Ok i have an old PC that works good with windows 98se all is fine and boots up perfectly. However i have two harddisk laying around that I need to get it working for some old equipment for work. I have fomate the hard drives and I have done so, step by step and now I need to reload windows 98 but I can't.Because.........
On startup for load windows 98 I am getting an error from the scan disk windows, sayings that I am out of memory. Both harddisk are 2Gig in size. Surely both units can't have the same problem.
Why is this so. What does out of memory mean for hard disc??

When formatting how did you do that? Use Fdisk and choose Y when asked about large disks. Once you partition the drive using 100% of the space then format using FAT32.

It is possible the old computer can't use 2GB harddrives. Are the drives properly identified during the startup screens?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q18...

On start up they are identifed as 2 gig. There should be enough room to load these file, as the original is a 2gig unit and working fine.

It's probably referring to RAM and not the hard drives.

Is the message coming when running scandisk or scanreg?

If you're booting from a bootdisk is himem.sys loading in config.sys?

Are you sure you've got 128 of ram? Is that what shows on the posting screen?

Since the drives appear to be new to that computer it'd be a good idea to run fdisk and remove and then recreate the partitions. Then reboot and format again.

Are both drives connected at the same time? If so, try it with just one drive.

I will double check again the ram, but the error is coming from scandisk.
Also I am only using one hard drive.

Errors involving RAM often overlap with those involving available disk space so you can't always be sure where it's coming from. But the same errors with different hard drives and the same RAM would point to RAM as the problem.

But it's always a good idea to partition the drive in the computer in which it's to be used. If you just formatted but didn't partition and format you should probably do that and try the installation again.

Are you using a bootdisk or booting from the 98 cd? A standard 98 bootdisk should be fine. Just make sure himem.sys is loading.

"What does out of memory mean for hard disc??"

It has nothing to do with the hard drive unless it's too full and there is not enough free space on it for the program you are trying to run to run.

An out of memory message in Windows normally always refers to there not being enough windows "core" memory available - it has nothing to do with the amount of ram you have installed above a minimal amount (98SE runs very well with 128mb).

98SE has a fixed amount of "core" memory available to Windows - if you do some things such as have too many programs running or minimized when you try to run another program, or if you open too many pictures without closing them (they may be minimized), you may get an out of memory message.
If you then close programs that are running or otherwise reduce the amount of core memory used, you can probably run the program you got the message in fine.
However, sometimes you have to reboot as well.

Some of the core memory is used by Startup programs - if you have a lot of those, they can use a lot of it and you may not be aware that they are running.

It is also possible as DAVEINCAPS is saying you have a ram problem that is causing false messages, but I have not seen that myself.

Try running Scandisk in Safe mode - far fewer things load that use core memory in that mode.

"On startup for load windows 98 I am getting an error from the scan disk windows, sayings that I am out of memory."

If you are trying to run Windows Setup and are getting that error, it is NOT normal for you to get that message. That probably points to himem.sys not loading if you are booting from an improperly made floppy, or there being a problem with your ram.

My appologies it seem that i have been writting and this website has not allowed me to update my finding. i am dissapointed ih=n this web site I have logged in time and time again. I think i will find out more why i am having troubles.

The two hard drive have errors on it. I have formated these a few times in the last few days and the message I keep getting is that the hard drive has errors on it.After 100% completing. Both hard drive must be faultly.
I have now tried hard drive number three and it has sucessfully load windows 98, meaning that there was something wrong with thous two units.

You should not get ANY errors reading files from the Windows CD in the CD drive while running Setup.
If you do...
- and you Skip loading files from the Windows CD, there will be essential files missing from Windows on the hard drive when Setup is finished.
- try cleaning the CD, and using a laser lens cleaning CD in the CD drive before you run Setup. If that doesn't help, your CD drive is probably faulty - use another CD drive.

For mboards with certain Intel 430 series chipsets, bugs in Setup result in you not being able to load files from the Windows CD in the CD drive during the last part of Setup because Setup can no longer see the CD drive, and you have to Skip loading a lot of files in order to finish Setup. Windows will have essential files missing and the Secondary IDE controller in Device Manager will have a yellow marking beside it, and any hard drive or CD drive connected to secondary IDE may not be found at all.
If you have that problem, I can help you fix that situation.

If you go to the trouble of re-formatting a hard drive, I recommend that before you do that you use Fdisk to delete the existing partition(s), then make the partition(s) again. Fdisk thoroughly checks the hard drive for errors (bad sectors) and if it finds any it marks them as unusable, and when you format after that, the format should proceed in a minimum amout of time because it will not see any of those bad sectors, and it will show no bad sectors at all in Windows.

