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Windows 98 C drive

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by Quiz, 2005/09/26.

  1. 2005/09/26
    Quiz

    Quiz Inactive Thread Starter

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    Is there a maximum drive size for the windows partition of my hard drive?
    I have a Gateway performance 450 that came with an 8.4 GB Partitioned to 1.99GB In the primary 'C' drive.
    I have just bought a Maxtor 40GB drive with the Maxblast 4 software.
    Trouble is it will work O.K. as an additional storage drive, but not as a BOOT drive?
    When starting up the computer stops just past the 'setup' page with a blank curser. It is normally at this point that I get the Windows page.
    The new hard drive is an exact copy of my old one but with bigger partitions. The primary being 10.2 GB.
    I have tried reducing this to 3.99GB but get the same problem?
    The reason for changing the Drive was that the 1.99GB was becoming insufficient for the growing Windows folder.
    Is there a patch?
    Any help would be appreciated.
    Quiz.
     
    Quiz,
    #1
  2. 2005/09/26
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    Hi and welcome to the BBS.

    Can you tell us more about how you copied from one HDD to the other? The drive utility/software (Maxblast) has a facility to copy drives, but not to cope with changed partition information.
    Also,
    Gateway may have "hidden" partitions or "recovery partitions" which would make it confusing for the copying program.

    What others drives were on the original HDD?

    Matt
    PS A small C: drive is good for the reason of not cluttering up the OS. On this computer I have a 3.5GB C: drive, 1.3GB used.
    I have set up drive E: for applications with a Program Files folder. When an application asks where to install, I just change the installation location from C:\Program Files\XXXXXX to E:\Program Files\XXXXXX
     

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  4. 2005/09/26
    Welshjim

    Welshjim Inactive

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    Quiz--
    Is this an external USB drive? If so, the chances that you can boot from it are slim. It will happen only with some very new BIOS's.
     
  5. 2005/09/26
    Zander

    Zander Geek Member Alumni

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    Also, are the jumpers on the drive set correctly? If it's set to cable select try setting it as a master.
     
  6. 2005/09/27
    Quiz

    Quiz Inactive Thread Starter

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    JUmpers correct,

    Maxtor 40GB internal drive

    Maxblast software partitions drive first and then copies all info from original hard drive to the new one. This leaves you with exactly the same data but more free space? or at least that is what it is supposed to do

    The original drive had a 'c' 1.99gb and a 'd' 5.85 gb

    Windows is happy to 'see' the new drive, but only 38.2GB of the 40 GB is shown.
    but that is only as 'additional storage'. It will not work as a BOOT drive which is my intention eventually.
    Quiz.
     
    Quiz,
    #5
  7. 2005/09/27
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    That's normal!

    The difference is that manufacturer's refer to decimal GB but Windows sees binary GB. The basis of the manufacturers claim also differ.

    40,000,000,000 bytes may be reported as 40 GB or
    40,000,000,000 / 1,024 = 39,062,500 kB may be reported as 39 GB
    but very rarely;
    40,000,000,000 / 1,024^2 = 38,147 MB may be reported as 38 GB or
    40,000,000,000 / 1,024^3 = 37.3 GB which is the "truth "

    Christer
     
  8. 2005/09/27
    Quiz

    Quiz Inactive Thread Starter

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    NObody has yet answed my question, that probably means that it is a difficult one?
    Does windows 98 have a maximum size allowed for the 'c' boot drive?
    Quiz.
     
    Quiz,
    #7
  9. 2005/09/27
    Welshjim

    Welshjim Inactive

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    Quiz--
    My earlier post was in answer to that question.

    My guess is NO. But from Christer's post you can see you will not have all of the advertised "40GB ". And the maker of your PC may have preloaded some hidden content on separate partitions, which would further reduce the 40GB available to C:. If you had Partition Magic or a similar program, you could see how your Hard Drive is partitioned. WinXP has a tool to show that, but I do not know if anything like that exists in Win98. Or maybe you already have that information?
    And now I am not sure what you mean by "boot drive ".
     
  10. 2005/09/27
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    I was hoping that someone who is more familiar with Win98 than myself would chime in.

    No, it hasn't!

    Win98 is not the limitation, the file system is. On FAT16, maximum partition* size is 2 GB. On FAT32, which was introduced during the early stages of Win95 "development" (Win95b I think) there is no limitation (well, there is but not at these small sizes).

