Large Hard Drive on Promise Card Doesn't Work

I've got a 250 GB IDE HDD formatted with one primary DOS partition
under FAT32 to 128 GB (more or less). This is not my C: drive, it's
actually the third physical hard drive in my system; it's an add-on
for extra storage. This drive is connected via a Promise Ultra 100 TX2
PCI controller card. On boot-up the Promise card reports this drive as
DMA 2 and warns that because it's using a 40-connector cable, its
speed will drop from 66 to 33. The Promise card handles my second (40
GB) hard drive with no problems or warnings. The Promise card shows up
in the Device Manager as a SCSI device (though the two drives it
handles aren't SCSI drives).

I've upgraded the Promise card's BIOS and driver to the latest
versions for Win 98--or at least I think I have. There are no actual
instructions that come with the download for the Promise card. There
are a bunch of .vxd driver files, an .inf file, and an .exe file that,
I guess, is supposed to upgrade the BIOS. There's also an autoexec.bat
file with a line calling the same .exe file. I'm not about to replace
my existing autoexec.bat file, which contains a bunch of stuff, with
the one line in the Promise file. I could copy that one line to my
autoexec.bat file but it looks to me as though it would then reflash
the BIOS every time the computer boots. That doesn't seem right to me.
I ran the .exe file from Windows and I also tried to upgrade the
driver in the Device Manager, which informed me that I was already
using the latest version. The Promise site indicates this upgrade
should handle large drives, but I'm not entirely sure that the upgrade
"took".

Windows 98 SE is having problems with this drive. I can transfer large
multimedia files to it and they will show up as being there in Windows
Explorer but they won't play reliably. I can't move the files back off
the drive; I get an "error reading drive" message when I try. Nor can
I reliably execute other operations on large files while they reside
on this disk. I can hear the drive thrashing, over and over, as though
it's struggling to get started, as it tries to access large files. And
any time I access the drive, the next time I reboot, Windows claims
that there may be errors on the drive and runs the DOS-based
ScanDisk--the full version that does a physical check of every
cluster. If I let that run (takes several hours) the system will boot
fine, and will continue to reboot without error unless I attempt to
access the large drive again. However, it doesn't make any difference
in how the drive performs. If I try to run ScanDisk in Windows on this
drive I get a message claiming I don't have enough memory to do so. I
don't get this message if I run ScanDisk in Windows on another drive.

I've already accepted that Win 98 isn't going to handle a drive larger
than 128 GB (even though FAT32 allegedly can handle several terrabytes
of data). I'm willing to repartition and reformat the drive if
necessary. However, the version of fdisk on my Win 98 boot disk simply
can't format this drive without errors, period, and Win 98 doesn't let
me re-partition the disk.

I've tried a couple of third-party partitioning tools. So far I can't
find one that recognizes that this is a 250 GB drive. My understanding
of what I've read is that while I can't create a partition larger than
128 GB in Win 98, I should be able to create two partitions of about
125 GB each on this drive. How can I do that when no tool can see more
than 137 GB on the drive?

I assumed the IDE cable I got to connect this disk to the Promise card
was standard. It's got a standard-looking end on it. So I don't
understand why it's complaining about 40-connector vs 80-connector
issues--unless half the holes on this cable's terminals aren't
actually wired. Is there such a thing as an 80-connector IDE cable
that I can get? If so, will it solve my problem? In other words, is
this simply a speed issue?

If not, what do I need to do to fully use this drive reliably on my
Promise controller under FAT32 on a Win 98 machine?

TIA.

Ken Dibble

"Ken Dibble" wrote in message
...
snipped

I assumed the IDE cable I got to connect this disk to the Promise card
was standard. It's got a standard-looking end on it. So I don't
understand why it's complaining about 40-connector vs 80-connector
issues--unless half the holes on this cable's terminals aren't
actually wired. Is there such a thing as an 80-connector IDE cable
that I can get? If so, will it solve my problem? In other words, is
this simply a speed issue?

