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re: purchase hard drive for Win 98SE desktop computer
Sunday, April 26, 2009 at 9:12 am
Posted by Keith Stanier
(1655 messages posted)
peppertreedad wrote:
|Who sells (manufacturer) new external hard drives for Win98se desktop computers?
Well this isn't really a Win98 problem.
Depending on the age of your computer there are loads of hard drives available.
What size is the drive you have in there now?
Whats the make and model of your BIOS/CMOS?
The biggest problem is going to be your BIOS/CMOS whether that will recognise a larger
drive. The biggest one you can use in Win98 is 137GB.
Mine is an old system but I bought a 126GB a few months ago but my BIOS doesn't recognise
it. I also bought a 40GB and that ok.
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re: purchase hard drive for Win 98SE desktop computer
Sunday, April 26, 2009 at 9:51 am
Posted by Steve
(23811 messages posted)
I first found a PCI USB 2.0 Control Card that had Windows 98 Drivers, then just bought
a empty USB Hard Drive enclosure to put in a Drive of My choice. I suggest staying
with 120 Gig drives, or smaller to avoid the 48 bit addressing problems of windows
98.
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re: purchase hard drive for Win 98SE desktop computer
Saturday, May 9, 2009 at 6:06 am
Posted by Richard Harris
(270 messages posted)
Any USB 2 external drive up to about 120 Gig should work. However, be sure to format
it as FAT32, if it does not already come that way.
The one wrinkle is that unlike XP, which seems to automatically recognize all USB
2 hard drives, 98 may require drivers for each specific hard drive. Thus, be sure
to check that the manufacturer offers such drivers, usually as a download, before
buying a drive.
For example, a quick search of Seagate/Maxtor support, downloads, found a list of
drives that had downloadable 98SE drivers. http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=201413
On Sunday, April 26, 2009 at 12:17 am, peppertreedad wrote:
>Who sells (manufacturer) new external hard drives for Win98se desktop computers?
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re: purchase hard drive for Win 98SE desktop computer
Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 10:42 am
Posted by Ed
(741 messages posted)
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: 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
On Sunday, April 26, 2009 at 12:17 am, peppertreedad wrote:
>Who sells (manufacturer) new external hard drives for Win98se desktop computers?
[Reply or follow-up to this message]
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re: purchase hard drive for Win 98SE desktop computer
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 7:42 am
Posted by Kiwi
(2228 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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