Don't use the Quick format feature when formattiing if you are trying to cure a problem of errors being found on the hard drive.
......

If you suspect a hard drive is defective....

Check your hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostics.
See the latter part of response 1 in this:
http://www.computing.net/windows95/...

(thanks to Dan Penny for this link:)
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm...

If you don't have a floppy drive, you can get a CD image diagnostic utility from most hard drive manufacturer's web sites, but obviously you would need to make a burned CD, preferably a CD-R for best compatibilty, on another computer if you need to.

If the diagnostics find a few bad sectors on the drive, you could try using the diagnostic's "Zero Fill" or "Low Level Format" feature - that fills the entire drive with 0's and if there are any bad sectors found while doing that it attempts to mark them as unusable and replace them with spare sectors if it can - you may then end up with no bad sectors being visible to Fdisk and Format when you run them after that. Zero filling the drive sometimes makes bad sectors that were visible before, no matter what you tried, disappear when the normal automatic routines of the hard drive wasn't able to do that.

I was considering a ram problem more along the lines of him possibly using a bootdisk that either wasn't loading himem.sys or was loading too much other stuff.

If you were getting some kind of 'format terminated' error then the drives weren't formatted and the 'out of memory' error was likely due to there being no place to put any files on the drive. As already mentioned, a LLF may fix that.

I think i may have located the probelm but I am not sure how to do this. I have noticed that the FAT 32 is missing on my system startup which prevents me from loading Windows 98 correctly.
I have just notice it. My original 98 boot disc is not putting this file in. Does this original boot disc load FAT32?

Refer back to response #1.

Yes the PC can identify the hard drive, type and capacity. But when I partioned I used the 100% and went through step by step as requested. I choose the Yes option for harddisk over 2 gig.
I would think that this PC can handle the capacity as i have two hard drives that are the same in capacity and I just plug it in the IDE connector and power and they are up and running with no problem at all using win98.

So you partitioned the 2GB using ALL available space? Then you need to use the format command to format the partition. It should format as FAT32 by default.

Have you tested the hard drives you had problems with yet?
There's no point trying to install Windows on them if they're defective.
" Both harddisk are 2Gig in size. Surely both units can't have the same problem."
They're probably at least ten years old, and they could very well both be defective.

"I have noticed that the FAT 32 is missing on my system startup which prevents me from loading Windows 98 correctly."

What do you mean by that?
What did you expect to see, and where did you expect to see it?

E.g. I don't see anything on the screens while booting that says FAT32 or any other partitioning type the hard drives may have while booting 98 or 98SE on any of the computers I have had those on.

"My original 98 boot disc is not putting this file in. Does this original boot disc load FAT32?"

What do you mean by that?

Which boot disk?
A floppy or the Windows CD?
Retail Upgrade Windows 98 or 98SE CDs are not bootable. Retail Full version or OEM 98 or 98SE CDs are bootable.
.....

" I choose the Yes option for harddisk over 2 gig."

Actually, it's for drives over 512 mb, and/or if you want the a partition on a drive or a single partition on an entire drive over 2.047 gb to be formatted as one piece.

Answering yes to that enables Setup (or Fdisk) to see the drive as having FAT32 partitioning if it already has it, or if the hard drive is blank, when Setup partitions the drive (using Fdisk) it is automatically done with FAT32 partitioning.

The first thing Setup itself does is to run the realmode version of Scandisk to check the hard drive for errors - you do not see evidence it is running unless Scandisk finds errors.
If it DOES find errors, you will get one or more error messages from Scandisk
- if the hard drive has no data on it, the drive is probably defective - check it with the manufacturer's diagnostics if you haven't already done so.

- if the hard drive DOES have data on it, try this...

If you don't want to lose the data on the hard drive, try connectiing the drive as slave on either IDE or as master on secondary IDE on a working computer with Win 98 or 98SE on it, and running Scandisk in Windows to check the problem drive - the real mode Scandisk cannot fix some of the things the Windows version can.

If you're not concerned about losing the data on the drive.....

Quit Setup, and at the prompt, type: fdisk , press enter.
Select Display existing partitions.
If any are listed as non-dos, you must delete the existing partitions on the drive with something such as a a hard drive manufactuer's drive prepartion utility, or the program that made the non-dos partition.
If there are no non-dos partitions listed,
select Delete a partition or logical drive, and Delete the existing partition(s) - doing so deletes the FAT table information that tells the operating system where everything is on the hard drive.
Make at least one partition, a Primary one.
Quit fdisk.