Yes there is such a puppy and that's what you need to use, it's known as
an 80 wire/40 pin IDE ribbon/data cable. Almost all of todays HD and
CD/DVD drives require them.



--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 01:27:24 -0600, "Brian A."
gonefish'n@afarawaylake wrote:

"Ken Dibble" wrote in message
.. .
snipped

I assumed the IDE cable I got to connect this disk to the Promise card
was standard. It's got a standard-looking end on it. So I don't
understand why it's complaining about 40-connector vs 80-connector
issues--unless half the holes on this cable's terminals aren't
actually wired. Is there such a thing as an 80-connector IDE cable
that I can get? If so, will it solve my problem? In other words, is
this simply a speed issue?

Yes there is such a puppy and that's what you need to use, it's known as
an 80 wire/40 pin IDE ribbon/data cable. Almost all of todays HD and
CD/DVD drives require them.

Thanks, Brian. See my reply to DadiOH.

Its complaining about a 40 wire ide ribbon cable, not connector. The 40 and
80 wire versions both have the same amount of female connectors. The extra
40 wires serves to do a number of things, primarily reduce crosstalk between
the wires. And that's probably exactly what you're getting at faster
speeds, crosstalk. Use of an 80 wire ide ribbon cable is highly recommended
for replacement whether for fast hard drive etc. or for onboard ide devices
that are working okay now.

You can partition the 250GB with a number of 3rd party partitioning
programs, including one available from the manufacturer. These will allow
full partitioning of the entire hard disk. This is assuming your bios is 48
bit lba capable. In the end, you can only store 128GB of data on the hard
drive before data corruption results. This a problem with Win98/98SE. Not
partitioning or a bios problem. Due to this, a 120GB hard drive is the
largest capacity available in today's market that can be fully utilized by
Win98 for file storage.

--
Jonny
"Ken Dibble" wrote in message
...
I've got a 250 GB IDE HDD formatted with one primary DOS partition
under FAT32 to 128 GB (more or less). This is not my C: drive, it's
actually the third physical hard drive in my system; it's an add-on
for extra storage. This drive is connected via a Promise Ultra 100 TX2
PCI controller card. On boot-up the Promise card reports this drive as
DMA 2 and warns that because it's using a 40-connector cable, its
speed will drop from 66 to 33. The Promise card handles my second (40
GB) hard drive with no problems or warnings. The Promise card shows up
in the Device Manager as a SCSI device (though the two drives it
handles aren't SCSI drives).

I've upgraded the Promise card's BIOS and driver to the latest
versions for Win 98--or at least I think I have. There are no actual
instructions that come with the download for the Promise card. There
are a bunch of .vxd driver files, an .inf file, and an .exe file that,
I guess, is supposed to upgrade the BIOS. There's also an autoexec.bat
file with a line calling the same .exe file. I'm not about to replace
my existing autoexec.bat file, which contains a bunch of stuff, with
the one line in the Promise file. I could copy that one line to my
autoexec.bat file but it looks to me as though it would then reflash
the BIOS every time the computer boots. That doesn't seem right to me.
I ran the .exe file from Windows and I also tried to upgrade the
driver in the Device Manager, which informed me that I was already
using the latest version. The Promise site indicates this upgrade
should handle large drives, but I'm not entirely sure that the upgrade
"took".

Windows 98 SE is having problems with this drive. I can transfer large
multimedia files to it and they will show up as being there in Windows
Explorer but they won't play reliably. I can't move the files back off
the drive; I get an "error reading drive" message when I try. Nor can
I reliably execute other operations on large files while they reside
on this disk. I can hear the drive thrashing, over and over, as though
it's struggling to get started, as it tries to access large files. And
any time I access the drive, the next time I reboot, Windows claims
that there may be errors on the drive and runs the DOS-based
ScanDisk--the full version that does a physical check of every
cluster. If I let that run (takes several hours) the system will boot
fine, and will continue to reboot without error unless I attempt to
access the large drive again. However, it doesn't make any difference
in how the drive performs. If I try to run ScanDisk in Windows on this
drive I get a message claiming I don't have enough memory to do so. I
don't get this message if I run ScanDisk in Windows on another drive.

