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160gb HDD getting repeated corrupted FAT



 
 
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  #11  
Old July 3rd 06, 01:25 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default 160gb HDD getting repeated corrupted FAT

Ran into what you're speaking of on a 200GB by WD. Have disabled scandisk,
and don't use the native 98SE defrag. Two partitions of various sizes less
than 120GB were tried. Tried 3 different 3rd party partition managers as
well. Results were always the same. When the total file data on the hard
drive reach the vicinity of 120-128GB, massive file damage resulted from FAT
problems. Files were split and renamed some off the wall filenames with odd
characters in those names.
Tried splitting the hard drive into one 100GB FAT32, and the remaining NTFS
(for XP use). No dice. Once the data threshold was reached for the entire
hard drive, FAT crashed in 98SE.
Have since changed to NTFS for all for this hard drive. Its used strictly
for week to week partition image files. Held for a month, then replaced
when that week comes up again. DI2002 in 98SE environment sees the NTFS
partition, but windows explorer does not.
--
Jonny
"saidean" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi everyone,

I'd like to find out from those win98se users who are using HDDs of
over 120gb capacity. I have a Seagate Barracuda 160gb HDD which I've
been using fairly happily until the last few weeks when FAT corruption
occurs a bit too frequently for my liking. Firstly I've tried the
following to prepare my 160gb HDD:-

Method 1: Install HDD, use Partition Magic 7 to partition the HDD into
120gb and 40gb partitions. This was what I did originally. It was okay
for the past 4 mths until recently. It could be that I was beginning to
hit the 100gb capacity that problems occurred (one possible reason
anyway).

Method 2: Install HDD, used fdisk in command prompt (updated fdisk),
fdisk it and then format it. Win98se recognises it as a 160gb HDD but
was unable to scandisk (low memory error). I then use Partition Magic 7
to partition into 80gb and 80gb this time round. Again, errors occurred
after transferring my backed up data back onto the HDD (one partition
was used).

Is there something I'm doing wrong with a 120+gb HDD?

The odd thing is this. The latest corruption occurred on the partition
that I NEVER used. The 2 partitions are F: and G:. F: is used most
frequently - no errors there so far. But today, G: became corrupt (for
no reason), with over 35mb of file****.chk files found, and 4
directories reinstated after a command prompt scandisk. I have never
used G: at all. One of the chk files contained a CLSID which I tracked
it to Norton Protection Recycle Bin. (But prior to this, I disabled
Norton PRB for these 2 drives.)

I'm beginning to wonder if Norton Protection Recycle Bin might have
problems with running on win98se with a 120+ gb hdd.

My specs: P4 2.ghz Intel CPU, 512mb Ram, Nvidia 5900fx card, Gigabyte
8IEXP mobo, 2xWestern Digital 60gb RAID HDDs, 1x Seagate 80gb HDD, 1x
Seagate 160gb HDD. Windows 98SE (fully updated), Running Norton
Systemworks Premier 2005 (NAV and Recycle Bin running), Blackice
Defender, ZoneAlarm in memory.

If anyone can help me that'd be great. Am I partitioning my 120+gb
harddisk wrong? Should I instead get a 120gb harddisk? Is Norton
Recycle Bin the cause of the problems - does it have issues with large
HDDs on win98se? Is the mobo/cpu now incompatible with the newer HDDs?

Any help appreciated!



  #12  
Old July 5th 06, 06:22 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general
Alan
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 213
Default 160gb HDD getting repeated corrupted FAT

Have you tried sending an email to Seagate Tech Support off their web site?
They have always responded with me. Also, have you tried using any of the
diagnostics, especially the DOS versions?
Alan
"saidean" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi everyone,

I'd like to find out from those win98se users who are using HDDs of
over 120gb capacity. I have a Seagate Barracuda 160gb HDD which I've
been using fairly happily until the last few weeks when FAT corruption
occurs a bit too frequently for my liking. Firstly I've tried the
following to prepare my 160gb HDD:-

Method 1: Install HDD, use Partition Magic 7 to partition the HDD into
120gb and 40gb partitions. This was what I did originally. It was okay
for the past 4 mths until recently. It could be that I was beginning to
hit the 100gb capacity that problems occurred (one possible reason
anyway).