Boot with the boot floppy or Windows CD, and try Setup again.

.....

NOTE.
If you don't get the "out of memory" error when the original hard drive that worked fine is connected and you try running Setup from a boot disk, there's nothing wrong with your ram.
You can quit Setup after it has checked the hard drive for errors.

Well I would have to agree with what you said all of the above. Very interesting, however I would like to point out to you a few things, that I do have the original cd disc windows 98 second edition and the original floppy disc that can with it (boot disc) of windows 98.
They are not illegal copies.
The Cd is genuine. It is a beautiful manufacture hologram mirror on the top side with a picture in a square box of the world to the top right hand side. It states, for distribution with a new PC only.etc, etc.
The floppy is also genuine. It still has its serial number(some number, what ever it means ) of when I first purchased this many years ago (X04-80322) clearly visible on the label and in perfect condition. I can elaborate more and describe to you in more detail should you wish.
I do not carry with me illegal copies.
But i did have window XP that was a copies and caused me so much grief and head ache that I had to go out and buy the original disc windows professional service pack 2 as i kept on getting the error message of this is not a genuine copies of windows, on start up. I learn that the hard way from experience that no one would give me the correct product key that allowed me the necessary updates, that I needed. ( product key regenerator don’t work) Good investment for $180 way back a few years ago.

Additional information if this help you understand what I am doing is exactly what this guy is doing in the youtube video to format the hard disc, I am do the same.
My hard drive has no information on it I have viewed everything. It is blank.
You can view the link below if you wish to see how this man sets up his hard disk. Mine is no different. .Please note that the start of HIS window is not the same as mine.
Mine is pretty much blank.
No CPU is displayed or ram. On start up of the screen.

View Youtube if you wish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKIz...

What I see on my PC.
Partition=C:1
Status=A
Type=Pri Dos
Volume Lable= ( I left blank )
Mbytes=4110 (which is 4gig)
System=UNKNOWN
Usage=100%

The System here is my concern. I should be seeing FAT32, but i do not.

I didn't mention anything about whether your CDs or original floppy were legitimate or not.

My OEM 98 and OEM 98SE CDs are the original ones, made before there were holograms on them. OEM CDs (or DVDs) are much cheaper, but you get no free support from Microsoft if you buy them yourself - if a custom system builder uses an OEM CD, they provide the support.
The 98 CD I got second hand along with a generic computer that was donated to me (I give away systems to low income people) and there was no original floppy included. My 98SE CD I bought new in Dec. 99 (98SE was released in mid 99) and it did not come with a floppy (it cost me about $130? at the time). I bought OEM 98SE for my nephew some time after that ($110? or so), and by that time it came with a floppy and had a silver hologram on it. I copied the floppy for my use. It's the same as a Startup Disk except it has Run Setup or similar in the menu you see and tiny changes in config.sys and/or autoexec.bat to allow for that.

A friend of mine had an illegal copy of XP Pro, no SP1 or SP2 updates, given to her she used a corporate key for, and it was fine for quite a while, until Microsoft discovered it's key was being fradulantly used, so now if you you try to use it, the key is found to be illegitimate and you can't Activate Windows, and you can't get updates from the Windows Update site.
However, last time I checked you could still install most things using downloads elsewhere on the Microsoft site - suggesting they would rather you used Windows illegitamately than not at all.
She has since bought the two CD OEM XP MCE 2005 legitimately (all versions of MCE have SP2 updates built in). Apparently Microsoft has a list of keys known to be fradulantly used for XP and up, and that is checked when you attempt to Activate.

Onin

I only watched about half your video. What I saw was you correctly creating a partition and making it active. Then you went and deleted it. Why did you do that?

Recreate the partition using all available space. Mark it as active and then hit escape to exit fdisk. You must exit in order for fdisk to finish.

After that you can boot back to the floppy disk and choose the format command. Format the drive and then restart once more. Windows should then start installing.

'System=UNKNOWN' means the drive is not formatted. Although you may have specified large disk support when running fdisk to create the partition, it will not show as FAT32 until the drive is formatted.