I've already accepted that Win 98 isn't going to handle a drive larger
than 128 GB (even though FAT32 allegedly can handle several terrabytes
of data). I'm willing to repartition and reformat the drive if
necessary. However, the version of fdisk on my Win 98 boot disk simply
can't format this drive without errors, period, and Win 98 doesn't let
me re-partition the disk.

I've tried a couple of third-party partitioning tools. So far I can't
find one that recognizes that this is a 250 GB drive. My understanding
of what I've read is that while I can't create a partition larger than
128 GB in Win 98, I should be able to create two partitions of about
125 GB each on this drive. How can I do that when no tool can see more
than 137 GB on the drive?

I assumed the IDE cable I got to connect this disk to the Promise card
was standard. It's got a standard-looking end on it. So I don't
understand why it's complaining about 40-connector vs 80-connector
issues--unless half the holes on this cable's terminals aren't
actually wired. Is there such a thing as an 80-connector IDE cable
that I can get? If so, will it solve my problem? In other words, is
this simply a speed issue?

If not, what do I need to do to fully use this drive reliably on my
Promise controller under FAT32 on a Win 98 machine?

TIA.

Ken Dibble

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 06:18:19 -0500, "Jonny"
wrote:

Its complaining about a 40 wire ide ribbon cable, not connector. The 40 and
80 wire versions both have the same amount of female connectors. The extra
40 wires serves to do a number of things, primarily reduce crosstalk between
the wires. And that's probably exactly what you're getting at faster
speeds, crosstalk. Use of an 80 wire ide ribbon cable is highly recommended
for replacement whether for fast hard drive etc. or for onboard ide devices
that are working okay now.

You can partition the 250GB with a number of 3rd party partitioning
programs, including one available from the manufacturer. These will allow
full partitioning of the entire hard disk. This is assuming your bios is 48
bit lba capable. In the end, you can only store 128GB of data on the hard
drive before data corruption results. This a problem with Win98/98SE. Not
partitioning or a bios problem. Due to this, a 120GB hard drive is the
largest capacity available in today's market that can be fully utilized by
Win98 for file storage.

Thanks very much.

I'm assuming that because the Promise card allegedly can handle the
LBA I don't need to worry about the motherboard's BIOS. Is that
correct?

Also, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying: Can I indeed get
two reliable 125 GB partitions on this 250 GB disk? As I said, right
now I've tried two third-party tools, including Acronis Disk Director
10, and neither could recognize that there was in fact 250 GB of space
on the disk. Is this because I've got the wrong cable then?

Thanks again.

Jonny wrote:

[..snips...]

In the end, you can only store 128GB of data on the hard drive before
data corruption results. This a problem with Win98/98SE. Not
partitioning or a bios problem. Due to this, a 120GB hard drive
is the largest capacity available in today's market that can be fully
utilized by Win98 for file storage.

This is totally untrue in today's world with options to dissolve that old limitation
and make it totally obsolete John.
You have been explained the simple details about this situation John within the last
few days in your other reply elsewhere, but for whatever reason you keep saying the
same thing, however it is simply not true and the truth of the matter is "with the
proper ingredients" W98 fat 32 has no limitations with large HD's anymore.
Obviously you don't have one installed then, but I for one out of thousands? am
'currently at this moment running' 250GB hard drives and am running W98SE on it with
absolutely no limitation or access to the full amount of GB to each or combined
partitions !

I'll just copy/past my other reply in here again to you here.