    *) any partition, not only the system partition

    How did You copy the old drive to the new?

    Christer
     
  11. 2005/09/27
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Reread Your posts and found the answer, Maxblast. I have never used that utility and what I'm telling You is pertaining to WinXP.

    If two harddisks, an original and a clone of the same, are present at the same time, the clone will be rendered not bootable. Windows does not accept two volumes with the same identifier and will change the one for the drive from which the operating system is not booting. When the original is removed and the clone is set to primary master, the computer will not boot.

    As I said, this is pertaining to WinXP but it wouldn't be a surprise if Win98 acted the same. Do the "copy job" again but when completed, remove the original and connect the clone as primary master prior to restarting the computer.

    Christer
     
  12. 2005/09/27
    jaylach

    jaylach Inactive

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    First problem is that it is a Gateway... :eek: :D (more on that later)

    Yes Win98 (FAT32) has a size limit on a hard drive but the entire 40gig drive is within the limit by a lot.

    As I prefer Maxtor drives I have used their software a fair amount. Although I have not done a disk copy with it. If not already set this way I would go into bios and set the boot order to boot from CD, then Floppy, Then the hard drive. Put in the Mactor CD and reboot. (have your origional drive set as slave and the new one as master) You SHOULD come up to a Maxtor 'DOS' menu. I can't remember but I'm hopeing there is a copy drive in the menu. This will bypass any windows problems with drive indentification. When doing partitions, considering win 98, I would partition as 5-8gig for OS partition. The rest I would partition as one partition or possibly 2 if you want do save OS drive images to the same drive. If the later, set the second partition to all available minus, say about, 6gig for the image partition.

    After the drive is copied totally unhook the origional drive and see what happens.

    Now back to the first line of this post... :D

    Gateway, Dell, HP, Compaq and some others LOVE to put hidden partitions on their drives. These partitions are usually in FAT12 which is actually a floppy format. They put anything in these partitions from utilities to validations for windows. This is why you can often reinstall win XP on one of these systems without going through activation. The activation info is in the hidden partition. It is possible that you will find yourself stuck with the origional drive for boot with the new one as added storage. If this proves to be the case you will have to remove anything you have on the origional drive and leave it for just OS. Just reinstall everything to the new drive.

    Another possibility, if you have a Gateway recovery CD is to disconnect the origional drive and hook up the new one as master. Run the recovery CD and let it do it's thing. It is possible that you will not suceed with having the new drive as boot unless you have a win98 full install CD. If you DO have a win98 install, not from Gateway, your best bet MAY be to just partition the new drive and install windows from scratch.

    I'm sorry that there are so many 'ifs' but sometimes there just are.
     
  13. 2005/09/27
    JohnB Lifetime Subscription

    JohnB Well-Known Member

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    Hidden partition finder

    Quiz, here's program that will let you see if there are any hidden (or other) partitions on your hard drives.

    Unzip it to it's own directory or a "Temp" directory and run the PTedit32.exe file to see the partitions.

    The file may download as "attachment ", just add .zip to the end and save to disk.
     
    Last edited: 2005/09/27
  14. 2005/09/28
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    As mentioned, there are many factors to consider.

    It has been a while since I used a manufacturers drive copying program, but in those days I was pretty certain that it would not copy partition information, just a straight HDD to HDD with only C: drive to C: drive. Recheck the information about how it copies drives. If I have a partitioned HDD that needs to be cloned, I use Norton Ghost. I have tried Drive Image, but it is not as flexible as Ghost.

    Something else I have tried. Put both drives into another computer and use copy and paste to transfer the files. Worked like a charm (a little confusing on the drive lettering, but just needed some care).

    Run Fdisk (on the Windows Startup Disk). Check that the C: partition you want to run is set to "active ".

    Matt
     
  15. 2005/09/28
    Quiz

    Quiz Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks

    Well thank you all for such a good response!

    I had given up on finding an answer but now I have hope.

    Currently I have wiped the copy from the new Maxtor drive and am using it as storage only. I have been transfering files from my original 'C' drive to make space, but so far I only have 450MB spare. I know this will run out again in time, what with windows growing all the time. Windows is currently at 985MB.

