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#1
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250 GB drives - please help
Adam wrote:
Not sure what the potential problem is with ScanDisk+Win98SE+ Big Drives First, understand that there are 2 scandisk's. One is the DOS scandisk (scandisk.exe) and the second is Windows scandisk (scandskw.exe + diskmaint.dll). Then there is defrag (AKA windows defrag). The windows scandisk and defrag have problems when the number of allocation units (AKA clusters) exceeds a certain number (I think it's 4 million but it could be 6 or 8 million). The windows ME versions of scandisk and defrag have a higher limit (and most people recommend you use them on your win-98 system for other reasons anyways). The DOS version of scandisk (the one that sometimes runs at startup when a bad shutdown was detected) actually doesn't have a limit from my own tests, so it's quite robust in that regard. The idiot (Rod) is claiming there is some other issue regarding large hard drives and win-98, but he refuses to describe it. And by the way, you don't need PM to prepare a large hard drive for win-98. What you need is simply the updated version of fdisk.exe (may 2000 I think). It will correctly partition a large drive (250 gb or larger) and then you use format.com to format it. The only time I use something other than Fdisk/Format is when I want to force a certain cluster size. (I'm trimming the asus newsgroup from this reply because the NNTP server that I use has a limit of 3 groups for a cross-post). |
#2
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250 GB drives - please help
"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
First, understand that there are 2 scandisk's. One is the DOS scandisk (scandisk.exe) and the second is Windows scandisk (scandskw.exe + diskmaint.dll). Then there is defrag (AKA windows defrag). The windows scandisk and defrag have problems when the number of allocation units (AKA clusters) exceeds a certain number (I think it's 4 million but it could be 6 or 8 million). The windows ME versions of scandisk and defrag have a higher limit (and most people recommend you use them on your win-98 system for other reasons anyways). Win 98 GUI scandisk and defrag are 16-bit, and limited to 16MB. The FAT has to be resident, so the cluster limit is under 4M. I don't know about Win ME. You could look up the MS KB article on these. This topic was discussed 5 years ago, google groups has it. The DOS version of scandisk (the one that sometimes runs at startup when a bad shutdown was detected) actually doesn't have a limit from my own tests, so it's quite robust in that regard. The idiot (Rod) is claiming there is some other issue regarding large hard drives and win-98, but he refuses to describe it. The obvious problem is the MS IDE drive is not LBA-48, so 128GB is a hard limit unless there is an alt driver available. And by the way, you don't need PM to prepare a large hard drive for win-98. What you need is simply the updated version of fdisk.exe (may 2000 I think). It will correctly partition a large drive (250 gb or larger) and then you use format.com to format it. Correct, or you could use freeDOS fdisk. |
#3
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250 GB drives - please help
Eric Gisin wrote:
Win 98 GUI scandisk and defrag are 16-bit, and limited to 16MB. The FAT has to be resident, so the cluster limit is under 4M. There is a KB that explains it - the limit being 4.177 million clusters - at least that's how MS explains it for the DOS scandisk. The reality is that if himem.sys is loaded, then DOS scandisk can process FAT's with much higher cluster counts (perhaps assuming that you have some arbitrarily large amount of memory - 128, 256 or 512 mb). The ME versions of Scandskw and defrag can handle a volume with more than 4 million clusters. So the solution for win-98 is either (a) don't create partitions larger than 128 gb, or (b) obtain the ME versions of scandskw.exe, diskmaint.dll, and defrag.exe. (this assumes you've already overcome the issue with ESDI_506.PDR). The obvious problem is the MS IDE drive is not LBA-48, so 128GB is a hard limit unless there is an alt driver available. Like I've said already here, the solution to that issue is a) use SATA (not PATA) - either SATA on the motherboard or SATA expansion (PCI) card b) use Intel Application Accelerator (only good for specific chipsets) - it replaces ESDI_506.PDR with something else c) use the MSFN hacked / fixed version of ESDI_506.PDR d) Pay for the Loew version of ESDI_506.PDR. e) obtain an IDE (PATA) controller card (PCI) and hope it has it's own replacement for ESDI_506.PDR. All of the above requires that the motherboard BIOS performs 48-bit sector handling (vs 32 bit). But if you have a SATA motherboard, it most certainly will satisfy that criteria, as will any P-4 (or higher) motherboard. There is actually one more option: f) rename or remove ESDI_506.PDR and force win-98 into "DOS" compatibility mode for hard drive access (where it uses BIOS function calls to access the hard drive). |
#4