In thread context it's an immutable truth that All of the HD's size can be fully
utilized if you use a bios which supports 48-bit LBA as well as keeping all
partitions under 128 GB, then you will get Full capacity utilization of All
partitions. ...iow, with 48-bit LBA support if anyone installs a 500 or even a 1000
GB HD and as long as they partition it up keeping all partitions under 128 GB, then
Yes you will have Full functionality and utilization of each and every partition, and
all of W98's appropriate utility tools will work perfectly (using the updated
scandisk, defrag, fdisk, etc)

This controller card has 48-bit LBA support and as well using a controller card has
excellent performance advantages. I recommend the latest version of the Promise
ULTRA133 TX2, and here's just one of many places to buy one:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...102-007&depa=0
(needs an available pci slot of course)

It's best to keep your FAT32 OS primary partition(s) under 8GB not only for
best 4k cluster size efficiency, but it's so much faster to defrag it, etc; you don't
need anymore than 8GB anyway for the OS partition. Then you take all of your Non-OS
partitions and that is where you would make all those just under the 128 GB size and
label and use them for storage partitions.

Rick



--
Jonny

You're talking partition size and access to these on current large
200/300/400/500GB hard drives. I'm talking total data file storage capacity
of 98/98SE on one physical hard drive, not partition. 2 entirely different
things.

And yes, I went round and round with 200GB WD trying all different ways to
be able to exceed the 128GB total file storage limitation on the entire hard
drive. Multiple partitions all less than 128GB, and a hidden and used NTFS
partition for the difference between the a 111GB FAT32 partition and the
remaining hard drive capacity. I can make the whole drive one FAT32
partition, more than one FAT32 partition, hidden NTFS partition, various
sizes of all. Tried the latter day fdisk, PM, and partition program that
came withe system commander. The bios is 48 lba capable. It turns out just
like the 48bitlba site indicates, data corruption results when the total
stored data exceeds 128GB irregardless the partition(s) and their sizing.
What they DON'T mention its not the partition size that's the limitation
that causes data corruption, and leaves the reader assuming that. And I'm
not going through all that again to prove to myself what I've already proved
to myself.

Made the 200GB all NTFS type 3 for XP use. No problems to date. Has a
month's worth of weekly DI 7 and DI 2002 image files on it as I had planned
to begin with, with exception of not using FAT32 using multiple partitions.
98SE can't see it, so it can't break it.

Will continue to warn people at this site of my observations. I will
respond to anyone who addresses what I'm talking about. But, I will ignore
in the future any intentional misdirection talking about partition sizing or
bios 48bit lba capability. That's not my issue, and I assume all that's
done when the subject comes up. That's NOT what I'm warning about.

In the future, please don't assume my experience level, both hands-on and
studied, with this issue. Thanks.
--
Jonny
"Rick Chauvin" wrote in message
...
Jonny wrote:

[..snips...]

In the end, you can only store 128GB of data on the hard drive before
data corruption results. This a problem with Win98/98SE. Not
partitioning or a bios problem. Due to this, a 120GB hard drive
is the largest capacity available in today's market that can be fully
utilized by Win98 for file storage.

This is totally untrue in today's world with options to dissolve that old
limitation
and make it totally obsolete John.
You have been explained the simple details about this situation John
within the last
few days in your other reply elsewhere, but for whatever reason you keep
saying the
same thing, however it is simply not true and the truth of the matter is
"with the
proper ingredients" W98 fat 32 has no limitations with large HD's anymore.
Obviously you don't have one installed then, but I for one out of
thousands? am
'currently at this moment running' 250GB hard drives and am running W98SE
on it with
absolutely no limitation or access to the full amount of GB to each or
combined
partitions !

I'll just copy/past my other reply in here again to you here.

