701C dead in the water after partition table edits

[Matt Braithwaite <m-braithwaite@sjca.edu>]

My first posting to the list, and wouldn't you know it, I'm asking for
help.  But read on, I think this is a rather unusual problem.

Here's what happened:  with Linux fdisk, I did something rather
unorthodox and definitely non-DOS compatible to the partition table on
my 701C (24 MB, 5xx MB HD):  I created a second primary DOS
partition.  Apparently DOS only likes to have one primary partition,
and the rest of the drive letters in extended partitions.  On reboot,
the machine did everything normally, and on clearing the screen,
touched the floppy, then the hard disk, and then locked dead,
displaying the code `84' at the botton right.  IBM support doesn't
seem to know what this means.  But the *interesting* part is that I
can't boot from floppy either, now!

Further data: nothing I can do in the configuration menu makes a
difference, and yes, I am on the `Conventional' startup sequence.
Experimentation reveals that I can boot from floppy as long as I
physically remove the hard drive.  Not that this does me much good...
Furthermore, I can only access the diagnostic menu (F1) if I remove
the HD: if I don't, I can hold down F1 and still get the same lockup.
IBM doesn't want to acknowledge this as a bug, inclining more to see
it as a Linux problem, and hence conveniently unsupported.  My own
view is that if the computer doesn't boot when there's a bootable
floppy in the drive, it is definitely their problem.

Here is my theory about why this is happening:  I suspect that having
a weird partition table tickles a BIOS bug in the routines that deal
with the hibernate file, which obviously must understand both the
partition table and the FAT filesystem to do what they do.  Even on a
floppy bootup, the BIOS will want to update the hibernate file, and so
before booting the floppy, it tickles the bug and locks.
Unfortunately, just turning the hibernate file off in the setup menu
doesn't do the trick, which is understandable, since the BIOS will
want to remove the old file in this case.  Knowing what the code `84'
means would be a big help to confirming this theory.

I'm desperate.  IBM wants to reformat my hard disk to see if that
eliminates the problem---some solution!  Any suggestions, alternate
theories, etc?  Thanks a million in advance.

-- 
Matt Braithwaite m-braithwaite@sjca.edu http://www.sjca.edu/ph/m-braithwaite
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