Ok I am back.
It seem that I have made a slight mistake thinkng that my PC would handle large partitioning. Unfortunaly I was wrong because this machine is only capable of handling 2 gig. I never allowed partitioning. I kept on choosing the option of (y) and tried to allow the maxuim usage of my hard disk. I should have choosen the option (n) and partitioned C: 2gig and D: the rest. Or what ever they call it? extended. Looking at most of my hard drives that I have they are all over 4g, 6g, I even have a 9g unit. I even though I had a 2g and this would work. I am not the best at these thing.
To make this short. Windows 98 is now installing with no problems and everything seem to be fine. Just some hardware issue but i choose to cancel this on startup.
This is for another time.
Regarding the out of memory problem, well it was the ram. I swapped this with some other spare one that i have and this problem has never returned.
I would like to appologies to all who have replied back to me and tried to help me out. It has been a great learning experience for me. (unfortunaly I was giving out the wrong info)Oops?
Anyhow I can now use these harddrives for work and know that these units are in good working order.
Thank you.
Onin.

Onin

You misunderstand what large harddrives means. It mean over 508MB. You SHOULD say yes. You created the partition correctly before. The problem was you then went and deleted the partition and then rebooted and tried to go further whan you had no partiton.

Go back and use fdisk to create a partition on the 2GB using all available space. Reboot and then format and install Win98.

By doing what you just asked me, will this display the full size of the harddisk on the PC when windows is fully up and running.
Eg a 6gig unti will have a 2gig on c: drive and 4gig on d: drive. Partitioned.
Will I be able to view this when windows 98 boots up? Total 6g
Hum? I must try?

Onin

I don't understand what you are asking in #24. You stated your harddrives are 2GB each. Are you now saying you have different capacity harddrives.

Even if your harddrive is larger or if you want to create two partitions on the harddrive you still need to say Y when prompted.

If you want two partitions then when you go to create the first partition you create the partition using less than 100% of the available space.

You can use the 98 fat32 converter in system tools to convert it after you install 98. You'll get more efficient use of the drive that way. It'll be FAT16 now which has a 2 gig maximum size so you are using the entire disk space. It would have been more complicated had the drive been any larger.

I said I thought I had a hard disc that was2 gig in capacity but i did not. I have now with me a few hard drives that are all over this size. 4,6,9gig units. What i was reading on the screen was wrong. If you read N#24 in that question, i asked, would, I see the total capacity in Windows 98 of the hard disc that i have installed.
My question to you is or my concern. Would this machine be able view such large units?

When properly partitioned and formatted, 98 will see (and can function on) a drive up to about 120 gig and, under certain circumstances, one even larger than that. However, your self-described 'old PC' may not have a bios that will see one that large, in which case 98 won't see it either. Check here:

http://www.buildorbuy.net/bioslimit...

under 'seven major bios limitations'

Unless yours is really old--486 or early P-I--it should see at least 8 gig.

You are correct Mr Daveincaps.
What I should have done is write down everything from the beginning . What mother board it is, bios, serial number and make of the machine if any? to fully understand the computer capabilities.
The only thing I see on startup is....
Well.....Let me go and see......
I'm back.
It is.... on the outside of the casing
DIGITAL Ventris fx2 it says on the outside of the cover Intel Inside.

The screen displays on statup.
Micrsoft RamDrive version 3.06
Disk size: 2,048K
sector 512 bytes
Allocation units: 2 sectors
Dirctory entries: 64

Now the bios
Phoenix Bios Technologies
4.0 release 5.12
Version1.01
CPU is pentium 166 Mhz
0000640K System Ram passed
0048128K extended Ram passed
UMB upper limits segment address F139.

This is all i can see. What ever it mean.
It was a good machine and I took it home from work as it was put aside ready for the rubbish bin. What i do know on startup it had windows 95 in it and boy wern't there a heck of a lot of programs packed in it before i wiped everything out. I only wanted the hard disc to format so I could use this latter for other old equipmnt at my work.

Dave

If memory serves me correctly my 486 x DX2 66 had a limitation of 508MB.

From Onis's last post it appears the computer is a Socket 5 P1.

Had to use an overlay to install a 540MB drive.

In response #3 Onin states the drives are identified as 2GB drives. That would mean the BIOS can handle them.

Onin, is your intention to get this computer running or simply salvage the HDrives?

Onin:

Are you confusing the RamDrive with hard drive size?

Remove all discs (flopppy and CD) and restart computer. Access the BIOS (usually DEL or F1) and post back exactly the disc information.

Why are you setting up a ramdrive? Or is this when you're booting from a bootdisk or cd?

Of your 4, 6 and 9 gig drives I'd expect the bios to be able to see the 4 and 6.

