re: purchase hard drive for Win 98SE desktop computer
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 7:42 am
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Kiwi
(2213 messages posted)
IMO, it's the IDE vs. SATA that is the unsurmountable barrier for Win98. I've operated
160 GB and 200 GB Hdds with Win98, although I'd partitioned them, and never tried
running a logical drive as large as 137 GBs with that OS, I found Win98 to be more
flexible about larger drives (IDE) than Win2000, SP4, is.
I've had an assortment of 137-plus GB conflicts with W2k, both IDE and SATA, but
especially SATA. Incidentally, since I stayed with W9X until Win2000, and didn't
even start with that from its release, I never even knew about the NT4 drive size
limitation of 7.8 GBs for Boot & System partitions, until recently.
.
Kiwi
**
On Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 10:42 am, Ed wrote:
>Western Digital, Maxtor and Seagate are three well known manufacturers of hard disks.
>I have had good results with Western Digital's disks.
>
>For a pre-1999 computer you will need a Parallel-ATA (PATA) type of hard disk, also
>known as an IDE (or EIDE) hard disk.
>
>My tip-of-the-day: If you buy an IDE hard disk that is the same size as the
>existing hard disk in the computer, the new disk is certain to work without
>a BIOS upgrade.
>
>If you buy a hard disk that is larger than the current one, you might need to upgrade
>the BIOS in the computer in order for the computer to recognise it. This can be
difficult.
>You have to find a BIOS upgrade on the website of the manufacturer of the BIOS (but
>even simply identifying the manufacturer and version number of the existing BIOS
>can be tricky).
>
>However, with Windows 98 the main hardware barrier was 33.8 GB (if the computer
is
>an old one, i.e. manufacturered before the year 2000). So you could be reasonably
>confident that such a computer will probably recognise any hard disk up to 32 GB
>without a BIOS upgrade. Thus a 30 GB disk, for example, would probably work.
>
>No computer that uses Windows 98 can use a PATA / IDE hard disk larger than 137
GB,
>even with a BIOS upgrade.
>
>
>Other considerations:
>
>The new disk must first be partitioned (as one or more FAT32 partitions), and each
>partition must then be formatted.
>
>1. The Windows 98 version of FDISK.EXE has a limit of 64 GB. But by using the Windows
>ME version of FDISK instead (which is compatible with Win98) it is possible to partition
>a disk exceeding 64 GB.
>
>Third party (i.e. non-Microsoft) partitioning utilities can also be used to partition
>a disk larger than 64 GB, e.g. the utility programs supplied on the hard disk manufacturer's
>website.
>
>2. The Windows 98 version of FORMAT.COM will successfully format a FAT32 partition
>exceeding 64 GB. For although a cosmetic defect in the program displays an incorrect
>value for the size of the partition during the partitioning process where the disk
>size exceeds 64 GB, the partition will nonetheless be formatted correctly.
>
>3. To get a clear understanding of how to partition and format a hard disk, using
>FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM, read this thread:
>target=_blank>http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/1192677773
>
>An alternative solution is to (if possible) buy a disk which is pre-formatted as
>FAT32, then you don't have to manually partition and format it.
>
>Another alternative is to use a partitioning utility from the disk manufactrurer's
>website, instead of using FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM
>
>Ed
>
>
>
>
>
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