Method 2: Install HDD, used fdisk in command prompt (updated fdisk),
fdisk it and then format it. Win98se recognises it as a 160gb HDD but
was unable to scandisk (low memory error). I then use Partition Magic 7
to partition into 80gb and 80gb this time round. Again, errors occurred
after transferring my backed up data back onto the HDD (one partition
was used).

Is there something I'm doing wrong with a 120+gb HDD?

The odd thing is this. The latest corruption occurred on the partition
that I NEVER used. The 2 partitions are F: and G:. F: is used most
frequently - no errors there so far. But today, G: became corrupt (for
no reason), with over 35mb of file****.chk files found, and 4
directories reinstated after a command prompt scandisk. I have never
used G: at all. One of the chk files contained a CLSID which I tracked
it to Norton Protection Recycle Bin. (But prior to this, I disabled
Norton PRB for these 2 drives.)

I'm beginning to wonder if Norton Protection Recycle Bin might have
problems with running on win98se with a 120+ gb hdd.

My specs: P4 2.ghz Intel CPU, 512mb Ram, Nvidia 5900fx card, Gigabyte
8IEXP mobo, 2xWestern Digital 60gb RAID HDDs, 1x Seagate 80gb HDD, 1x
Seagate 160gb HDD. Windows 98SE (fully updated), Running Norton
Systemworks Premier 2005 (NAV and Recycle Bin running), Blackice
Defender, ZoneAlarm in memory.

If anyone can help me that'd be great. Am I partitioning my 120+gb
harddisk wrong? Should I instead get a 120gb harddisk? Is Norton
Recycle Bin the cause of the problems - does it have issues with large
HDDs on win98se? Is the mobo/cpu now incompatible with the newer HDDs?

Any help appreciated!



  #13  
Old July 5th 06, 08:12 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general
Haggis
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 325
Default 160gb HDD getting repeated corrupted FAT



"Eric P." wrote in message
...
++++Jack++++ wrote:
Best would be to jumper the harddisk to 128/137GB when the disk has such
a provision or do the same thing with manufacturer's software if
available.

Don't understand what you mean by this, can you please explain???

Some disk manufacturers make it possible to restrict the max. capacity of
a bigger than 128/137GB disk to 128/137GB by setting a jumper on the
drive, as some did in earlier years for over 8GB and over 32GB drives.

This would make it possible to use the harddisk with Windows 98SE.

In the ATA standard, that has many disk commands, are commands that have
to do with setting a maximum capacity like command "Set Maximum Address".
Some harddisk manufacturers have downloadable software that can change
properties of a disk, like running slower for less noise and maybe also to
set the maximum capacity to something like 128/137GB.
Sorry, I can't show you an example of this at the moment.


not required Eric , OP had two 80gb partitions ...as long as any given
partition is lees that 127gb , windows 98 should have no problem with it ...
(although there may be a problem running defrag / scandisk)


  #14  
Old July 5th 06, 09:03 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general
Jaxtraw
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 6
Default 160gb HDD getting repeated corrupted FAT

Rick Chauvin wrote:
snip
Since W98SE in it's stock condition with it's Windows IDE controller
driver does not support 48 bit LBA even though your new onboard bios
mostlikely does, and so you must replace that W98 IDE controller
driver (esdi_506.pdr) with a substitute/better driver that will
support 48bit for your large HD's - and if you don't then corruption
'will occur' on that drive.


Just to clarify; is this the case even if the drive is partitioned into
normal sized chunks (i.e. under 100MB?)

I'd thought if the drive is partitioned, W98 would just see it as two normal
IDE drives of that capacity..?

Ian


  #15  
Old July 5th 06, 09:08 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general
Eric P.
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 7
Default 160gb HDD getting repeated corrupted FAT

Haggis wrote:
"Eric P." wrote in message
...