In thread context it's an immutable truth that All of the HD's size can be
fully
utilized if you use a bios which supports 48-bit LBA as well as keeping
all
partitions under 128 GB, then you will get Full capacity utilization of
All
partitions. ...iow, with 48-bit LBA support if anyone installs a 500 or
even a 1000
GB HD and as long as they partition it up keeping all partitions under 128
GB, then
Yes you will have Full functionality and utilization of each and every
partition, and
all of W98's appropriate utility tools will work perfectly (using the
updated
scandisk, defrag, fdisk, etc)

This controller card has 48-bit LBA support and as well using a controller
card has
excellent performance advantages. I recommend the latest version of the
Promise
ULTRA133 TX2, and here's just one of many places to buy one:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...102-007&depa=0
(needs an available pci slot of course)

It's best to keep your FAT32 OS primary partition(s) under 8GB not only
for
best 4k cluster size efficiency, but it's so much faster to defrag it,
etc; you don't
need anymore than 8GB anyway for the OS partition. Then you take all of
your Non-OS
partitions and that is where you would make all those just under the 128
GB size and
label and use them for storage partitions.

Rick



--
Jonny

Did you try Rudolph Loew's system patch, as referenced in one of the links
on the 48bitLBA site? I investigated it, but didn't actually get it, since
I wasn't ready to try it at the time.

But from what I have read of people working with this problem, it *does*
seem to go away if you use a card with a 48bit LBA capable BIOS, *but* there
is still a need for patching W98, and most such cards have a 'driver' you're
supposed to load which takes care of the W98 problem. Loew's patch does
that for people who have a 48-bit LBA compliant BIOS, but no 'driver' from
using a card, such as the Promise cards.

Very interested to know if you have tried it . . .

Joe
"Jonny" wrote in message
...
You're talking partition size and access to these on current large
200/300/400/500GB hard drives. I'm talking total data file storage
capacity
of 98/98SE on one physical hard drive, not partition. 2 entirely
different
things.

And yes, I went round and round with 200GB WD trying all different ways to
be able to exceed the 128GB total file storage limitation on the entire
hard
drive. Multiple partitions all less than 128GB, and a hidden and used
NTFS
partition for the difference between the a 111GB FAT32 partition and the
remaining hard drive capacity. I can make the whole drive one FAT32
partition, more than one FAT32 partition, hidden NTFS partition, various
sizes of all. Tried the latter day fdisk, PM, and partition program that
came withe system commander. The bios is 48 lba capable. It turns out
just
like the 48bitlba site indicates, data corruption results when the total
stored data exceeds 128GB irregardless the partition(s) and their sizing.
What they DON'T mention its not the partition size that's the limitation
that causes data corruption, and leaves the reader assuming that. And I'm
not going through all that again to prove to myself what I've already
proved
to myself.

Made the 200GB all NTFS type 3 for XP use. No problems to date. Has a
month's worth of weekly DI 7 and DI 2002 image files on it as I had
planned
to begin with, with exception of not using FAT32 using multiple
partitions.
98SE can't see it, so it can't break it.

Will continue to warn people at this site of my observations. I will
respond to anyone who addresses what I'm talking about. But, I will
ignore
in the future any intentional misdirection talking about partition sizing
or
bios 48bit lba capability. That's not my issue, and I assume all that's
done when the subject comes up. That's NOT what I'm warning about.

In the future, please don't assume my experience level, both hands-on and
studied, with this issue. Thanks.
--
Jonny
"Rick Chauvin" wrote in message
...
Jonny wrote:

[..snips...]

In the end, you can only store 128GB of data on the hard drive before
data corruption results. This a problem with Win98/98SE. Not
partitioning or a bios problem. Due to this, a 120GB hard drive
is the largest capacity available in today's market that can be fully
utilized by Win98 for file storage.

This is totally untrue in today's world with options to dissolve that
old
limitation
and make it totally obsolete John.
You have been explained the simple details about this situation John
within the last
few days in your other reply elsewhere, but for whatever reason you keep
saying the
same thing, however it is simply not true and the truth of the matter is
"with the
proper ingredients" W98 fat 32 has no limitations with large HD's
anymore.
Obviously you don't have one installed then, but I for one out of
thousands? am
'currently at this moment running' 250GB hard drives and am running
W98SE
on it with
absolutely no limitation or access to the full amount of GB to each or
combined
partitions !

