flipper wrote:
On Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:32:25 -0800, Robert Baer
wrote:

I have a Compaq Presario 5185 and it _almost_ works.
The HD from my erst-while working computer had 4 partitions: DOS FAT16
(with Win98SE), extended (DOS partitions E: and F, DOS FAT16, and NTFS
(Win2K).
Worked fine before the move which appears to have destroyed the
motherboard.

Booting with PCDOS 7 floppy, FDISK does not recognize D: system type
and will not show E: or F:.
Booting with MSDOS 6.22 floppy, FDISK recognizes D: system type
(FAT16) but will not show E: or F:.
Both fail to do a DIR D: (invalid drive).
*BUT*
That hard drive works perfectly OK in another computer!

Any idea as to how this can be fixed (for the Presario)?

While it's possible, if things were banged around hard enough, a bad
motherboard would be my last guess. Two likely things a move might do
is 1. loosen cables and/or cards and 2. with a computer that old the
CMOS battery might be weak/dead, which could cause it to loose BIOS
settings.

Since you've obviously been inside I'm guessing you probably checked
cable and card seating so BIOS settings is my bet.

Check BIOS to make sure it detected the drive correctly and then see
if it has an option for LBA vs LARGE (and I think there was a third
but I forget what). If those are different than what it was FDISK with
then it'll scramble the cylinder/head geometry and the partitions
won't look right, which sounds a lot like your symptom.

Compaq often did things 'their way' so those settings might be called
something different, like "IDE Translation = Enable/Disable" or some
such thing.

A weak battery can also scramble 'hidden' things in CMOS so try
pulling the battery and resetting CMOS if a settings check doesn't
resolve the problem.

On old non-working computer, nothing happens; pulling the video board
did not result in the typical "no video" beep "message".
Both computers have decent battery voltage, and all connections (both
computers) were OK.
Yes; there was something like IDE Translation but that made ZERO
difference.
A HD with only one partition works.