You indicate in #22 that you finally got 98 installed on a drive. So is all this after-the-fact analysis of any service? Or are you still trying to work with the other drives?

I need the hard drives for work purposes ONLY.
I have now (3) harddrives that have windows 98 up and running. This will do for now.
I believe the remaining hard drive are operational and should be working with no problems. I will later have a play and check the remainder.
I have now learn't how to scandisk an empty hard drive via the a: floppy disc. I just copy the commmand directly to the C: drive and to a formated and empty unit and scan for damaged sectors, etc, etc or errors, whatever.
I have learn't something from this. Very easy and fun to do.
What am I using this PC for. Well i was thinking of brushing up my DOS skills and commands lines. MAINLY FOR WORK PURPOSES Copy files fron a: to c: and vice versa.
The equipment we have at my work is primarilty dos based.
However to eplain furthur it is quiet involve. I know you must be thinking that wow this guy must have very very old equipment at his work.
But this story is for another time as it is very involved WHY, HOW, WHAT?
OH the RAM what size is this well I have 3 slots and each RAM is 64mb. All three are in.
I am still confused to why I can not use all of the hard disc capacity on this machine. I am limited to only 2Gig. What ever hard disc i use. I might be still doing something wrong here.
I will try again and let you know.

Assuming the drive is larger than 2 gig then the most likely reason you're only using 2 gig is because 2 gig happens to be the maximum size of a FAT16 partition. That's the consequence of answering 'no' to fdisk's large disk support question. The partition size will stay at 2 gig even if you use the 98 fat32 conversion.

Using fdisk you can create logical drives in the remaining space. They will show as separate drives in 'my computer'.

You are correct in what you said at the above but i read what is on the screen and I only choose the option( Yes ) Then I fdisk I create logical drives d: , e, and f, as percentages.
Then it asks me to activate. I can only choose the option c: to activate, one letter only and then it starts it's install of Windows 98.
When this loads then as you are aware FAT16 is seen on the system.

"The partition size will stay at 2 gig even if you use the 98 fat32 conversion".

Correct again i tried this through Windows to convert and it did not change.

If you have a 6GB disk and make 3 equal paritons they will be approx. 2GB each.

You stated you were going to use the disks for DOS. Why do you want FAT32 then?

Why are you partitioning equally. DAVINCAPS explained about FAT 16 size limits. Just make the primary partition larger. Say 50% and your problem will go away.

I am still confused about how these two 2GB drives grew to 6GB.

Yeah, whether answering 'yes' or 'no' to large disk support you have the option to not use the entire disk space as a single partition. If you specifiy less than the entire disk as a single partition then logical drives can be created in the remaining space. (Of course with a 'no' answer you have the 2 gig max.)

Given that the drives you're using are small, unless you have a specific reason to create multiple logical drives, it's usually best to just choose to use the entire disk space as a single partition when running fdisk.

But as long as you end up with all the disk space used, as either single or multiple logical drives, then you're doing as much as you can.

As OtheHill says, with dos you should probably keep them at FAT16 as MS DOS (6.22 and below) and early 95 dos will only work with fat16.

I'm back and I have tried again. I have choosen the Yes option. This time I have mad c: drive 2 gig and the d: is 4 gig units. A totl of 6 gig I formate both c: and the d: drives.
I know have FAT32 on my system. I can see this.
I choose the activation of c: drive to load window.
Fantastic all is going well the Window are now loading up.
But wait...
Crash......
I have now an error saying PARTIAL OVERFLOW ERROR. Windows can not proceed furthur.

Hum... I wonder if the machine is trying to tell me something?

"PARTIAL OVERFLOW ERROR."

See response 2 in this - try cleaning the contacts on the ram modules, and making sure the modules are properly seated:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...

If that doesn't help....
Have you tested the hard drive(s) yet?
If not see response 10!

It says PARTIAL OVERFLOW ERROR exactly? That phrase doesn't lead to any google results.

Yes window on strat up did initialize the scan disk on c: and d: and it said it found no errors.
However tomorrow I am getting another PC that my younger brother has so kindly donated to me. His old PC is a Pentium 1 he never uses it. It has been sitting at my mums house for quiet some time doing nothing, and it is fully opertional with Window 98 fully installed. He has informed me that his hard drive in the machine is a 10 gig unit.
So i will be using this machine to carry out further test of the remaining hard drive, that I have.
With response to the RAM moduls I guess I could reseat them or try other unit as I have a few spare to play with.

