Re: 250 GB drives - please help

  • Thread starter alvinamorey@notmail.com
  • Start date
A

alvinamorey@notmail.com

On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 16:07:53 -0800, "Adam" <adam@no_thanks.com> wrote:

>
>"98 Guy" <98@Guy.com> wrote in message news:47363BF6.67EC8BA3@Guy.com...
>> Rod Speed wrote:
>>
>> > > What do I need to do to get my system to
>> > > recognize and boot from a 250 GB drive?
>> >
>> > Upgrade the OS for starters, 98SE doesnt support drives over
>> > 128GB properly.

>>
>> The problem for win-98 and drives larger than 128 gb is the
>> protected-mode driver ESDI_506.PDR. There are modified/fixed versions
>> of it available via the win-98 forum on msfn.org. The Intel
>> Application Accelerator also supplied a different (replacement) file
>> that breaks the 128 gb barrier - but only for systems with certain
>> Intel chipset's.
>>
>> However, the problem can be avoided by using a third-party IDE or SATA
>> adapter card, or if the system has on-board SATA controller. When
>> installing and running win-98 on a SATA hard drive, the driver
>> ESDI_506.PDR does not come into play.
>>
>> > > Or, is it better to just use the Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI
>> > > Adapter Card?
>> >
>> > That wont fix the OS problem.

>>
>> Most likely it will. Third-party PCI controller cards will usually
>> come with their own equivalent to the original MS driver ESDI_506.PDR.
>>
>> Natively, win-98 can handle drives at least as large as 500 gb, and
>> with at many as 120 million clusters. I've formatted a 500 gb drive
>> as FAT32 using (forcing) 4kb cluster size and win-98 has no problem
>> with it (although scandisk and defrag don't exactly like it).
>>
>> > > Using the Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card, how
>> > > do I set the BIOS in order to boot from the 250 GB drive?
>> >
>> > You need a biosed card to do that.

>>
>> Disable your on-board IDE controllers in the BIOS, or fool around with
>> the boot order sequence.
>>
>> And I suggest you get a PCI *SATA* controller, not IDE (unless you
>> already have a 250 gb IDE (PATA) drive.

>
>
>Yes, you are quite right. The following URL ...
>http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/42489/
>was of particular help. But, in my case,
>the following BIOS settings did the trick ...
>
>Boot Sequence ...
>
>1) Removable Device [Legacy Floppy]
>2) ATAPI CD-ROM [LITE-ON LTR-52246S]
>3) Other Boot Device [Onboard ATA Boot]
>4) IDE Hard Drive [ST3120026A]
>
>
>Another question I have is ...
>can the Win98SE boot partition be greater than 8 GB?
>Is there a workaround?
>


If you got a 250gb drive I sure hope they can be bigger than 8gb.
Just curious. Why does anyone need a 250gb drive? For that matter,
why anything larger than 100gb? I only have 40gb (two 20's combined).
I have about 65% free space and I store lots of photos, music,
downloads, and other junk, which could be put onto a cd or other
storage media. If I dumped all of that off, I'd only be using about
25% of my drive space. Is this just "bigger is better" thinking, or
what? Granted, if you are into games you'll use much more than I do,
but 250 is just really excessive.
 
A

Adam

<alvinamorey@notmail.com> wrote in message
news:7r3fj3dpf3f1jn7964rtbpg9p2hqdom4do@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 16:07:53 -0800, "Adam" <adam@no_thanks.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"98 Guy" <98@Guy.com> wrote in message news:47363BF6.67EC8BA3@Guy.com...
> >> Rod Speed wrote:
> >>
> >> > > What do I need to do to get my system to
> >> > > recognize and boot from a 250 GB drive?
> >> >
> >> > Upgrade the OS for starters, 98SE doesnt support drives over
> >> > 128GB properly.
> >>
> >> The problem for win-98 and drives larger than 128 gb is the
> >> protected-mode driver ESDI_506.PDR. There are modified/fixed versions
> >> of it available via the win-98 forum on msfn.org. The Intel
> >> Application Accelerator also supplied a different (replacement) file
> >> that breaks the 128 gb barrier - but only for systems with certain
> >> Intel chipset's.
> >>
> >> However, the problem can be avoided by using a third-party IDE or SATA
> >> adapter card, or if the system has on-board SATA controller. When
> >> installing and running win-98 on a SATA hard drive, the driver
> >> ESDI_506.PDR does not come into play.
> >>
> >> > > Or, is it better to just use the Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI
> >> > > Adapter Card?
> >> >
> >> > That wont fix the OS problem.
> >>
> >> Most likely it will. Third-party PCI controller cards will usually
> >> come with their own equivalent to the original MS driver ESDI_506.PDR.
> >>
> >> Natively, win-98 can handle drives at least as large as 500 gb, and
> >> with at many as 120 million clusters. I've formatted a 500 gb drive
> >> as FAT32 using (forcing) 4kb cluster size and win-98 has no problem
> >> with it (although scandisk and defrag don't exactly like it).
> >>
> >> > > Using the Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card, how
> >> > > do I set the BIOS in order to boot from the 250 GB drive?
> >> >
> >> > You need a biosed card to do that.
> >>
> >> Disable your on-board IDE controllers in the BIOS, or fool around with
> >> the boot order sequence.
> >>
> >> And I suggest you get a PCI *SATA* controller, not IDE (unless you
> >> already have a 250 gb IDE (PATA) drive.

> >
> >
> >Yes, you are quite right. The following URL ...
> >http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/42489/
> >was of particular help. But, in my case,
> >the following BIOS settings did the trick ...
> >
> >Boot Sequence ...
> >
> >1) Removable Device [Legacy Floppy]
> >2) ATAPI CD-ROM [LITE-ON LTR-52246S]
> >3) Other Boot Device [Onboard ATA Boot]
> >4) IDE Hard Drive [ST3120026A]
> >
> >
> >Another question I have is ...
> >can the Win98SE boot partition be greater than 8 GB?
> >Is there a workaround?
> >

>
> If you got a 250gb drive I sure hope they can be bigger than 8gb.
> Just curious. Why does anyone need a 250gb drive? For that matter,
> why anything larger than 100gb? I only have 40gb (two 20's combined).
> I have about 65% free space and I store lots of photos, music,
> downloads, and other junk, which could be put onto a cd or other
> storage media. If I dumped all of that off, I'd only be using about
> 25% of my drive space. Is this just "bigger is better" thinking, or
> what? Granted, if you are into games you'll use much more than I do,
> but 250 is just really excessive.



Agreed, 250 GB does seem excessive. But,
it was time to replace a 3 year old HDD and ~$60 (on sale) for
a 250 GB Ultra ATA/100 7200 RPM 16 MB HDD was
a deal too good to pass up. I use it for
backing up all the various data partitions and
OSes that I have to work with.
 
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