KT7A-RAID + 300GB Maxtor + Win98SE = no joy :(

MalcolmO wrote:
W98 'users' can soon expect 120GB HDs to disappear from shelves ...
as are the 40/80GB HDs ... then "what" ??? Qed.

I did not write that (as can be seen from Qed's signature).

MalcolmO wrote:

But I thought the most interesting part was "Note that this limit
is lifted in Windows Me, Windows 2000, and later versions."

Except this bit from http://www.48bitlba.com/win98.htm :

Windows 98 and Me do not natively support 48-bit LBA drives larger
than 137 GB.

Well, I'm getting this from Section 4.2.1.1, note #4
http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...LocFileSys.doc

_________________
In Windows 95 and Windows 98, the CHKDSK and DEFRAG utilities cannot
support file allocation tables larger than 16 MB–64 KB in size.

The maximum number of allocation units that can exist on a FAT32 hard
disk drive volume with Windows 95 and Windows 98:
(File allocation table size)/(Bytes per FAT entry) – (First two reserved
allocation unit numbers in the file allocation table) = (16 × 1024 – 64)
× 1024/4 – 2 = 4,177,918 allocation units.

The maximum FAT volume size for Windows 95/98:
Maximum allocation units per volume × Maximum allocation unit
size=4,177,918×32 KB, which is 127.5 GB.

Note that this limit is lifted in Windows Me, Windows 2000, and later
versions.
_________________

Either MS or 48bitlba.com is wrong.

Either MS or 48bitlba.com is wrong.

Yeah. I don't trust MS. :P Do I want to experiment to find out... not
really.

I've got a 250GB drive that 98se recognizes. The maximum partition size for
98SE is something like 127GB or 128GB so just recognize this fact. I used
partition magic to setup my drives though (I didn't use fdisk). Also, the
cluster size will be 32KB or greater if you partition a drive to its max. on
FAT32, which is *really* inefficient. I chickened out though, I only made my
largest partition 123GB in size.

I hope you're not planning on using more than 1.5GB w/that 98SE
installation, otherwise you're troubles w/98SE have only begun...

--
Doug
"MalcolmO" wrote in message
...
The drive was aggressively priced; I had to have it.

I was fairly certain that my old Win98SE system wouldn't do the 300GB. But
I went to the Abit site and, after a few false starts, I managed to flash
my BIOS up to the 7N version. This is said to recognize drives over 137GB.

Went into the BIOS and, sure enough, it saw that I had a 300GB drive
attached. (Oddly, the HighPoint controller _didn't_ see the whole drive.
shrug I attached to the 2nd IDE channel. The MaxBlast software didn't
see drives on the HighPoint anyway. :P ) On booting Windows for the first
time with 7N BIOS, it grabbed 3 new device drivers from the Win98 disc.

So anyway... the MaxBlast software balked at partitioning to 300GB! It
reported that -- based on an ATA-6 test, it said -- my version of Windows
couldn't go beyond 137GB. ????

Isn't that what the new drivers were about? (Though I admit I was
suspicious that such capabilities came with Win98SE. There are driver
files on the VIA site *but they don't say what they do*!)

N.B. -- The Win98 manual says on page 81:

The FAT32 file system has the folowing advantages over FAT16:

. It allows a hard disk of up to 2 TB (yes! terabytes!) to be formatted
as a *single* drive, eliminating the need to partition the hard disk.

[Later edit: Just realized that MS is only claiming this capability for
*FAT32*, not for Windows98. GRRR!!!]

Well! How do I get my 300GB?! There *_MUST_* be a way! The BIOS knows it.
Win98 claims to know it. The MaxBlast software says that Windows won't do
it.

I've now partitioned/formatted to 137GB and have TWO entries in Windows
Explorer. TWO drive E:'s. I kid you not. And one of my startup items IPFs
on boot now. :P

I only made my
largest partition 123GB in size.

I wound up doing 110-110-80. This gave me warm fuzzies vis-a-vis using
WinME's scandisk and defrag.

I hope you're not planning on using more than 1.5GB w/that 98SE
installation

You mean 1.5GB of RAM? No way! I only have 128MB!