Hello there.
Do you want an update?
Well I picked up the PC from mum house. Got it all working at my my place. Checked out a few thing before i installed the spare hard disk to be reformated as mention to you before.
I am using the 6 gig unit here.
Ok you may not like this but here goes. I formated the drives and choose the option for large partition. (Y) All went very well and this machine seems more promissing than the last.
It starts to install window and nearly completes it's install.
However I now have another problem, because an error has appear on the screen.
I think you gentlemen out there have seen this problem before and dealt with this.
And the error is........
Windows protection error
c:\Windows\system\vmm32.vxd: missing /unable to load.
Oh no??
I been doing some reasarch on this topic and i have look at previous entries on this web site to see if other people who have had the same thing as me.
Good one.... Now what>>>

Vmm32.vxd is a file created when you do the installation. Reformat and try the installation again.

You might check this thread:

http://www.computing.net/answers/wi...

where for some odd reason, changing the boot order seems to have fixed that problem.

I did it, I changed the boot order and it worked like a charm .
Thank you Mr Davincaps.

You're welcome. I wish I knew why that works. There would seem to be no causal relationship between the boot order and whether or not the OS can locate vmm32.vxd.

I have now formated and loaded 2 hard drives on this new PC that I picked up from mums place. The first hard drive is 6 gigs and on boot up I go to my computer and view that this is in deed a 6gig unit. So now i put in another hard drive which is 8 gigs in capacity and laod window up and once again I go and check to see if this is the capacity that i have choosen. (via the Y option )This machine has no problems seeing this. However what I do see is that the PC displays c: and d: inspaction when the scan disc starts up and loads up automatically wihtout me choosing this and carries on the installation.I just can not understand why I can not load up the other PC and allow the full partitioning of the hard disc that i put in. It only take a maximum 2 gigs not matter what I choose. Is there something i am doing or not see in the bios screen to not allow me the full use of the hard drive.

If the hard drive is configured wrong in cmos/bios setup that could be the reason. If you choose a cylinders/heads/sectors manual setup instead of setting it to AUTO then it could be configured as a 2 gig instead of whatever it actually is.

I could switch it off auto but I am not sure which setting to choose. Should I be looking for the hard drive spec's. Is there something out there that I could learn more on what I need to do. I have toggled through the bios hard drive IDE but not to sure what I should be selectiing?

If it's on AUTO then it should be OK. The only other thing I can think of is that it's got a cylinder limiting jumper set which would force the bios to see it as 2 gig. But if you've tried it on another computer and that one has seen it OK then that wouldn't be it.

If you're not sure of the jumpers post back the hard drive model number so we can look them up.

Some older BIOSes had an option to Autodetect drives. That would be separate from the Auto setting. There is no particular harm in trying various settings if Auto doesn't work. I thought you stated the harddrives are all properly identified in the startup screens though?

I have a hard drive that I haven't tried yet but should work fine.
This one is a
Seagate
Model Number ST36424A
Serial Number 7CN0353W
Part number 9N5006-030
Firmware Number 3.10
Lot number A56324
Configuration level CQB02
CT 2206A020XII0FN
CPN : 116191-001 0013

Drive parameters
(CHS) 13,328 Cylinders 15 heads 63 sectors
12,594,960 Addressable sectors
This is what i can see on the label.

I forgot to write the hard drive capacity is is a 6,448 Mbytes (6 gig unit)

In the end, if the harddrive shows in the startup screens as the full capacity then the BIOS isn't the problem. It may have something to do with your Fdisk copy.

This PC on start up shows very little , not like the other computer that has a whole list itinerary on start up.
The screen here is very blank.

"It may have something to do with your Fdisk copy."

That ain't it. The Win 98/98SE Fdisk bug is only a problem if the drive is ~64gb or larger - the original version starts over (xxgb - 64gb, or a multiple of 64gb) after 64gb.
....

"CPU is pentium 166 Mhz"
"I am limited to only 2Gig. What ever hard disc i use."
"I just can not understand why I can not load up the other PC and allow the full partitioning of the hard disc that i put in. It only take a maximum 2 gigs not matter what I choose."

You've tried or investigated everything else.
The only thing left is you have an ancient bios version that has bugs in it that prevent drives larger than 2gb from being recognized as more than 2gb - this was common in really old bioses, as was the later 8.4 gb bug, and the 32gb bug, and the 64gb bug.

I don't know if in your many posts you have mentioned what mboard brand and model you have or not.
If you have, tell us again.