I'll just copy/past my other reply in here again to you here.

In thread context it's an immutable truth that All of the HD's size can
be
fully
utilized if you use a bios which supports 48-bit LBA as well as keeping
all
partitions under 128 GB, then you will get Full capacity utilization of
All
partitions. ...iow, with 48-bit LBA support if anyone installs a 500
or
even a 1000
GB HD and as long as they partition it up keeping all partitions under
128
GB, then
Yes you will have Full functionality and utilization of each and every
partition, and
all of W98's appropriate utility tools will work perfectly (using the
updated
scandisk, defrag, fdisk, etc)

This controller card has 48-bit LBA support and as well using a
controller
card has
excellent performance advantages. I recommend the latest version of the
Promise
ULTRA133 TX2, and here's just one of many places to buy one:


http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...102-007&depa=0
(needs an available pci slot of course)

It's best to keep your FAT32 OS primary partition(s) under 8GB not only
for
best 4k cluster size efficiency, but it's so much faster to defrag it,
etc; you don't
need anymore than 8GB anyway for the OS partition. Then you take all of
your Non-OS
partitions and that is where you would make all those just under the 128
GB size and
label and use them for storage partitions.

Rick



--
Jonny

Jonny wrote:
You're talking partition size and access to these on current large
200/300/400/500GB hard drives. I'm talking total data file storage
capacity of 98/98SE on one physical hard drive, not partition. 2
entirely different things.

I took your previous mention of your subject in the other thread and this one, on my
first read misleading to the posts common sense context and even taking it out of
context, but now that you've clarified I understand what you are saying and your
point is taken; however, even though Promise does state that it supports it but may
not elaborate specifics, I have no intention on advising or ever using W9x on a
larger Single or divvied Multi partitioned hard drive of any size 'that it can see'
partitioned that is over 128 GB - it would be unadvisable to do so since the tools
provided with 9x like Defrag and Scandisk will not support it and balk, if not
corrupt, anything they see above 128 GB.. ..and so to put anyone in that position
would be ill fated and is why I always give the info to the right ways to do it.
The standard is to not use W9x connected to any single/multiple partition that it can
see above 128 GB period, otherwise below 128 yes of course by all means use a 500 GB
HD if that's ones pleasure and I whole heatedly support it and support the info on
how to do it.

Rick



And yes, I went round and round with 200GB WD trying all different ways
to be able to exceed the 128GB total file storage limitation on the
entire hard drive. Multiple partitions all less than 128GB, and a
hidden and used NTFS partition for the difference between the a 111GB
FAT32 partition and the remaining hard drive capacity. I can make the
whole drive one FAT32 partition, more than one FAT32 partition, hidden
NTFS partition, various sizes of all. Tried the latter day fdisk, PM,
and partition program that came withe system commander. The bios is 48
lba capable. It turns out just like the 48bitlba site indicates, data
corruption results when the total stored data exceeds 128GB irregardless
the partition(s) and their sizing. What they DON'T mention its not the
partition size that's the limitation that causes data corruption, and
leaves the reader assuming that. And I'm not going through all that
again to prove to myself what I've already proved to myself.

Made the 200GB all NTFS type 3 for XP use. No problems to date. Has a
month's worth of weekly DI 7 and DI 2002 image files on it as I had
planned to begin with, with exception of not using FAT32 using multiple
partitions. 98SE can't see it, so it can't break it.

Will continue to warn people at this site of my observations. I will
respond to anyone who addresses what I'm talking about. But, I will
ignore in the future any intentional misdirection talking about
partition sizing or bios 48bit lba capability. That's not my issue, and
I assume all that's done when the subject comes up. That's NOT what I'm
warning about.

In the future, please don't assume my experience level, both hands-on and
studied, with this issue. Thanks.
--
Jonny
"Rick Chauvin" wrote in message
...
Jonny wrote:

[..snips...]

