Ron Martell, question on 160GB drives and Win 98

You can put as large capacity hard drive in the PC it can handle. As long
as your total files seen by 98 do not exceed or approach 128GB, no problem.
The number or size of partitions don't matter in this context.

An extended partition is simply a container for logical partitions, has no
bearing.

MS dual boot relies on one partition c: for boot files, the remainder can be
placed elsewhere.

--
Jonny
"Pat" wrote in message
...
Hi Ron,

I've been trying to help a woman in alt.windows98. She has a Maxtor
160GB drive but doesn't want to update the OS (Win 98 FE) for a drive
larger than 137GB. Somehow she was able to partition and format the
drive to the full 160GB using Fdisk and the format utility.

Now she wants to limit the size of the drive to under 137GB (128GiB).
She has a 43GB C: and logical drives D, E, and F inside an extended
partition. If she deletes the F: drive she will be under the limit. The
question is; will having the extended partition going past the 137GB
limit cause problems? I haven't seen anything on the web relating to
this.

She said it took several hours to do the partition and format and would
rather not have to do it again to get the "above 137GB space" out of the
extended partition.


Also, a secondary question on a related issue, she wants to install
W2000 at a later date. I know nothing about W2000. Can it be installed
inside the FAT Ext Part on the space left by the F: drive and dual
booted? Or will it need a primary partition, as I suspect, outside the
FAT ext part. Will it dual boot with W98? Can it be on a drive other
than C:?

If you like you can read our discussion on alt.windows98.

--
Pat

"Pat" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:15:49 -0500, "Jonny"
wrote:

You can put as large capacity hard drive in the PC it can handle. As long
as your total files seen by 98 do not exceed or approach 128GB, no problem.
The number or size of partitions don't matter in this context.

An extended partition is simply a container for logical partitions, has no
bearing.

MS dual boot relies on one partition c: for boot files, the remainder can be
placed elsewhere.


Thanks for the help. She deleted the extra partition and all is running
as it should.

Umm, at the moment, anyway........
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

A source at MS told me that W98 does not support hard drives larger than 137
gb regardless of how they are partitioned and that data loss is possible
when a partition starts to approach being full. This site details a work
around; however, I cannot vouch for it as I don't have a drive that large.
http://www.48bitlba.com/win98.htm

--
Regards


Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo



"Pat" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 22:48:09 -0500, "glee"
wrote:

"Pat" wrote in message
. ..
On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:15:49 -0500, "Jonny"
wrote:

You can put as large capacity hard drive in the PC it can handle. As
long
as your total files seen by 98 do not exceed or approach 128GB, no
problem.
The number or size of partitions don't matter in this context.

An extended partition is simply a container for logical partitions, has
no
bearing.

MS dual boot relies on one partition c: for boot files, the remainder
can be
placed elsewhere.


Thanks for the help. She deleted the extra partition and all is running
as it should.

Umm, at the moment, anyway........

Would you care to elaborate?

--
Pat

Yes. I am repeating what I was told by a MS source and I cannot speak to
Seagate's procedures as I do not have a hard drive big enough to experiment.
I throw the info out so the person can "error" on the side of caution and
keep good back ups or upgrade to XP.

--
Regards


Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo



"Pat" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 13:16:13 -0600, "Ron Badour"
wrote:

A source at MS told me that W98 does not support hard drives larger than
137
gb regardless of how they are partitioned and that data loss is possible
when a partition starts to approach being full. This site details a work
around; however, I cannot vouch for it as I don't have a drive that large.
http://www.48bitlba.com/win98.htm


Are you saying that a 160GB drive that has only 130GB partitioned and
formatted is at risk, even though the remaining space is not
partitioned, not formatted, and is unavailable for use in W98.

If this is the case, then Seagate (and probably others) has made a grave
error with their partitioning and formatting software since that is what
it does when used on a W98 machine. It will not allow use of the drive
beyond 137GB. The remaining space is left unused and unavailable.

--
Pat

Please read the last sentence in the "caution" on the bottom of the weblink
you provided. This is the problem at hand. Not the partitioning or
otherwise.
My own experiences with same show same results.

--
Jonny
"Ron Badour" wrote in message
...
A source at MS told me that W98 does not support hard drives larger than
137
gb regardless of how they are partitioned and that data loss is possible
when a partition starts to approach being full. This site details a work
around; however, I cannot vouch for it as I don't have a drive that large.
http://www.48bitlba.com/win98.htm

--
Regards


Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo



"Pat" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 22:48:09 -0500, "glee"
wrote:

"Pat" wrote in message
. ..
On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:15:49 -0500, "Jonny"
wrote:

You can put as large capacity hard drive in the PC it can handle. As
long
as your total files seen by 98 do not exceed or approach 128GB, no
problem.
The number or size of partitions don't matter in this context.

An extended partition is simply a container for logical partitions,
has
no
bearing.

MS dual boot relies on one partition c: for boot files, the remainder
can be
placed elsewhere.


Thanks for the help. She deleted the extra partition and all is
running
as it should.

Umm, at the moment, anyway........

Would you care to elaborate?

--
Pat

"Pat" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 03:39:32 -0500, "Jonny"
wrote:

Please read the last sentence in the "caution" on the bottom of the
weblink
you provided. This is the problem at hand. Not the partitioning or
otherwise.
My own experiences with same show same results.