EDIT - I found you have,
"Phoenix Bios Technologies
4.0 release 5.12
Version1.01"
but I searched with it and it's not much help.
If you can find the make and model or use Bios Agent (see below) do that.

If you have not...

If you DO know your mboard brand, model, or mboard version or revision number, or your brand name system model number,
tell us what it is.

If you're not sure,
Go here, download BIOS AGENT.
Run BIOS AGENT to find your bios string.
- here's the link that downloads Bios Agent
http://download.esupport.com/biosag...

The current Bios Agent calls the bios string the Bios ID.
Tell us the Bios ID it finds, or everything Bios Agent finds, and include any dashes, etc.
...

Bios Agent must be used in Windows.

The following works even if you have no drives at all connected to your mboard but you are able to boot and get a display on your monitor.

If you cannot use Bios Agent, the bios string is usually a long string of numbers/letters at the bottom of the first black screen as you boot your computer - it often begins with a date -
usually you can press the Pause key to read it and copy it down.
Press any key but Pause to continue booting.

It could also be higher up the screen under or beside the bios version line, e.g. under or beside Award or AMI or Pheonix...

Post this bios string here, and include any dashes, etc.
Please make sure you copied it right. Most Award and AMI Bios strings do not have spaces. Newer Phoenix bios strings, based most often on those for Intel mboards, are often like so: xxxxxxxx.xxx.xxxxxxxxx
....

If you provide the right information, we MAY be able to find you a bios update you can flash the bios with that will cure your problem.

If not, your only solution is to buy yourself a recent PCI EIDE (PATA) drive controller card and connect your drives to that. It has it's own bios and 48 bit LBA support so will detect ANY size of hard drive. As little as $30 or less.
However, you MUST be able to select SCSI as the first device in your boot order, or be able to place SCSI after floppy and/or CD drive in the boot order, if you want to be able to boot Windows from a drive connected to the PCI card.

I couldn't find the jumper settings for that exact drive--it might be an OEM made by seagate. But if it has a cylinder limiting jumper that's set then the bios will definately see the drive as 2.1 gig.

Also, looking at the rear of the drive with the drive right-side-up there are probably five pairs of jumpers between the IDE cable connection and the power connection. From left to right their designations should be:

Master
Slave
Cable select
Reserved
Current limiting jumper (CLJ)

So, if there is a jumper over the pair of pins on the right side, remove that jumper.

With the bios at AUTO I think the drive will be seen the same as before on the posting screen--it'll probably just show the drive model number.

Fdisk--option 4 should show 2 gig as partitioned with another 4 gig as unpartitioned.

That is, it will IF the current limiting jumper had previously been set.

(Edit)

Apparently some of their drives of that genre had 4 pairs of jumpers. In that case the CLJ is still the one farthest to the right.

Here's a pic of the 4-jumper configuration:

http://support.dell.com/support/edo...

The CLJ is the one marked 'alternate capacity'.

I think it's likely you have the 4-jumper configuration instead of the 5-jumper. I misread the configuration for the Medalist drives. In any event, it's going to be the one on the right.

I have cheeked the jumper at the back. It is indeed to the far left had side which is the Master select. I even tried placing this to the right had side to see what would happen. It said " no fixed disc present"
So I put this back as was before.
My mother board is... from what I can see and i shall write this... What ever it means
1997 Digital Corporation Equipment.
L1 side 1 50-25307-01 A01
54-25308 made in Singapore.
Once again i completely used the full drive to its maximum capacity and reformated it again.
I get on completion of formating, it reads.
Checking existing disk format.
formating 6,149.85M
format complete
Your program caused a divide overflow error.
If the problem persists, contact your program vendor.
With regards to the link above running the program to check the bios info via the disket installation says that it can not run this program in the dos mode.
I wonder if there is a program out that can easily load up this information through the floppy drive to view the bios version that I have.

I loaded that program that was given to me.

If you're not sure,
Go here, download BIOS AGENT.
Run BIOS AGENT to find your bios string.
- here's the link that downloads Bios Agent
http://download.esupport.com/biosag...

I got a hard drive that has windows 98 already installed, I decide to place th program I downloaded to the machine. It worked good.
Thank you Mr Tubesandwire.
Quiet a good program to view the bios.
Ok what do we have here....
We have. And what I can see, is.

