Another solution to the FDISK problem

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Last update: 10th February, 1996

Symptoms

It's impossible to set an installable partition other than the default C: during Advanced Installation.

Hardware

Probably harddrives with partitions crossing the 1024 cyl. boundary only.

Problem

Probably a bug in Warp FDISK in handling partitions crossing the 1024 cyl. boundary. Such partitions often appears to be corrupted to some other partition table editors, too.

Procedure

Add the following line to the CONFIG.SYS file on Diskette 1:

      SET INSTALLDRIVE=drive_letter

which will set the installation drive to drive_letter:, e.g.,

      SET INSTALLDRIVE=F

Notes

As far as I know, this variable is undocumented.
The Installation Drive Selection screen will not appear during installation when this variable is set. Be careful...
An alternative method of curing this bug exists, cf. Cannot set an installable partition with FDISK by Jacco de Leeuw.

Jason Ho writes (22nd November, 1995):

Referring to "Another solution to the FDISK problem", I had the same problem too, but the cause is not because of hard drive with more than 1024 cyl.

The problem is, I have my DOS in C drive, and I have linux already. I tried to install OS/2 in my second drive (D), but because I didn't install boot manager (I use LILO), so install program thinks I can never boot from D drive, hence the drive is not installable.

The fix: same as "Another solution to the FDISK problem", use

        set INSTALLDRIVE=D      (or whatever drive)

It will install, it will ask you if you want to format it, FAT/HPFS, and things will go fine, until you hit the point when install wants to reboot. It will keep asking you to take away the floppy and reboot, even when the floppy is already out. Ignore it, just reset your PC, add OS/2 partition to LILO, and load OS/2.

Joachim J. Wlodarz