    I now see my 2 choices as copy again drive to drive with Maxblast but start up with a bootable Maxblast disc in the drive. Or just partition the new drive and start up with it empty using Gateways recovery disc and then loading windows from my windows 98 c/d. Followed by every thing else that I have accummulated on the original drive?

    Quiz.
     
  16. 2005/09/28
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    jaylach,

    I don't think so. The volume identifier issue occurs when restarting Windows with two identical drives connected so,

    this is what prevents the clone from being rendered not bootable.

    mattman,

    If it is a file copying utility and not a disk copying utility, then the problem is not the volume identifier. It wouldn't get copied in the first place.

    To be nit-picking ...... :eek: ...... all HDDs are partitioned, even if it is a single partition. I too use Ghost (2003) and have never had a problem doing a Disk-to-Disk. Partitions are resized proportionally by Ghost but the user can intervene and set sizes according to his/her preferences, as long as the actual data fits on the chosen sizes.

    Christer
     
    Last edited: 2005/09/28
  17. 2005/09/28
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    Christer, you are a "nit-picker" :D , but that's what I would hope, someone to find the "extras" from their knowledge :)
    It will be "built-in" or expected that a smaller partition will be cloned to a larger partition. I should have said "multiple partition infomation ". I take it that it might be a rather simple "copy a little C: drive to a larger C: drive" program.
    Thanks for imput. I wish I could find the original info, unfortunately I would need a time-machine.

    Nit-picker2 :) : I set the partition sizes before running Ghost. Ghost can do a HDD to HDD...OR...a drive to drive (partition to partition) both different sizes. I have not found this flexibility elsewhere.

    Matt
     
  18. 2005/09/28
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Matt,

    Do You mean through the use of command line switches? I've never done that, I like to see what Ghost suggests when it resizes the partitions proportionally. If I can accept the sizes, I won't make small changes.

    "Proportionally" means that the different partitions will maintain their percentage of the HDD. A 120GB HDD in three partitions 12GB/90GB/18GB cloned to a 160GB HDD will become 16GB/120GB/24GB and I could accept that. If cloned to a 250GB HDD, 25GB would be too large for the system partition and I would probably resize.

    Christer
     
  19. 2005/09/28
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    No Christer, I make the partitions first, then use "local drive to local drive ", not "local disk to local disk ", so I copy one partition at a time. A little more time consuming, but saves changing the partition sizes afterwards.

    Matt
     
    Last edited: 2005/09/28
  20. 2005/09/28
    oshwyn5

    oshwyn5 Inactive

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    I am guessing that the Setup you are referring to is the one you get when you boot to your gateway recovery cd???
    THis recovery cd may work in one of a number of ways, but the most common is to have an image file (similar to the one made with norton ghost, they may even use ghost) on either the cd or in a hidden partition (invalid non dos) on the hard drive. In the first case, if you try to use it on a different drive, it may not be able to handle the fact that that drive is a different size than the one it was designed for. If the second, well the file is on the other drive, not the one you have installed so it cannot proceed.

    If this is the case, the best bet is to use the recovry cd on the old drive, then use the maxblast software to clone it to the new drive as a replacement boot drive (with old set as master, new as slave) and then shutdown when it finishes. Do not boot until you have opened the case and removed the old drive and changed the new one to master.

    Note that if you copy partition to partition you will not copy the partitioning correctly . You can copy data this way, but not a bootable os.
     
  21. 2005/10/02
    Quiz

    Quiz Inactive Thread Starter

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    I have had to do the latter, start from scratch with an empty 40Gb hard drive.
    It has taken a while, but it is working.
    The Gateway system c/d started it off and then I loaded Windows, followed by everything else that I have that came with a C/D.
    Trouble is some stuff that I still have on the original drive was downloaded or borrowed and I do not know how to swap them over and retain a path that my new 'C' drive will find.
    I would really like to transfer my Outlook files and preferences from Outlook to Outlook. I suppose I will have to try putting the old drive in as a slave and hope that I do not spoil it in some way as I can still use it by swapping the IDE cable over at the moment.
    So if someone knows how to transfer I.E. & OUTLOOK to my new drive could they please let me know?
    I have loaded both programs on my new drive and they do work, but they just need all the files from my old drive (built up over 6 years) to make them mine!
    Quiz.

    P.S.
    I'll stay using this (my old drive) untill some one tells me how to swap the files over, or else I may not be able to find this site again?
     

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