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Is there any way to get windows 98 to fully
recognize and utilize a 160 GB hard drive?
If not, what OS options are there to fully
utilize this drive?
I don't know of any HD size limitations to 98. However you will need the fdisk upgrade as the original 98 version won't correctly partition drives larger than 64 gig:
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There are things you can do in the BIOS or there are utilities from the HDD vendor you can use (I think they are called overlays). Don't know much about those, as I have always chosen to partition my drives in segments less than 32Gb. Win98SE has no problem with that size. My primary master HDD is a 40Gig WD and has a 2.5Gb primary partition for the boot drive where the OS is installed all by itself. Advantage to this is faster seek time and defrag goes in 1 -2 minutes. Other partitions hold programs and files, another for photos, another for Ghost backups. I could go, but you get the idea. Also reinstalling the OS is a snap and you don't have to worry about losing data.
Regards - Ray
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Why not just partition? Much easier to manage your files. Do a small C drive for OS, say 7.9gig, another partition the same size at the back end of the drive to use for a Ghost image. Then D drive for all apps. E for games, F for multimedia, etc. by doing this the biggest risk you take with all the files is a HD failure. Each partition or logical drive can be individually Fdisked and formatted. If you have 160gigs, eventually you will fill a good portion of it. Also, eventually you will need to redo something that is corrupted. The bigger the drive, the more files, more chance for problems. If my suggestion doesn't appeal to you, then I would suggest win2000sp4 or XPsp1. I think either will allow that drive size, intact. Still would recommend two partitiions. If you network with older 9x machines, you might want to create a FAT32 partition for C: and the rest NTFS. This allows for file sizes larger than 4gig. plus is safer and more secure.
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The Windows 98 FDISK Update refers to hardrives over 64MBs but only up to 137MBs So your drive is still 43MBs larger!
I also think partitions is your best bet.
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Install the hard drive and check if the motherboard bios detects it.If not you need the PCI hard drive controller card for drives larger than 137 GB.This controller and the cable are supplied with boxed drives.The Microsoft tools limits for Windows 98 are:
fdisk 64 GB
format 64 GB
scandisk 32 GB
From this you can tell that you should partition the drive to 32 Go or less for each one to avoid errors with the future use of Win 98.Partitioning the drive is your best bet until you install a copy of Windows XP or later operating system.If you are in doubt about your Win 98 boot disk and its capacity to do fdisk etc. you should use Windows ME boot disk.This one will do the job of partitioning and formatting without errors.Fat 32 is still a good choice with your system because the drive size is down to less than 32 Go ea.Good luck.
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Looks like additional information is needed on my part.
I originally put Windows in a Primary Partition of 10 GB. Later, I used fdisk to attempt further partitioning. Total HDD space detected by Windows 98 SE was 32 GB.
So forget 64, 127, 137 GB. Also Windows 98 SE only allows for one Primary and one Extended Partition. Total combined space for the two is 32 GB. I now have a 10 GB Primary and a 22 GB Extended. Windows 98 SE detects no more hard drive space.
Last week I updated BIOS to the latest release. No changes, no fixes. Still 32 GB.
My original question was can Windows 98 SE fully utilize a 160 GB hard drive. My experience so far, no. Not even close.
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Hi T RAND... If I'm reading your last post correctly, you seem to be laboring under the false idea that the hard drive space detectable by windows is the total of the various partitions. NOT SO. Each partition is seen by windows as a discreet drive and any limitations regarding size applies to that partition alone. In other words, if you segment a 160Gb drive into 8 - 20Gb partitions, each will be assigned a drive letter and after being formatted will appear in Windows as a 20 Gb drive.
You say, 8 partions???? It can be done. I do not use fdisk for partition management. I use Partition Commander. It allows 4 primary DOS/extended DOS partitions. Each extended partition can contain as many 4 Logical partitions. My 40Gb WD has 5 partitions 2 of which are primary DOS partitions. 1 is an extended DOS partition containing 3 logical partitions.
I do not know if one can do that in fdisk because I've never tried it. I can personnaly attest to the use of Partition Commander for this kind of use. There is also Partition Magic which, I'm told, performs similar functions.
BTW... I'm also running Win98SE
HTH - Ray
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The updated fdisk for W98 recognises drives up tp 137GB, so you will have to use a third party partitioning utility to use the whole 160GB.
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This week I talked to Maxtor tech support.
MaxBlast 3 utility also detected 32 GB, so I
was told to do a low level format. After format still 32 GB. I received an RMA. Disconnected and removed drive from case. Then reinstalled it and the BIOS finally listed 163 GB. I used MaxBlast 3 to create about 10 partitions, the largest being 31.97 GB. Installed Windows 2000 Pro into a 9.97 GB partition. It worked and detected 5 partitions up to letter G which got me to the 137 GB limit. BIOS still lists 163 GB.
Was it a hard drive problem, BIOS problem, Windows 98 problem, or a combination?
I don't know. At least I'm a lot better off compared to last week.One other thing: How do you log in after first entering computing.net?
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After a Service Pack 3 install and editing the registry, Windows 2000 Pro now detects all partitions. Also all 160 GB of hard drive.
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