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Old November 15th 07, 03:38 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general,microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
98 Guy
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Posts: 2,951
Default 250 GB drives - please help

Alan Peake wrote:

Did you actually write data to the entire disk? I've seen it
reported that some people have seemingly formatted large disks
but the data was corrupted when they went over the 137GB mark.


THAT IS UNRELATED TO THE USE OF FDISK AND FORMAT !!!!!

For those of you that are confused (like Alan) read this:

(1) You can use the DOS tools FDISK.EXE (version May 2000) and
FORMAT.COM (April 1999) to prepare a large hard drive for use with
windows-98. By large hard drive, I mean anything larger than 128 gb,
including 160 gb and 250 gb, and *probably* 320, 400, and 500 gb as
well. There is some indication that FDISK and/or FORMAT will not work
on drives over 500 gb.

(2) Windows-98 normally uses it's default driver (ESDI_506.PDR) to
perform protected-mode, "32-bit" access to all hard drives connected
to a system's IDE ports. That driver has a known fault (that I have
personally never experienced or tested) that makes it incompatible
with hard drives larger than 128 gb. There are several remedies for
this situation, such as (a) two third-party (non-Microsoft)
replacement versions of ESDI_506.PDR, (b) the use of the "Intel
Application Accelerator (for systems with certain Intel chipsets), (c)
the use of an add-on (PCI) hard drive controller card (that comes with
it's own driver), (d) the use of a SATA hard drive (if the system
motherboard has SATA ports), and (e) the use of an external hard drive
(USB or Firewire).

Any more questions?