That's good, my 98SE install, while it worked fine w/1GB, is barely
functional w/2GB and I've heard the problems start at 1.5GB.

--
Doug
"MalcolmO" wrote in message
...

You mean 1.5GB of RAM? No way! I only have 128MB!

The first problem happens when you go *over* 512 MB. You need to set
MaxFileCache=524288. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q253912/

As for going over a gigabyte, it usually results in instability at 1.5 GB
and, I think, *always* fails with 2GB. Besides, more than 1GB is pretty much
useless to Win98.

If your system has more than 1GB and it's useful because you're dual-booting
to NT-based systems (or other) then you want to edit Win98's configuration
to limit the RAM it sees to 1GB. You need to set the followinfg in the
[386enh] section of System.ini:
MaxPhysPage=40000

If all you're running on the machine is Win98 or earlier, then the easiest
thing might be to remove some of it.

For further information on memory management in Win98, see
http://www.aumha.org/win4/a/memmgmt.php

--

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User


"pigdos" wrote in message
. ..
That's good, my 98SE install, while it worked fine w/1GB, is barely
functional w/2GB and I've heard the problems start at 1.5GB.

--
Doug
"MalcolmO" wrote in message
...

You mean 1.5GB of RAM? No way! I only have 128MB!

As for going over a gigabyte, it usually results in instability at 1.5 GB
and, I think, *always* fails with 2GB. Besides, more than 1GB is pretty much
useless to Win98.

Lemme guess: He can't even make use of his resources by creating a 1GB
RAM disk, right?

Windows, what a concept!

Splork wrote:

On Sun, 17 Sep 2006 01:36:09 GMT, "pigdos" wrote:

I've got a 250GB drive that 98se recognizes. The maximum partition size for
98SE is something like 127GB or 128GB so just recognize this fact. I used
partition magic to setup my drives though (I didn't use fdisk). Also, the
cluster size will be 32KB or greater if you partition a drive to its max. on
FAT32, which is *really* inefficient. I chickened out though, I only made my
largest partition 123GB in size.

I hope you're not planning on using more than 1.5GB w/that 98SE
installation, otherwise you're troubles w/98SE have only begun...

You are headed for problems. If the total data on the drive, not partition,
exceeds 137gb the disk driver for w98se will have problems. Writing over 137gb
total (some state lower figures like 127gb) will result in what often seems like
good writes, but the disk pointer width will have been exceeded and there will
be a wrapping effect.

'137' is a decimal val, '128' a biny val

I forget my problems particular identities, but in
similar circumstances, after writing, other folders and files looked like
advertisements in chinese magazines. Furthermore, if the partition is over
127gb or thereabouts, the files will be non delete-able and scandisk will report
not enough memory to run. This is off the top of my head so google for
Package for over 137GB Hard Drives in W98 SE

== http://www.48bitlba.com/tools.htm

Two replacements exist ... $10 and a freebie ...
have tried neither, but the freebie 'looks' good from a coder's POV ...



This will replace your Esdi_506.pdr and a few other goodies.

Yes, several freebie OS_default replacement drivers for the W9x OSs ..


Now my data corruption is resolved and I can have partitions larger than 137gb,
though I have not tested filling the partition.

Good to 'hear' ... keep us posted . :-)

There are a few, good 3rd_party 137d/128b disk management 'uts' for W98
....
also keep tabs on FD32 ut development ...



I had just built a new machine and thought I was having data corruption from the
disk controllers. If you never go over 120GB total drive data, you will be OK
or so it seems.

.. 64GB ptns yields/is less wasteful use of sectors wrt allocation
units ...

Qed

According to msdosdrv.txt, Windows 98/98SE is limited to a (combined)
maximum 32 MB of RAM drive(s). That's using ramdisk.sys, and I don't know
what might be possible using third-party apps. I think the overall ability
to access RAM would be the limiting factor, regardless.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP Shell/User

"MalcolmO" wrote in message
...
As for going over a gigabyte, it usually results in instability at 1.5
GB
and, I think, *always* fails with 2GB. Besides, more than 1GB is pretty
much
useless to Win98.

Lemme guess: He can't even make use of his resources by creating a 1GB
RAM disk, right?

Windows, what a concept!