++++Jack++++ wrote:

Best would be to jumper the harddisk to 128/137GB when the disk has such
a provision or do the same thing with manufacturer's software if
available.

Don't understand what you mean by this, can you please explain???


Some disk manufacturers make it possible to restrict the max. capacity of
a bigger than 128/137GB disk to 128/137GB by setting a jumper on the
drive, as some did in earlier years for over 8GB and over 32GB drives.

This would make it possible to use the harddisk with Windows 98SE.

In the ATA standard, that has many disk commands, are commands that have
to do with setting a maximum capacity like command "Set Maximum Address".
Some harddisk manufacturers have downloadable software that can change
properties of a disk, like running slower for less noise and maybe also to
set the maximum capacity to something like 128/137GB.
Sorry, I can't show you an example of this at the moment.



not required Eric , OP had two 80gb partitions ...as long as any given
partition is lees that 127gb , windows 98 should have no problem with it ...
(although there may be a problem running defrag / scandisk)


According the old discussions I read some time ago it's the total size
of the disk that matters and not the size of partitions on the disk.
But you will not notice immediately Windows 98SE doesn't support large
disks, that happens while the disk is filled with data.

Discussions like below are good enough for me to restrict myself to
120GB harddisks or smaller.

QUOTE
A source at MS told me that W98 does not support hard drives larger than
137gb 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

*****
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

*****
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

*****
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

******
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)

*****
AND

Subject:
Win98 SE 48bit LBA support for esdi_506.pdr driver
From:
(Svend Olaf Mikkelsen)
Date:
Wed, 29 Dec 2004 08:36:53 GMT
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.win98.disks.general

Without commenting the conditions in which the 128 GB problem occur, I
can say that it is a critical error and bug that a disk is reported by
the operating system as larger than 32 GB or 128 GB, but all data
written more than 32 GB or 128 GB into the disk are written to wrong
locations. The Microsoft partition related bugs damages terabytes of
data each day.
-- Svend Olaf

Subject:
Win98 SE 48bit LBA support for esdi_506.pdr driver
From:
"Lil' Dave"
Date:
Wed, 29 Dec 2004 06:51:26 -0600
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.win98.disks.general

MS will not make an official reply to this newgroup. That includes any MS
official that monitors this newsgroup unofficially.
I can assure you that MS is fully aware of the 48 bit LBA problem with the
Win9X operating systems, and has been aware of it for quite some time.
There is not just one, but many problems with this. Windows rides on the
disk operating system (DOS), and has an environment called "windows". The
48 bit access problem has to be addressed in both environments. In
addition, windows tools like scandisk and defrag were not designed to work
in the environments if the OS can address 48 bit disk access. Am not sure,
but windows explorer may have problems in this environment as well. There
may be other unknowns that will have problems as well.

So, as you can easily see, windows 9X needs a complete revamp to work in the
environment that can access 48 bit LBA. MS has been developing their more
current OSes to work properly in this area. So, I don't expect MS to revamp
Win98/98SE for that purpose.

My suggestion is to use their most current operating system if you require
48 bit LBA on your hard drives for full capacity use, and for windows disk
tools to operate correctly as well. To avoid partition size limitations,
use the NTFS for a filesystem vice FAT32.

****
AND
Subject:
Limit on External HD size?
From:
"Jeff Richards"
Date:
Sat, 28 Aug 2004 17:20:42 +1000
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.win98.disks.general

AFAICT the drive size problem won't arise with the correct controller, but
the partition size will be a problem unless there are updated drivers
available for W98. However, this is far from clear, and it's quite possible
that the drive size is a problem, even with a partition limited to 137Gb,
without the driver update. I believe that a drive that is limited to 137Gb
by jumpers will be OK. This has the advantage of later using the full
capacity when it is upgraded. Also, I don't know what the quality of the
new
drivers is.

I can't see the point in installing drives this size. I can't use 40Gb.
Perhaps some people have special requirements.
-- Jeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) "Ron Badour"
wrote in message
...