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250 GB drives - please help
Would appreciate an MS weblink to the more updated form of fdisk.exe noted
by the respondent (actually OP per my newsreader). The one and only version of fdisk that was an update many years ago has a limit of 128GB parition size limitation. Original is 64GB. -- Dave Profound is we're here due to a chance arrangement of chemicals in the ocean billions of years ago. More profound is we made it to the top of the food chain per our reasoning abilities. Most profound is the denial of why we may be on the way out. "98 Guy" wrote in message ... Adam wrote: Not sure what the potential problem is with ScanDisk+Win98SE+ Big Drives First, understand that there are 2 scandisk's. One is the DOS scandisk (scandisk.exe) and the second is Windows scandisk (scandskw.exe + diskmaint.dll). Then there is defrag (AKA windows defrag). The windows scandisk and defrag have problems when the number of allocation units (AKA clusters) exceeds a certain number (I think it's 4 million but it could be 6 or 8 million). The windows ME versions of scandisk and defrag have a higher limit (and most people recommend you use them on your win-98 system for other reasons anyways). The DOS version of scandisk (the one that sometimes runs at startup when a bad shutdown was detected) actually doesn't have a limit from my own tests, so it's quite robust in that regard. The idiot (Rod) is claiming there is some other issue regarding large hard drives and win-98, but he refuses to describe it. And by the way, you don't need PM to prepare a large hard drive for win-98. What you need is simply the updated version of fdisk.exe (may 2000 I think). It will correctly partition a large drive (250 gb or larger) and then you use format.com to format it. The only time I use something other than Fdisk/Format is when I want to force a certain cluster size. (I'm trimming the asus newsgroup from this reply because the NNTP server that I use has a limit of 3 groups for a cross-post). |
#5
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250 GB drives - please help
Lil' Dave wrote:
Would appreciate an MS weblink to the more updated form of fdisk.exe noted by the respondent. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/263044 |
#6
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250 GB drives - please help
"98 Guy" wrote in message ... Eric Gisin wrote: Win 98 GUI scandisk and defrag are 16-bit, and limited to 16MB. The FAT has to be resident, so the cluster limit is under 4M. There is a KB that explains it - the limit being 4.177 million clusters - at least that's how MS explains it for the DOS scandisk. The reality is that if himem.sys is loaded, then DOS scandisk can process FAT's with much higher cluster counts (perhaps assuming that you have some arbitrarily large amount of memory - 128, 256 or 512 mb). The ME versions of Scandskw and defrag can handle a volume with more than 4 million clusters. So the solution for win-98 is either (a) don't create partitions larger than 128 gb, or (b) obtain the ME versions of scandskw.exe, diskmaint.dll, and defrag.exe. (this assumes you've already overcome the issue with ESDI_506.PDR). Option (a) is not a problem ... I don't see a real need to have partitions anywhere near 128 GB. Downloaded ScanDisk and Defrag from ... http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=775763 DEFRAG EX_ 213,296 11-12-07 9:16a defrag.ex_ SCANDSKW EX_ 5,104 11-12-07 9:16a scandskw.ex_ DISKMA~1 DL_ 0 11-12-07 9:35a diskmaint.dl_ File size of "diskmaint.dll" doesn't seem right though. Is there a better place to download ME versions of these files? In my case, connecting HDDs larger than 120 GB via the Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card seems to circumvent the problem with ESDI_506.PDR. I definitely do not have a ESDI_506.PDR that can handle HDDs larger than 120 GB ... ESDI_506 PDR 24,406 04-23-99 10:22p ESDI_506.PDR The obvious problem is the MS IDE drive is not LBA-48, so 128GB is a hard limit unless there is an alt driver available. Like I've said already here, the solution to that issue is a) use SATA (not PATA) - either SATA on the motherboard or SATA expansion (PCI) card b) use Intel Application Accelerator (only good for specific chipsets) - it replaces ESDI_506.PDR with something else c) use the MSFN hacked / fixed version of ESDI_506.PDR d) Pay for the Loew version of ESDI_506.PDR. e) obtain an IDE (PATA) controller card (PCI) and hope it has it's own replacement for ESDI_506.PDR. All of the above requires that the motherboard BIOS performs 48-bit sector handling (vs 32 bit). But if you have a SATA motherboard, it most certainly will satisfy that criteria, as will any P-4 (or higher) motherboard. There is actually one more option: f) rename or remove ESDI_506.PDR and force win-98 into "DOS" compatibility mode for hard drive access (where it uses BIOS function calls to access the hard drive). |
#7
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250 GB drives - please help
"Adam" wrote in message . net... "98 Guy" wrote in message ... Eric Gisin wrote: Win 98 GUI scandisk and defrag are 16-bit, and limited to 16MB. The FAT has to be resident, so the cluster limit is under 4M. There is a KB that explains it - the limit being 4.177 million clusters - at least that's how MS explains it for the DOS scandisk. The reality is that if himem.sys is loaded, then DOS scandisk can process FAT's with much higher cluster counts (perhaps assuming that you have some arbitrarily large amount of memory - 128, 256 or 512 mb). The ME versions of Scandskw and defrag can handle a volume with more than 4 million clusters. So the solution for win-98 is either (a) don't create partitions larger than 128 gb, or (b) obtain the ME versions of scandskw.exe, diskmaint.dll, and defrag.exe. (this assumes you've already overcome the issue with ESDI_506.PDR). Option (a) is not a problem ... I don't see a real need to have partitions anywhere near 128 GB. Downloaded ScanDisk and Defrag from ... http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=775763 DEFRAG EX_ 213,296 11-12-07 9:16a defrag.ex_ SCANDSKW EX_ 5,104 11-12-07 9:16a scandskw.ex_ DISKMA~1 DL_ 0 11-12-07 9:35a diskmaint.dl_ File size of "diskmaint.dll" doesn't seem right though. Is there a better place to download ME versions of these files? In my case, connecting HDDs larger than 120 GB via the Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card seems to circumvent the problem with ESDI_506.PDR. I definitely do not have a ESDI_506.PDR that can handle HDDs larger than 120 GB ... ESDI_506 PDR 24,406 04-23-99 10:22p ESDI_506.PDR The obvious problem is the MS IDE drive is not LBA-48, so 128GB is a hard limit unless there is an alt driver available. Like I've said already here, the solution to that issue is a) use SATA (not PATA) - either SATA on the motherboard or SATA expansion (PCI) card b) use Intel Application Accelerator (only good for specific chipsets) - it replaces ESDI_506.PDR with something else c) use the MSFN hacked / fixed version of ESDI_506.PDR d) Pay for the Loew version of ESDI_506.PDR. e) obtain an IDE (PATA) controller card (PCI) and hope it has it's own replacement for ESDI_506.PDR. All of the above requires that the motherboard BIOS performs 48-bit sector handling (vs 32 bit). But if you have a SATA motherboard, it most certainly will satisfy that criteria, as will any P-4 (or higher) motherboard. There is actually one more option: f) rename or remove ESDI_506.PDR and force win-98 into "DOS" compatibility mode for hard drive access (where it uses BIOS function calls to access the hard drive). Got around to backing up and then doubling the boot partition size. Partition size is now around 16 GB. Cluster size was and still is 4 KB. Still no problems so far. If I ever have problems with ScanDisk or Defrag, I'll install WinME from MSDN to extract the necessary files. "98 Guy", thanks for your help. Really appreciate it. |
#8
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250 GB drives - please help
Its the 128GB (formatted capacity) I already mentioned.... See the
following note in your enclosed weblink: "NOTE: This hotfix is not designed for 48-bit logical block addressing (LBA) hard disks, and it is not supported on hard disks larger than 137 GB." -- Dave Profound is we're here due to a chance arrangement of chemicals in the ocean billions of years ago. More profound is we made it to the top of the food chain per our reasoning abilities. Most profound is the denial of why we may be on the way out. "98 Guy" wrote in message ... Lil' Dave wrote: Would appreciate an MS weblink to the more updated form of fdisk.exe noted by the respondent. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/263044 |
#9
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250 GB drives - please help
"98 Guy" wrote:
Would appreciate an MS weblink to the more updated form of fdisk.exe noted by the respondent. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/263044 Lil' Dave wrote: Its the 128GB (formatted capacity) I already mentioned.... See the following note in your enclosed weblink: "NOTE: This hotfix is not designed for 48-bit logical block addressing (LBA) hard disks, and it is not supported on hard disks larger than 137 GB." That is another example of Meekro$oft dis-information. The following is part of a post I made back in February. READ IT and then tell me what you think about the MS statement you quoted above. --------------------------------- Subject: Update 4: Cluster size and exploring the limits of FAT-32 Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 10:49:46 -0500 From: 98 Guy Newsgroups: microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion Fdisk (dated May 18, 2000 - not april 23, 1999) was used to create a single primary partition on a new 250 gb SATA Western Digital hard drive. The computer was started in DOS via a win-98 boot floppy (note: himem.sys was loaded as part of the boot). A single primary partition was created using all available space on the drive. I didn't check the details as to what fdisk reported as the total drive capacity (fdisk is known for not reporting correct on-screen numbers such as volume size or total drive size). I then ran format, with the /z:n switch as follows: format /z:8 c: /s (format the drive with 4kb cluster size) I got this message: "you have specified a cluster size that is too small for this drive. Use a larger cluster size and try again" I then tried this: format /z:12 c: /s and got this: "Parameter value not in allowed range - /z:12 I then tried format /z:16 c:/s and got the "cluster size too small" message. Same thing with /z:32. I tried /z:48 and got the "not in allowed range" error. I then tried /z:64 and it worked. Formatting 41,86.65M Format complete. Writing out file allocation table Complete. Calculating free space (this may take several minutes)... Complete System tranferred Volume label (11 characters, ENTER for none)? 238,414.41 MB total disk space 360,448 bytes used by system 238,414.07 mb available on disk 32,768 bytes in each allocation unit. 7,629,249 allocation unites available on disk. Ok, looks good. Let's try chkdsk c: 244,136,352 kilobytes total disk space 244,135,968 kilobytes free 32,768 bytes in each allocation unit 7,629,261 total allocation units on disk 7,629,249 available allocation units on disk Ok, still looks good. Let's try Scandisk c: Scandisk ran just fine, performed all checks except surface scan. Running scandisk without himem.sys being loaded results in this message: "Scandisk is unable to check a drive because there is no extended memory driver loaded on your computer. To check this drive, make sure that you have a HIMEM.SYS file on the disk from which you are starting your computer (...)" Ok, so there you go. You can use standard tools like fdisk and format to prepare drives at least up to 250 gb in size and set them up for windows-98se installation. |
#10
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250 GB drives - please help
It may be time [or rather past time] to think about using the hard drive manufacturer tools rather than MS fdisk and format for ANY drive manipulation. The manufacturers newest tools all now have NTFS abilities built-in [some more than others - of particular interest to dual booters], large drive abilities, and if you bother to think about it, at least they are STILL SUPPORTED and updated ... There are other tools still being supported, such as BING, SuperFdisk and others [such as FreeDos, Linux, BSD, etc], which also are being updated [or were]. So this *traditional use* of MS fdisk and format isn't very intelligent when there ARE other tools available which can deal with the newer OSs, AND, newer disk formats, access routines, and capacities.. Plainly, it doesn't really make much sense to continue to use tools which are seriously outdated when dealing with one of the more important elements of your computer, its storage and from where the OS will run. Want to use larger drives? Then consider: a newer mother board [or a used board that supports larger drives]; a hard drive adapter card [with its own controller/BIOS override]; one of the purported esdi_506 replacements [but your BIOS is still going to need to support the drive]; USB enclosures {and proper drivers}; stay within the design limits of the OS and its tools [unless your testing]; or don't come crying when the disk errors out or the 9X OS craps out. At least until there are well documented answers available. MINIMUM MS TOOLS for larger drives: DEFRAG.EXE 4.90.3000 = from WinME Setup CD SCANDISK.EXE = from WinME Setup CD SCANDSKW.EXE 4.90.3000 = from WinME Setup CD dskmaint.dll = 4.90.3000 from the WinME Setup CD cvtaplog.exe = 4.90.3000 from the WinME Setup CD These can be obtained via various sources, example: http://www.mdgx.com/web.htm http://erpman1.tripod.com/w98meupd.html http://www.msfn.org/board/?showtopic=84886 http://www.msfn.org/board/?showtopic=46581 http://www.mdgx.com/secrets.htm#FDPT http://www.mdgx.com/add.htm Try Searches for scanfrag.exe {contains scandisks and defrag, check the dskmaint.dll for the right version}. optional: oformat.com = from WinME Setup disk cab - XP ResKit - XP setup disks - other Then you may need some updates to the system itself, such as: 272621usa8.exe - negative numbers shown 243450USA8.EXE - drives larger than 32 gig 273017USA8.EXE - cache write delay 4756US8.EXE - shutdown supplement and maybe a few others... -- MEB http://peoplescounsel.orgfree.com ________ "Lil' Dave" wrote in message ... | Its the 128GB (formatted capacity) I already mentioned.... See the | following note in your enclosed weblink: | | "NOTE: This hotfix is not designed for 48-bit logical block addressing (LBA) | hard disks, and it is not supported on hard disks larger than 137 GB." | | | -- | Dave | Profound is we're here due to a chance arrangement | of chemicals in the ocean billions of years ago. | More profound is we made it to the top of the food | chain per our reasoning abilities. | Most profound is the denial of why we may | be on the way out. | "98 Guy" wrote in message ... | Lil' Dave wrote: | | Would appreciate an MS weblink to the more updated form of | fdisk.exe noted by the respondent. | | http://support.microsoft.com/kb/263044 | | |
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