Warning: Long post follows.

I have a new XP box for regular stuff, but I have an older (4 years) PC I am trying to setup as well. It's an IBM 300PL desktop with the original hard drive (4gb running W2k) and a new Maxtor (Quantum) 60gb drive. These are the issues I have at the moment:

1. I have created partitions and in the process have the wrong partition number existing in the Boot.INI file. As the INI file is pointing to the wrong partition the PC will not boot. I need to find or be able to download or create from CD a bootable startup diskette so I can access and edit the INI file.

2. The original hard drive has 2 partitions. The 1st is empty and the 2nd contains the system OS. I would like to delete the 1st so that the entire 4gb is dedicated for system files. Using W2k I am unable to actually delete this partion; it just becomes "unallocated." Is this because it's the 1st partition?

3. I was using the floppy disks created with Partition Magic, but somehow I have something called EZ-BIOS that loads on booting that seems to be there to "handle" the hard drives. I am unable to run PM successfully due to errors that the 60gb hard drive is being reported incorrectly. Anyone have any experience with any of this?

4. When the system was up and running, only 32gb of the 60gb hard drive were available. I only had 8gb until I changed the jumpers on the drive to the documentation specifications to "limit" the availble space which allowed 32, but is that all I'm going to be able to get? Is this a limitation of the bios? BTW, I have flashed the PC bios with the most recent version with no change.

5. I would really prefer to have the OS on the 60gb drive, but have not found a way to move the partition from where it currently exists on the 4gb drive. It cannot be done from within W2k as there are files "in use" when running. I tried Disk Copy (PowerQuest), but it seems to cause the drive to have partition errors after doing it. I think it is confused by what the drive is reporting.

I really thought this would be a little involved, but not that big of a deal. I was wrong. I just don't know enough about hard drive limitations/configurations, bios or all that stuff that goes on before my OS starts. Any (and I mean ANY) help is greatly appreciated. I'm spending way too much time trying to get this all to work... Thanks!

Regards, Renoir