Bios type= Phoenix Bios 4.0 Released 5.12
Bios D= Unknown
OEM Sign On= None
Super i/o= SMC93XAPM rev 1 found at port 3foh
Chipset Intel Trition 430TX rev 1
OS= Microsoft Windows 98 SE version 4.10.2222
CPU type=P54C
Speed 168mhz Max Unknow
Bios Rom Unknown
Size Unknown
Memory Installed 47mb
Maximum= Unknow.

Gentleman I ask you this. Why is my memory only 47mb. Is this because the bios is set to it's maximum of only what it can handle or see???
I have 3 slots @ 64mb each installed.
I would think I would be view more than this.

It formatted the drive to 6 gig so I guess that problem is taken care of, right?

As far as your ram only reading 47 meg--likely the bios is seeing the sticks as 16 meg. You'll need double-sided stick with lower density chips. I'm surprised that motherboard even has DIMM sockets.

This should be the support page for your model. Looks like the newest bios is ver 1.12, if you really feel the need to try the upgrade:

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/legacysup...

Yes it did format the drive to 100% and it is active. I do see the system as fat32 but on completion of the format the error reads.

"Your program caused a divide overflow error".
i do not proceeed any furthure as I am for sure that this install of Windows will fail using all the drive.

Did you boot from a bootdisk? Or how did you load the OS that you used to format the hard drive?

I create the boot disk from my Windows 98 SE cd. I have a hard drive fully operational and I format the start up disc through this. Then I simple use this to try and get the other hard drive up and running using it's maximum capacity. I have now 3 boot disc on my table all the same. Anyhow I don't have any problems using the other Pc to get it up and running to format the drive and I use any of the 3 boot disc to initialize my drive.

The generic bootdisks load a lot of drivers that aren't necessary--a lot of ASPI files in case you've got a SCSI setup. Occasionally all that unneeded stuff causes problems. I'm going to send you a bootdisk that only loads himem.sys and the cdrom driver. Use it instead of what you have now.

Send me your email address via a private message. The new convoluted way that computing.net handles direct emails never seems to work.

I have sent you my email address and hopefully you should have it. Thank you.

OK, I sent it. Let us know how it goes.

The error could also be due to a hardware or RAM problem.

I got your email. I have extracted this file and placed it on a floppy disk to be opened by the machine, during installation.
I will let you know.
Thank you so much.

I placed this file on a working windows of 98. The file proceeded to open up on it's own and called for a formatted floppy to be put in. It loaded the file without problems.
I now am using this on the PC that will not partition all of the drive.
I am using the 6gig hard drive to try this out, and deleting all that is on the disc. I am starting a new.
I am now booting from the A: drive and again fdisk this. I look and see if this unit is empty. There is nothing there. I reboot and choose option (Y) to use all of the drive.
I reboot when I have gone through this setup. I now am back at the A:prompt I now format c: Again on completion i get the message saying "Your program caused a divide overflow error". Same as before.
I look back into the system to see if this information is there. Again the System is unknown and does not format FAT32.
Not to good.
I will now try to upgrade the bios.
See if this helps.

I think there must be a RAM or some hardware problem. Nothing that loaded or ran from that bootdisk should cause that error. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try the bios update.

Mr Davencaps. Before i upgrade this bios.
Why is it, that I can only see in the system.
Memory Installed 47mb
When I should be seeing 64mb X 3 off
Total 192mb. This machine just doesn't pick it up or have I exceeded it's limit.

The bios upgrade didn't load up. It called for the drive letter b: which is not installed.
I did however change the bios default values, which displayed a totally different screen on startup, but that was pretty much it. I even tried to disable the c: drive and the cd rom reader thinking that the machine would have to read from the A: drive and not call for the B: drive, which is displayed as none in the bios setting.
I tried reloading again but not much help.
So I went back and reset everything as it was because I was having boot up problems.
I managed to start the machine again and OR how should I say it, I am back to the beginning.
Not to sure why this bios upgrade is not working.

I mentioned that in #61 above--the sticks are probably being seen as 16 meg instead of 64 due to their using high density chips for which the bios doesn't know how to correctly read.

Which bios file did you download?

I'm ging back to the ram I'm taking this out and just putting one in for now. I might even borrow another machine memory to see what happen.
Hopefully just using one stick I should able to see at least 64mb.
High density???
I'll try another approach.

The bios is from the web site given to me at number #56
Version 1.12
It loads automatically to the A: diskette.
Inside it is the file name is 00000OA.exe
that is 6 zero's and the letters OA.exe
Then it says it can not find drive B:
And that's about it.

If a 64 meg stick, for example, has 8 chips on it and another 64 meg stick has 16 chips then the chips on the one with 8 must be