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Windows 98 large file-count tests on large volume (500 gb hard drive)



 
 
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  #11  
Old July 25th 07, 11:00 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general,alt.windows98
98 Guy
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Posts: 2,951
Default Windows 98 large file-count tests on large volume (500 gb harddrive)

Franc Zabkar wrote:

Is this it?

Negative Hard Disk Free Size Reported on Virtual Memory Tab in
System Properties: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272620


As reported he

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272620

I obtained the updated file from the win-98 service-pack thing
(unpacked it manually) and replaced my existing sysdm.cpl. While it
did correct the display of a negative free size on the hard drive, it
did not solve the virtual memory issue.

I then connected another SATA drive to the system (160 gb, with a
single 25 gb FAT-32 partition, formatted with 4 kb clusters, a little
over 6 million clusters) and Win-98 DID enable virtual memory when
instructed to put the swap file on the new drive.

So for some reason win-98 did not want to locate the swap file on the
500 gb drive. Either it did not like the fact that the drive was
formatted with 4kb cluster size (resulting in 121 million clusters) or
it didn't like where on the drive it would have to put it (at the back
10% of the drive).

Also -

I increased the amount of installed memory to 1 gb, and still got
"insufficient memory" when running Windows Scandisk and Defrag on the
500 gb drive.

DOS scandisk does not give an error, but it would have taken 4 days to
run (given it was at the 30% point after 30 hours).
  #12  
Old July 26th 07, 10:21 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general,alt.windows98
98 Guy
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Posts: 2,951
Default Windows 98 large file-count tests on large volume (500 gb harddrive)

Update:

I reported previously that win-98 didn't like creating/putting the
swap file on the original 500 gb primary drive, but it was ok with a
25 gb partition on a secondary (d drive.

I swapped the seconary 25 gb drive with a fresh 500 gb drive
(formatted as a single fat-32 partition, 32kb cluster size, 15 million
total clusters). Win-98 was ok with putting the swap file on it.

I then brought the system memory up to 2 gb, but I get an
"insufficient memory to initilize windows" message early in the
startup process. I then set MaxPhysPage=50000 in system.ini, but
system just reboots. Set it to 40000 and it booted. Set it to 40010
and still seems to only show 1022 mb total memory.

Has anyone gotten win-98 to run with more than 1 gb memory? How?
  #13  
Old July 28th 07, 09:17 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general,alt.windows98
Ron Martell
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Posts: 240
Default Windows 98 large file-count tests on large volume (500 gb hard drive)

98 Guy wrote:

File copy test - Windows 98


snip


chkdsk c:

487,431,968 kilobytes total disk space
52,323,392 kilobytes free

4096 bytes in each allocation unit
121,857,992 total allocation units on disk
13,080,848 available allocation units on disk


The FAT32 implementation provides for 28 bits to be used for cluster
numbers, which means that it is possible to have up to 268,435,445
total clusters on a drive.

Smaller limitations are the result of the tools (FDISK & Format for
example) normally used to create FAT32 drives.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
  #14  
Old July 28th 07, 03:36 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general,alt.windows98
98 Guy
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 2,951
Default Windows 98 large file-count tests on large volume (500 gb harddrive)

Ron Martell wrote:

The FAT32 implementation provides for 28 bits to be used for
cluster numbers, which means that it is possible to have up
to 268,435,445 total clusters on a drive.

Smaller limitations are the result of the tools (FDISK & Format
for example) normally used to create FAT32 drives.


There is little to no information regarding Win-98's compatibility or
operational stability with volumes with large cluster-counts, and just
what gets broken at what cluster-count.

The year-2000 update to fdisk does work for 250 gb drives (I haven't
tried it on a 500 gb drive). Format also works on 250 gb drives, but
because of it's use of 32kb cluster size there will be 7.6 million
clusters on a 250 gb drive.

I am not sure if the native win-98 versions of scandskw.exe,
dskmaint.dll and defrag.exe will operate on a volume that exceeds 4.17
million clusters but the win-me versions will, at least up to 31
million clusters. The windows ME versions did not function on a
volume with 121 million clusters, displaying an "insufficient memory"
message (even on a system with 1 gb memory).

The MS-DOS version of scandisk.exe does not seem to have a
cluster-count limitation and has been seen to run without issue even
on a 500 gb drive with 121 million clusters (although it was only
allowed to run for 30 hours before being terminated - it was projected
that it would have taken 3 more days to complete it's scan).

It has been speculated that the number of clusters is limited because
win-98 loads the entire FAT table into memory during normal
operational use, but given the recent test with a 121-million cluster
drive that theory appears to be wrong.

