partitioned and formatted.
When I tried boot directly from HD it's always ask me for my floppy and Win98 boot disk says something about that my HD
is not partition or has virus....

[Vernon Frazee]

The Re-partition/Format Instructions below assume two things:
[list=1]
You have a MS-DOS 6.2n (any version of 6.2something) "Setup - Disk 1". For example:
 
http://www.gate.net/~vfrazee/nowonder/images/msd622a.jpg
 
The hard drive you want repartitioned and reformatted is the only hard drive hooked up to the system.
[/list=a]
Re-Partition/Format Instructions:
[list=1]
Boot the system from the MS-DOS 6.2n Setup - Disk 1
 
Run FDISK, delete everything, and then reboot from the Setup Disk.
 
(Note: if you have a problem with this step, see this page (http://www.gate.net/~vfrazee/kill_hd.htm)).
 
Run FDISK again and keep banging on the [Enter] key until the system reboots (from the Setup Disk).
 
Do: FORMAT C: /S
 
Remove the Setup Disk from A: and reboot off of the hard drive.
[/list=a]

[This message has been edited by Vernon Frazee (edited 03-15-2000).]