That is what I thought was the situation. As long as total data is less
than 137Gb (128GiB) the problem isn't an issue. As I understand it, even
having the drive formatted to over 137GB isn't a problem as long as the
total data on the drive is less than 137GB. Obviously, formatting to
less than 137GB insures that the total data will be less than this
limit.

This is a different problem than running ScanDisk and Defrag on large
partitions. Per Ron Martell's post of a couple weeks ago, the ScanDisk
and Defrag issue has to due with the number of clusters in a partition
not the actual size of the partition. Although, as I understand it,
there is a 120GB limit on ScanDisk and Defrag regardless of cluster size
or cluster count.

--
Pat


Neither Ron can't really confirm what I'm saying about this. MS has been
terribly quiet about it for some reason. This has me baffled as they are
usually up front about things like this. Am not expecting a fix, but MS
acknowledging the problem would make it easier for people to believe me when
I state the problem.

Am defragging with Diskeeper. The only hard drive I have that may present
the 128GB data problem is 200GB, have repartitioned and formatted NTFS type
3 for XP use. This is the hard drive I found the problem with 98 and ME.
Tried all kinds of partition sizes, even two partitions FAT32
totallying120GB, and remainder NTFS type 3, didn't solve it.
--
Jonny

--
@---}--
Laura.....
Liverpool, England



"Jonny" wrote in message
...
: "Pat" wrote in message
: ...
: On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 03:39:32 -0500, "Jonny"
: wrote:
:
: Please read the last sentence in the "caution" on the bottom of the
: weblink
: you provided. This is the problem at hand. Not the partitioning or
: otherwise.
: My own experiences with same show same results.
:
:
: That is what I thought was the situation. As long as total data is less
: than 137Gb (128GiB) the problem isn't an issue. As I understand it, even
: having the drive formatted to over 137GB isn't a problem as long as the
: total data on the drive is less than 137GB. Obviously, formatting to
: less than 137GB insures that the total data will be less than this
: limit.
:
: This is a different problem than running ScanDisk and Defrag on large
: partitions. Per Ron Martell's post of a couple weeks ago, the ScanDisk
: and Defrag issue has to due with the number of clusters in a partition
: not the actual size of the partition. Although, as I understand it,
: there is a 120GB limit on ScanDisk and Defrag regardless of cluster size
: or cluster count.
:
: --
: Pat
:
:
: Neither Ron can't really confirm what I'm saying about this. MS has been
: terribly quiet about it for some reason. This has me baffled as they are
: usually up front about things like this. Am not expecting a fix, but MS
: acknowledging the problem would make it easier for people to believe me
when
: I state the problem.
:
: Am defragging with Diskeeper. The only hard drive I have that may present
: the 128GB data problem is 200GB, have repartitioned and formatted NTFS
type
: 3 for XP use. This is the hard drive I found the problem with 98 and ME.
: Tried all kinds of partition sizes, even two partitions FAT32
: totallying120GB, and remainder NTFS type 3, didn't solve it.
: --
: Jonny
:
:

"Jonny" wrote:


Neither Ron can't really confirm what I'm saying about this. MS has been
terribly quiet about it for some reason. This has me baffled as they are
usually up front about things like this. Am not expecting a fix, but MS
acknowledging the problem would make it easier for people to believe me when
I state the problem.

Am defragging with Diskeeper. The only hard drive I have that may present
the 128GB data problem is 200GB, have repartitioned and formatted NTFS type
3 for XP use. This is the hard drive I found the problem with 98 and ME.
Tried all kinds of partition sizes, even two partitions FAT32
totallying120GB, and remainder NTFS type 3, didn't solve it.

If you read through the various articles in the Microsoft Knowledge
Base regarding Scandisk and Defrag you can put together the picture
from the bits and pieces mentioned in the different articles.

The origin of the problem seems to be that Scandisk and Defrag were
written in such a way that there are limits on the size of internal
tables etc. The operations of these utilities requires that they
construct a table in memory with one entry for each cluster on the
drive, and when there are more than 4.1 million (2^22) total clusters
the size of the required table exceeds the capabilities of the
program.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Ron Martell" wrote in message
...
"Jonny" wrote:


Neither Ron can't really confirm what I'm saying about this. MS has been
terribly quiet about it for some reason. This has me baffled as they are
usually up front about things like this. Am not expecting a fix, but MS
acknowledging the problem would make it easier for people to believe me
when
I state the problem.

Am defragging with Diskeeper. The only hard drive I have that may
present
the 128GB data problem is 200GB, have repartitioned and formatted NTFS
type
3 for XP use. This is the hard drive I found the problem with 98 and ME.
Tried all kinds of partition sizes, even two partitions FAT32
totallying120GB, and remainder NTFS type 3, didn't solve it.

If you read through the various articles in the Microsoft Knowledge
Base regarding Scandisk and Defrag you can put together the picture
from the bits and pieces mentioned in the different articles.

The origin of the problem seems to be that Scandisk and Defrag were
written in such a way that there are limits on the size of internal
tables etc. The operations of these utilities requires that they
construct a table in memory with one entry for each cluster on the
drive, and when there are more than 4.1 million (2^22) total clusters
the size of the required table exceeds the capabilities of the
program.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

Understood. The problem I'm speaking of occurs without use of defrag or
scandisk. And, requires further association with the partition and
filesystem capabilities of the OS. Too much assumption. MS needs to do a
KB article on this problem specifically. Again, am not expecting a fix,
just a MS official explanation. They will probably remain silent as the
support time period is soon to expire is my personal estimation.

--
Jonny