Hi Jeff,

I checked with BrianB some time ago about this and the word he got from
the
W98 people is the disk size, not the partition size, is what counts--that
using a drive over 137 gb can result in data loss. I don't ever plan on
buying a drive this big so I guess I will never be able to test it

myself.

--
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

"Jeff Richards" wrote in message
...


You can probably use a 160Gb disk if you either limit the visible disk


size


to 137Gb (some disks have jumpers to allow this), or partition it to use
only the first 137Gb. You need to be sure that the device driver is
compatible with both Windows 98 and your version of USB/Firewire


interface.


--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"Ryan" wrote in message
...


Ron,

Thanks so much for the quick response, I do appreciate it.
Rather than upgrading a computer to XP that's on its last
leg, it'd just be easier to get a 120 gb HD. The 160 gb is
not THAT important, just found a good price on one.


/QUOTE

  #16  
Old July 6th 06, 12:25 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general
Rick Chauvin
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 443
Default 160gb HDD getting repeated corrupted FAT



Eric P. wrote:

According the old discussions I read some time ago it's the total size
of the disk that matters and not the size of partitions on the disk.

[...]

No, actually the truth is that it is Both!

First you have the 137/128 max HD size issue because of the limitation of the
W98 IDE stock controller driver (esdi_506.pdr) not supporting 48 bit, but
realize that is Easily overcome as I've previously outlined (preferably by using
an appropriate 48 bit LBA supported pci controller card). Second, once you
overcome the first now you have the Max Partition issue (limitations of windows
utilities) to overcome, but again this is easily overcome as well by making sure
All partitions are under 128 GB ..if both of those are done then end of
discussion and there is no more limitations; scandisk and defrag work just as
they were intended and Win98 can properly//fully see larger hard drives and use
all of its partitions safely.

Rick

...and ps
http://www.48bitlba.com/win98.htm
..is a good site yes, but imho could more clearly outline the pertinent facts
in context order.







  #17  
Old July 6th 06, 12:32 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.win98.disks.general
Rick Chauvin
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 443
Default 160gb HDD getting repeated corrupted FAT



Jaxtraw wrote:
Rick Chauvin wrote:
snip
Since W98SE in it's stock condition with it's Windows IDE controller
driver does not support 48 bit LBA even though your new onboard bios
mostlikely does, and so you must replace that W98 IDE controller
driver (esdi_506.pdr) with a substitute/better driver that will
support 48bit for your large HD's - and if you don't then corruption
'will occur' on that drive.


Just to clarify; is this the case even if the drive is partitioned into
normal sized chunks (i.e. under 100MB?)


Yes

I'd thought if the drive is partitioned, W98 would just see it as two
normal IDE drives of that capacity..?


Yes that's true too, but, there's more to it than that and just left like you
said it is trouble. Understanding it is one, two, and three.

1. ...esdi_506.pdr
2. & 3. ...scandisk & defrag

1, 2, 3 explained is that once you dissolve the original limitation of the
windows driver (esdi_506.pdr) preferable by using an appropriate 48 bit LBA
supported pci controller card like the one I've always mentioned, and so that
takes care of the limitation of using any Hard Drive over 137/128 GB; but also
take notice, now you have to deal with the other Win9x OS limitation that will
always exist which is the fact that now you also cannot have any one partition
over 128 GB (when using W98 (FAT32)) since the Windows utilities of defrag and
scandisk will still not work properly with anything over 128 GB and will corrupt
....that's why I have always said realize that you really have two limitations
(both easily overcome) ...again the first to overcome is the HD size limitation,
but then once you do that then you Still have to deal with the Windows Utilities
limitation (which as it now stands will be forevermore unless MS rewrites the
Scandisk/Defrag which is not going to happen) but no problem because that's
easily to overcome as well if you always remember to partition up a larger hard
drive so that no one partition is ever over 128 GB then scandisk and defrag
works just fine. With both situations taken care of you now have no limitations
to Win9x (within the context of what we are speaking of)

Rick


Ian











 




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