I've had a hard time installing an 80Gig HDD but finally resolved the problem by 1) changing a (bad)IDE-cable, 2) erasing first 63sectors and 3) setting bios to auto-detect. Now it works fine.
But in the process i noticed something strange:
The settings on various HDD's do NOT correspond with any of the settings in Bios.

Here the specs on 2 mobo's (1 AsusCusl2 and 1 MSI6330), both using latest Bios-update, and 5 different HDD's, all set to auto detect(LBA) in Bios:

Cusl2-bios:
30GB IBM307030:
1024C/255H/63S (in bios and confirmed by NFDISC-util)
16383C/16H/63S (on HDD cover)

8GB Samsung SV0844A:
1024C/255H/63S (in bios and confirmed by NFDISC-util)
16383C/16H/63S (on HDD cover)

4GB Seagate ST34321A:
524C/255H/63S (in bios and confirmed by NFDISC-util)
8912C/15H/63S (on HDD cover)


MS6330-bios:
80GB Seagate ST380021A:
38309C/16H/255S (in bios)
1024C/255H/63S (shown by NFDISC-util)
16383C/16H/63S (on HDD cover)

40GB Seagate ST340824A:
19158C/16H/255S (in bios)
1024C/255H/63S (shown by NFDISC-util)
16383C/16H/63S (on HDD cover)

Weird no?
Even tho' everything works (most of the time ... win98!!) and bios showing correct total capacity of the HDD, i am concerned because every manual i've read so-far says you have to respect the number of (H)eads stated on the cover of the HDD!?

Can anyone clarify this for me please?
THX,
Alfa

What they do is that they make the outside world believe it has 255 heads and only 1024 clusters. With the help of this , no actual number passes the magic 1024 line (128 bits adressing)

This translation thing has been going on for about a decade already.

The improved bioses and controllers can adress more , so there's no need for the magic translation then.