The only issue so far with win-98 installed on a 500 gb volume with
121 million clusters is that it will not create or place the swap file
on it, hence virtual memory will not be enabled. It will create /
place the swap file on a secondary drive, even if that drive is
another 500 gb drive (but formatted with 32kb cluster size resulting
in 15 million clusters).
  #15  
Old July 29th 07, 04:42 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general,alt.windows98
James
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 28
Default Windows 98 large file-count tests on large volume (500 gb harddrive)

98 Guy wrote:
Ron Martell wrote:

The FAT32 implementation provides for 28 bits to be used for
cluster numbers, which means that it is possible to have up
to 268,435,445 total clusters on a drive.

Smaller limitations are the result of the tools (FDISK & Format
for example) normally used to create FAT32 drives.


There is little to no information regarding Win-98's compatibility or
operational stability with volumes with large cluster-counts, and just
what gets broken at what cluster-count.

The year-2000 update to fdisk does work for 250 gb drives (I haven't
tried it on a 500 gb drive). Format also works on 250 gb drives, but
because of it's use of 32kb cluster size there will be 7.6 million
clusters on a 250 gb drive.

I am not sure if the native win-98 versions of scandskw.exe,
dskmaint.dll and defrag.exe will operate on a volume that exceeds 4.17
million clusters but the win-me versions will, at least up to 31
million clusters. The windows ME versions did not function on a
volume with 121 million clusters, displaying an "insufficient memory"
message (even on a system with 1 gb memory).

The MS-DOS version of scandisk.exe does not seem to have a
cluster-count limitation and has been seen to run without issue even
on a 500 gb drive with 121 million clusters (although it was only
allowed to run for 30 hours before being terminated - it was projected
that it would have taken 3 more days to complete it's scan).

It has been speculated that the number of clusters is limited because
win-98 loads the entire FAT table into memory during normal
operational use, but given the recent test with a 121-million cluster
drive that theory appears to be wrong.

The only issue so far with win-98 installed on a 500 gb volume with
121 million clusters is that it will not create or place the swap file
on it, hence virtual memory will not be enabled. It will create /
place the swap file on a secondary drive, even if that drive is
another 500 gb drive (but formatted with 32kb cluster size resulting
in 15 million clusters).

I run W98se updated to the last update available and although I do not
have a very large single drive I do have 5 WD160's on a RockeRaid board
configured in Raid 5 which gives me a 600G volume as seen by W98. I
used Partition Magic 8 to partition that drive into 5 smaller volumes
and have had no problems including a drive failure where I ran on a
broken array for a week until I was able to install a good drive &
rebuild the array. That was about 18 months ago and with the volumes
nears full I have not had any problems as yet. I don't know if the RR
board handles things differently at the drive level but since W98 saw
the full 600G in the beginning I think it should be very similar. Due
to limitations in W98 I have the partitions set to different sizes.
Small for many small files & large for the very large files. If I save
a bunch of small files on a large partition I get as much as 10 times
more disk space consumed as when they are placed on a smaller partition.
This is all due to the cluster allocation being so large for large
partitions. One I just ran in Windows Explorer, a 200G partition, shows
43G of files taking 106G of space. Many small files not yet compressed.
I use RarLabs' Winrar to consolidate older data files into one volume
that will take just over the 43G of space but all of the contents will
still be directly available using Total Commander instead of Windows
Explorer. These files are not available to other apps and I will need
to extract any needed by an app or I can drag and drop it into the app
on occasion rather than extract it. This is mainly for archiving files
not regularly needed but keeping them available if they are needed.

James
  #16  
Old July 30th 07, 11:23 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general,alt.windows98
Ingeborg
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 217
Default Windows 98 large file-count tests on large volume (500 gb hard drive)

James wrote:

I don't know if the RR
board handles things differently at the drive level but since W98 saw
the full 600G in the beginning I think it should be very similar.


That's easy to see. Goto Device Manager - (your IDE controller) Properties
- Driver - Driver File Details. When ESDI_506.PDR is used AND this file
is Microsoft's, Windows sees this as a 'normal' disk.
This should not be the case, because then you can address only 128 GiB.
  #17  
Old July 30th 07, 02:18 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general,alt.windows98
98 Guy
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 2,951
Default Windows 98 large file-count tests on large volume (500 gb harddrive)

Ingeborg wrote:

That's easy to see. Goto Device Manager - (your IDE controller)
Properties - Driver - Driver File Details. When ESDI_506.PDR is
used AND this file is Microsoft's, ...


I'm not positive, but I suspect that Win-98 will load EDSI_506.PDR
because it detects a "Primary IDE controller" so it loads the driver
for it. Since you will usually connect an optical drive to the
primary IDE controller, again I'm not sure if ESDI_506.PDR is used to
"talk" to the optical drive.

But in any case, the presence of ESDI_506.PDR being loaded and/or
being associated with the IDE controller is not an indication by
itself that you will have a problem with a drive larger than 128 gb.
The drive must directly connected to, or mapped to, the IDE controller
for that to be a problem. If the drive is PATA/IDE, then yes, the
odds are very high that ESDI_506.PDR will end up controlling it. If
the drive is SATA, then it's quite easy to arrange it so that
ESDI_506.PDR is NOT used to control it.
 




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