In the end, you can only store 128GB of data on the hard drive before
data corruption results. This a problem with Win98/98SE. Not
partitioning or a bios problem. Due to this, a 120GB hard drive
is the largest capacity available in today's market that can be fully
utilized by Win98 for file storage.

This is totally untrue in today's world with options to dissolve that
old limitation and make it totally obsolete John.
You have been explained the simple details about this situation John
within the last few days in your other reply elsewhere, but for
whatever reason you keep saying the same thing, however it is simply
not true and the truth of the matter is "with the proper ingredients"
W98 fat 32 has no limitations with large HD's anymore. Obviously you
don't have one installed then, but I for one out of thousands? am
'currently at this moment running' 250GB hard drives and am running
W98SE on it with absolutely no limitation or access to the full amount
of GB to each or combined partitions !

I'll just copy/past my other reply in here again to you here.

In thread context it's an immutable truth that All of the HD's size can
be fully utilized if you use a bios which supports 48-bit LBA as well
as keeping all partitions under 128 GB, then you will get Full capacity
utilization of All partitions. ...iow, with 48-bit LBA support if
anyone installs a 500 or even a 1000 GB HD and as long as they
partition it up keeping all partitions under 128 GB, then Yes you will
have Full functionality and utilization of each and every partition,
and all of W98's appropriate utility tools will work perfectly (using
the updated scandisk, defrag, fdisk, etc)

This controller card has 48-bit LBA support and as well using a
controller card has excellent performance advantages. I recommend the
latest version of the Promise ULTRA133 TX2, and here's just one of many
places to buy one:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...102-007&depa=0
(needs an available pci slot of course)

It's best to keep your FAT32 OS primary partition(s) under 8GB not only
for best 4k cluster size efficiency, but it's so much faster to defrag
it, etc; you don't need anymore than 8GB anyway for the OS partition.
Then you take all of your Non-OS partitions and that is where you would
make all those just under the 128 GB size and label and use them for
storage partitions.

Rick



--
Jonny

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 14:43:57 -0500, "Rick Chauvin"
Jonny wrote:

In the end, you can only store 128GB of data on the hard drive before
data corruption results. This a problem with Win98/98SE. Not
partitioning or a bios problem. Due to this, a 120GB hard drive
is the largest capacity available in today's market that can be fully
utilized by Win98 for file storage.

This is totally untrue in today's world with options to dissolve that old limitation
and make it totally obsolete John.

Could you provide a list of what is required for Win98SE to support
48-LBA? Does this work for Win98 and WinME?

"with the proper ingredients"

What proper ingredients?

Yes, I know the FAT32 file system is good for terrabytes, but AFAIK
the OS code has to be 48-LBA capable to work safely.

In thread context it's an immutable truth that All of the HD's size can be fully
utilized if you use a bios which supports 48-bit LBA as well as keeping all
partitions under 128 GB, then you will get Full capacity utilization of All
partitions. ...iow, with 48-bit LBA support if anyone installs a 500 or even a 1000
GB HD and as long as they partition it up keeping all partitions under 128 GB, then
Yes you will have Full functionality and utilization of each and every partition, and
all of W98's appropriate utility tools will work perfectly (using the updated
scandisk, defrag, fdisk, etc)

I'm not at all sure about that. What you're saying implies that
Win98SE is not capable of addressing beyond "128G" but that this is OK
as it addresses each volume only from the start of that volume as
address 0, so that even if the volume passes the HD's "128G" (137G is
what I usually hear) limit, it doesn't matter.

This is possible, in that volume sector addressing (as opposed to
volume cluster addressing) does indeed address every part of the
volume, with the volume's boot record as sector zero. You can't
address the boot record or FAT via cluster addressing, but you can
address these via (logical) sector addressing.

However, logical volumes are reached via chained linkage within the
extended partition that contains them, so presumably the OS needs to
address these in absolute terms?

Is BIOS 48-LBA sufficient to meet this requirement?



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