Multiboot question XP, Win 98, DOS

Hi, I decided to have a go at setting up a multiboot system on an old PC. I read the info on Microsoft's site that said oldest OS first. I wasn't sure if I should use the fdisk on a copy of MS DOS V6.21 I have, so I tried it out on an old 20GB disc that I don't need. FDISK /status reported 8000 odd megabytes in one partition and 64 in the other. Then after typing FDISK on its own, the PC froze (not sure if there is something wrong with the copy of DOS). After that I couldn't use the hard drive, setup in Win98 and XP couldn't access the drive to partition it, so I binned it. My question is, the drive was old, is it possible the drive just failed at that time, or will a HD fail if you use MSDOS fdisk on it? Thanks

 

If the drive had been used, I'd fdisk, select 3 and delete everything, then at the main menu select 1 create , 1 primary. Then format c: /s or sys c:
Fdisk will not kill a drive, you might try a free partition tool see if you can fix it.
PartitonLogic or gparted. Also might find bootdisk.com useful.