HD Install :: wrong drive geometry when not booted with dma



hi all, I have a problem....

when i boot dsl from the cd with "dsl dma" fdisk -l reports my proper drive geometry, and i can create partitions and run the hd install scripts.  mkliloboot reports an error about not reading /proc/partitions (even though it exists.)  
the script reports success, and it can boot...to a point.

the boot fails with a kernel panic, and the line above the panic is:
VFS: bogus logical sector size 0

when I boot dsl without dma from the cd; fdisk -l reports completely wrong disk geometry, and that there is no partition table.  if one is created, writing hangs the entire machine.

so.....does anyone have any ideas?  i think setting up lilo to boot the kernel with the dma parameter will work, but i can't figure that one out.....

thanks,
+matt

UPDATE:
I thought I'd mention a fe wthings i've tried:
+setting the geometry manually at the boot: prompt
+writing zeros to the begining and end of the drive.

setting the geometry manuallly did make fdisk report the correct geometry, but it still crashed when trying to write the table
just wanted to add some more info/clarifications....

the errors look like this:
FAT: bogus logical sector size 0
VFS: Kernel panic: unable to mount root partition

I've modified the mkliloboot script to add "dma" and "hda=13328,15,63" to the append= line  but it dosn't help at all.....

the drive is a quantum fireball se (6.4g)  and the same dsl cd was able to install fine on a different (seagate 1gig) drive.

ideas please?  i'm running out

thanks,
+matt
What kind of system do you have? - I think many (most?) early pentiums had a 2 GB limitation in the bios. Maybe you could make a 1 GB partition at the beginning of the disk and then try again?
skaos: what the bios requognises does not matter, with linux (and windows) this bios is ignored and the kernel runs the machine.
One of the first things i tried was to create a small (200M) partition at the begining of the drive......

to further confuse matters..... I was able to boot the exact same model drive today on another machine....the geometry is still reported wrong, but at least it boots, and can get to the point where dma is enabled in the kernel.....

I'm thinking that grub or a custom kernel that has dma enabled by default may be a solution.....

what do you think?

thanks,
+matt

anyone know why there is no grub.conf created when grub is apt-got?
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