Hey thanks for the response!

I wish it were as simple as a messed cd rom...

He is booting off of a win98 floppy with just the HD connected and it hangs...but the bios reports the size and cyl correctly.

With no ide devices, it boots off of the floppy ok.

It has to do with the mobo and the hd. I'm suspecting size compatibility with mb but again the bios sees it correctly.

Boot floppy is ok. Cd rom is ok.