i386/73934: fdisk sees disk as empty

[marco]

>Number:         73934
>Category:       i386
>Synopsis:       fdisk sees disk as empty
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       high
>Responsible:    freebsd-i386
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Sun Nov 14 14:30:27 GMT 2004
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     marco
>Release:        5.3 stable
>Organization:
>Environment:
>Description:
Installing 5.3 from CD on a PC with DOS, FreeBsd 5.1 (which i want to replace) and w2000 on a single IDE drive. Fdisk editor does not detect the three previous slices. 
Deleting FreeBsd 5.1 from w2000 does not change stuff. 
Launching FreeBSD 4.2 install, Fdisk does not reproduce the error. 
Fdisk of FreeBSD 5.1 which was already claudicating ("a geometry of 119150/16/63 for ad0 is incorrect....") could see the slices (before i deleted it)
>How-To-Repeat:
always happen
>Fix:
      
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: