Hard drive larger then 120GB question

Mine is dated 5-18-00, but i'm fairly sure i tried that ver to partition the
250 and it wouldn't work.
The fdisk on the boot disk, at least the top one on a stack of them was the
old ver.

and the WD util to partition and format would only allow one partition, 125
or the whole 250, take my pick.

i'll move all data from the 250 to other HDs and try again.

thanks,


"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
ssome wrote:

First, i'd like to be able to Partition the 250 into 2 ea 125's

Yea - that's not a problem.

Boot into DOS from a floppy with fdisk and format on it. The fdisk
should be dated May 18, 2000 (not april 23, 1999).

Use fdisk to create your 2 partitions, then use format.

Then you're ready to install 98.

Can you offer any help here?

my scandskw is 4-23-99 where can i find a better one?
defrag is Me 9-12-03

ssome

"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
ssome wrote:

First, i'd like to be able to Partition the 250 into 2 ea 125's

Yea - that's not a problem.

Boot into DOS from a floppy with fdisk and format on it. The fdisk
should be dated May 18, 2000 (not april 23, 1999).

Use fdisk to create your 2 partitions, then use format.

Then you're ready to install 98.

Can you offer any help here?

my scandskw is 4-23-99 where can i find a better one?
defrag is Me 9-12-03

ssome

"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
ssome wrote:

First, i'd like to be able to Partition the 250 into 2 ea 125's

Yea - that's not a problem.

Boot into DOS from a floppy with fdisk and format on it. The fdisk
should be dated May 18, 2000 (not april 23, 1999).

Use fdisk to create your 2 partitions, then use format.

Then you're ready to install 98.

ssome wrote:

Can you offer any help here?

my scandskw is 4-23-99 where can i find a better one?
defrag is Me 9-12-03

I'm not sure about your version of defrag (9/12/03). Maybe someone
else can confirm that there was such an updated version for ME - or
not.

I have uploaded some files to fileden.com as follows:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/5/...3604/fdisk.ex_
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/5/...604/defrag.ex_
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/5/.../diskmaint.dl_
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/5/...4/scandskw.ex_

I had to rename them from .exe to .ex_ (and from .dll to .dl_) for
fileden to accept them.

Download those files, and rename them to .exe and .dll.

fdisk.ex_ updated version of fdisk.exe (for windows 98/me)
defrag.ex_ Windows ME version of defrag.exe
diskmaint.dl_ Windows ME version of diskmaint.dll
scandskw.ex_ Windows ME version of scandskw.exe

Also:

I attached a brand-new 250 gb WD SATA hard drive to my Asrock
motherboard, booted a win-98 floppy into DOS, and ran fdisk. (note:
I made sure that himem.sys was loaded as part of the boot. Maybe it's
necessary, maybe it's not.)

I created a single primary partition using all available space on the
drive (I didn't check the details as to what fdisk thinks is the
entire drive capacity).

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"

That's when I left the computer (running at my office). I wasn't
going to hang around for an hour while it formatted the drive. I'll
check back later today and see how it finished the job.

Conclusion: The /z:n format switch is a piece of **** and other tools
must be used to perform a custom format job with a more rational
cluster size.

Gordon Freeman wrote:

I don't think there's any way you could format a 250GB drive
with less than 32KB clusters, FAT32 has a limit of how many
clusters the FAT can contain,

Please have a look at this:

http://groups.google.com/group/micro...0e53eea1ce2fbf

(or try this link: http://tinyurl.com/2zy2jx)

It's a link to a google archived thread in this newsgroup with the
subject:

Cluster size and exploring the limits of FAT-32 Options

As I point out, I've already seen that win-98 can run on a large hard
drive (160 gb, partitioned as a single volume) and with 4kb cluster
size to boot.

FAT-32 does not have to increase cluster-size with increasing volume
size. That is a choice made by the win-9x and ME format tool, to keep
the total number of clusters under 4 million (and in most cases under
2 million).

I believe that strategy was designed so that scandisk could run on a
system with the specified minimum requirements that Microsoft spelled
out for windows 98, which was 16 mb of system memory. Given a system
with that amount of memory, scandisk could not load in a FAT table
containing more than 4 million clusters. Given a system with more
than 4 million clusters (in my case, I've tried up to 40 million) I've
seen scandisk handle a drive scan with no problems (ie - scandisk will
use all available system memory, not just the first 16 mb).

Others say that 4-million cluster limit was rooted in the idea that
Windows must load the entire FAT table as part of it's normal startup
and use, so having a large FAT table would consume inordinate amounts
of available system memory. I countered that argument by saying that
there is no evidence from looking at system memory usage that windows
loads the entire fat table during normal operation, and it really
doesn't have to. It only needs to load the fat entries for the files
that it opens.

Gordon Freeman wrote:

I don't think there's any way you could format a 250GB drive
with less than 32KB clusters, FAT32 has a limit of how many
clusters the FAT can contain,

Please have a look at this:

http://groups.google.com/group/micro...0e53eea1ce2fbf

(or try this link: http://tinyurl.com/2zy2jx)

It's a link to a google archived thread in this newsgroup with the
subject:

Cluster size and exploring the limits of FAT-32 Options

As I point out, I've already seen that win-98 can run on a large hard
drive (160 gb, partitioned as a single volume) and with 4kb cluster
size to boot.

FAT-32 does not have to increase cluster-size with increasing volume
size. That is a choice made by the win-9x and ME format tool, to keep
the total number of clusters under 4 million (and in most cases under
2 million).

I believe that strategy was designed so that scandisk could run on a
system with the specified minimum requirements that Microsoft spelled
out for windows 98, which was 16 mb of system memory. Given a system
with that amount of memory, scandisk could not load in a FAT table
containing more than 4 million clusters. Given a system with more
than 4 million clusters (in my case, I've tried up to 40 million) I've
seen scandisk handle a drive scan with no problems (ie - scandisk will
use all available system memory, not just the first 16 mb).

Others say that 4-million cluster limit was rooted in the idea that
Windows must load the entire FAT table as part of it's normal startup
and use, so having a large FAT table would consume inordinate amounts
of available system memory. I countered that argument by saying that
there is no evidence from looking at system memory usage that windows
loads the entire fat table during normal operation, and it really
doesn't have to. It only needs to load the fat entries for the files
that it opens.

98 Guy wrote:

"Formatting 41,86.65M"

That's when I left the computer (running at my office).
I wasn't going to hang around for an hour while it formatted
the drive. I'll check back later today and see how it
finished the job.

Ok, here's the result:

Formatting 41,86.65M
Format complete.
Writing out file allocation table
Compete.
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 up to 250 gb in size and set them up for
windows-98se installation.

From this point on, I don't want to hear any lusers out there in some
future post say something like "uh, I don't think that fdisk works on
drives larger than 50 gb, or maybe it's 64" or "I seem to recall that
you can't use win-98 format to format a drive larger than 80 gb" or
some other such nonsense.

And to Ssome (the OP who I think started this thread in
microsoft.public.win98.performance) - I hope this helps...

98 Guy wrote:

"Formatting 41,86.65M"

That's when I left the computer (running at my office).
I wasn't going to hang around for an hour while it formatted
the drive. I'll check back later today and see how it
finished the job.

Ok, here's the result:

Formatting 41,86.65M
Format complete.
Writing out file allocation table
Compete.
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 up to 250 gb in size and set them up for
windows-98se installation.

From this point on, I don't want to hear any lusers out there in some
future post say something like "uh, I don't think that fdisk works on
drives larger than 50 gb, or maybe it's 64" or "I seem to recall that
you can't use win-98 format to format a drive larger than 80 gb" or
some other such nonsense.

And to Ssome (the OP who I think started this thread in
microsoft.public.win98.performance) - I hope this helps...

98 Guy wrote:
98 Guy wrote:

"Formatting 41,86.65M"

That's when I left the computer (running at my office).
I wasn't going to hang around for an hour while it formatted
the drive. I'll check back later today and see how it
finished the job.

Ok, here's the result:

Formatting 41,86.65M
Format complete.
Writing out file allocation table
Compete.
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 up to 250 gb in size and set them up for
windows-98se installation.

From this point on, I don't want to hear any lusers out there in some
future post say something like "uh, I don't think that fdisk works on
drives larger than 50 gb, or maybe it's 64" or "I seem to recall that
you can't use win-98 format to format a drive larger than 80 gb" or
some other such nonsense.

And to Ssome (the OP who I think started this thread in
microsoft.public.win98.performance) - I hope this helps...

Good for you. I have been using up to 160G drives for several years now
with no problems with scandisk. I also have a raid 5 system set up on
W98se with 5 x 160G WD drives - 600+G combined space partitioned into 5
sections. So far, again over 2 years, no problems other than one drive
failing. At that time I rebooted on a broken array and ran normally
until the replacement drive was ready and let the system rebuild the
broken array over the weekend. That happened about 2 months after
setting up the system and it has been flawless since. I run 2 old
W95's, they do what they did well then to this day, 2 W98se with one as
the server & 2 W2k's as workstations doing the grunt work. Soon a
couple of the other L-OS machines will be added to perform additional
grunt type jobs. No significant problems in over 2 years other than the
one physical drive failure. Just lucky I guess.

BTW you did a great job explaining to those new to disk allocations & if
you know of a place describing why there should be some smaller
partitions in addition to some larger ones for the purpose of improved
disk space usage this would be a good place to direct them to it. I
have not had the need to search for an article but if you do not have
one available I will try to find one and add the link here.

Good proof of concept.

James

98 Guy wrote:
98 Guy wrote:

"Formatting 41,86.65M"

That's when I left the computer (running at my office).
I wasn't going to hang around for an hour while it formatted
the drive. I'll check back later today and see how it
finished the job.

Ok, here's the result:

Formatting 41,86.65M
Format complete.
Writing out file allocation table
Compete.
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 up to 250 gb in size and set them up for
windows-98se installation.

From this point on, I don't want to hear any lusers out there in some
future post say something like "uh, I don't think that fdisk works on
drives larger than 50 gb, or maybe it's 64" or "I seem to recall that
you can't use win-98 format to format a drive larger than 80 gb" or
some other such nonsense.

And to Ssome (the OP who I think started this thread in
microsoft.public.win98.performance) - I hope this helps...

Good for you. I have been using up to 160G drives for several years now
with no problems with scandisk. I also have a raid 5 system set up on
W98se with 5 x 160G WD drives - 600+G combined space partitioned into 5
sections. So far, again over 2 years, no problems other than one drive
failing. At that time I rebooted on a broken array and ran normally
until the replacement drive was ready and let the system rebuild the
broken array over the weekend. That happened about 2 months after
setting up the system and it has been flawless since. I run 2 old
W95's, they do what they did well then to this day, 2 W98se with one as
the server & 2 W2k's as workstations doing the grunt work. Soon a
couple of the other L-OS machines will be added to perform additional
grunt type jobs. No significant problems in over 2 years other than the
one physical drive failure. Just lucky I guess.

BTW you did a great job explaining to those new to disk allocations & if
you know of a place describing why there should be some smaller
partitions in addition to some larger ones for the purpose of improved
disk space usage this would be a good place to direct them to it. I
have not had the need to search for an article but if you do not have
one available I will try to find one and add the link here.

Good proof of concept.

James