"philo" wrote in message
...

"Jeff Richards" wrote in message
...
You are confusing the overlay with the managed partition. The overlay
resides on the boot drive. The managed partition (in this case) was on
the
second drive.

What you should have done for your test was this.
-Create a boot disk with a DOS partition and an OS installed.
-Install the overlay. Do not convert the existing DOS partition on the
boot
disk to a managed partition.
-Create a managed partition on the second drive.
-Use FDISK to confirm the partition details.
-Remove the overlay. This might be possible with a boot to floppy
(using
the magic technique) and SYS C: or it might require FDISK/MBR or it
might
require using FDISK to remove the partition and reinstall it together
with
the OS. It's version and product dependant. Whatever, DON'T TOUCH THE
SECOND DISK
-Reboot. The overlay is now inactive and the partition on the second
drive
is inaccessible. There might be a small DOS partition in the unusable
space
at the end of the managed partition, but it won't be formatted. Use
FDISK
to see the partition details.
-Re-install the overlay. The partition on the second disk will now be
accessible and undamaged.


snip


OK you are right!!!!


Here is where I went wrong so I hope you can excuse me.


If the HD has an overlay and one would boot from a floppy ...by passing the
overlay's prompt to press control
to boot from a floppy....then perform
a sys C: since the overlay is bypassed...the sys C: command would *not*
take out the overlay
nor would there even be a C: drive (unless perhaps the RAM drive)



Now...as I stated before, I have tried to remove overlays in the past
and from a win98 boot floppy there are no tools to do so, other than by
using debug.


Also, as I mentioned before, even running fdisk /mbr
will still not remove the overlay

If one runs fdisk /mbr then reruns the EZ Bios setup
it will be shown as installed and enabled


HOWEVERIn my foolishness I did not realize that though it's still
there...
a new mbr is written...so the overlay...though still on the drive and
enabled...
is NOT the mbr that's in use.

So reinstalling win98 from a bootdisk that had bypassed the overlay
would write a new mbr and the overlay would not be on the MBR that's being
used...
even though the EZ bios utility still sees it as present and accounted for.

Thank you for your patience as your scenario was clearly the most likely by
far!


(whew, that was a good one)