Hard disk for win98 and win2k pro?

I have an old Dell optiplex gx110, P3 733mhz and 512mb of RAM with 2 hard disks ( 10 and 20 gig respectively ). I dual boot win98 and win2k pro.

I know that currently, people talk about hard disks with 300 to 750 gigs. My question is How large can I get a new hard disk for my computer without compromising the performance?

 

Hi Greeneye, I can not speak for Win98, but for W2K I know you can use a 250 GIG HD (most likely bigger as well) but really you need to have SP4 installed for larger hard drives, I know you can use the manufacturers utility to fix it as well, but I think you will end up with a drive overlay and I personally would not recommend drive overlay.
Performance wise I think you would see an improvement.

 

For Windows 98, it struggles with 137 GB hard drives, though I expect that you can sort this via partitions?

EDIT: There are third-party tools that can apparently fix this.

 

Another point (hinted by hawk) is BIOS limitations, it's maybe not an issue but you may find any HD you use has to be capped at 32Gb without Drive Overlay software or a PCI IDE controller.

 

Only with certain BIOS settings And that has been fixed by the company anyway

 

Which BIOS settings would they be?

And of course Greeneye has implemented these fixes?

 

Depends if it's a Phoenix BIOS

Quote (admittedly, it's the Wikipedia): "This issue only occurs with certain Phoenix BIOS settings. A software update has been made available to fix this shortcoming. "

 

Hi Luke,

I've a feeling we are discussing two separate issues but a link to the wikipedia page would help.

 

It was just on the Windows 98 page, so I'm sure you can find that yourself

 

Others read the forum Luke, assisting them with a link would've been helpful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98

It doesn't say much in that article but I can say it wasn't just Pheonix BIOS's that had this issue.

A moot point anyway, Greeneye's system is a little later and probably doesn't suffer from the 32Gb limit.

Google Results

 

Thanks. So I will get a 250 gig HD.

And the Bios is a phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS version 1.10 AO2.

 

Some good reading here:

The Windows 95 and the 29.8 GiB / 32.0 GB Barrier

If you have done any research at all regarding this alleged barrier, you probably took note of the fact that there has been quite a bit of discussion about this barrier by a large number of reasonably savvy tech oriented web sites. Many of these tech sites espouse that in 1999 Microsoft announced that Windows® 95 would not be supporting hard disks beyond 32 GB in size as one of the reason for the barrier, some going as far as to blame Microsoft directly. Their statements, and their assumptions, are very broad and very inaccurate.

While it is true that Microsoft announced that they had no plans to support FAT 32 in the first version of Windows®, version 95A, there is support in last Windows® 95 OSR2 version, as well as Windows® 98 and Windows® ME. It is because of this erroneous information that we have decided to include this perceived barrier (for lack of a better description) in our Drive Size Barrier segment.

In order for Microsoft to provide support for FAT 32 in Windows® 95A, the kernel would have to be rewritten, among other things. In addition, Windows® 95A is still entirely reliant on MS-DOS® version 6.22, which does not support FAT 32, and like Windows® NT, it cannot see FAT 32 volumes. Beyond this, and except for test computers, most personal computers that have Windows® 95A installed have other limitations, such as standard Int13h disk access instead of support for Int13h Extensions. No doubt there would be a multitude of other BIOS related restrictions as well. Follow this link to review Microsoft's Knowledge Base Article on the subject: Q246818 Windows 95 Does Not Support Hard Disks Larger Than 32 GB.

First and foremost, this is not a 32GB issue, but rather a FAT 32 issue, and even saying that is a stretch. Here's some information that may assist you with this issue. This limitation involves the operating system itself, old MS-DOS® issues, BIOS limitations, drive geometry as well as other factors. As you read through the following, you will better understand some of the problems.

The following limitations exist using the FAT32 file system with Windows operating systems:

* Clusters cannot be 64 kilobytes (KB) or larger. If clusters were 64 KB or larger, some programs (such as Setup programs) might calculate disk space incorrectly.

* A volume must contain at least 65,527 clusters to use the FAT32 file system. You cannot increase the cluster size on a volume using the FAT32 file system so that it ends up with less than 65,527 clusters.

* The maximum possible number of clusters on a volume using the FAT32 file system is 268,435,445. With a maximum of 32 KB per cluster with space for the file allocation table (FAT), this equates to a maximum disk size of approximately 8 terabytes (TB).

* The ScanDisk tool included with Microsoft Windows 95 and Microsoft Windows 98 is a 16-bit program. Such programs have a single memory block maximum allocation size of 16 MB less 64 KB. Therefore, The Windows 95 or Windows 98 ScanDisk tool cannot process volumes using the FAT32 file system that have a FAT larger than 16 MB less 64 KB in size. A FAT entry on a volume using the FAT32 file system uses 4 bytes, so ScanDisk cannot process the FAT on a volume using the FAT32 file system that defines more than 4,177,920 clusters (including the two reserved clusters). Including the FATs themselves, this works out, at the maximum of 32 KB per cluster, to a volume size of 127.53 gigabytes (GB).

* You cannot decrease the cluster size on a volume using the FAT32 file system so that the FAT ends up larger than 16 MB less 64 KB in size.

* When attempting to format a FAT32 partition larger than 32 GB, the format fails near the end of the process with the following error: "Logical Disk Manager: Volume size too big. "

Courtesy Microsoft Knowledge Base Article Q184006.

Windows 2000 Specific Issues:

* Setup Does Not Check for INT-13 Extensions

Courtesy Microsoft Knowledge Base Article Q240672

* You cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in size using the FAT32 file system in Windows 2000. The Windows 2000 FastFAT driver can mount and support volumes larger than 32 GB that use the FAT32 file system (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create one using the Format tool. This behavior is by design. If you need to create a volume larger than 32 GB, use the NTFS file system instead.

NOTE: When attempting to format a FAT32 partition larger than 32 GB, the format fails near the end of the process with the following error: "Logical Disk Manager: Volume size too big. "

Courtesy Microsoft Knowledge Base Article Q184006.

Windows XP Specific Issues:

* You cannot format a volume larger than 32 gigabytes (GB) in size using the FAT32 file system during the Windows XP installation process. Windows XP can mount and support FAT32 volumes larger than 32 GB (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB by using the Format tool during Setup. If you need to format a volume that is larger than 32 GB, use the NTFS file system to format it. Another option is to start from a Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) Startup disk and use the Format tool included on the disk.

Courtesy Microsoft Knowledge Base Article Q314463.

The 65,536 Cylinder (31.5 GiB / 33.8 GB) Barrier

This barrier is relatively recent, and along with a couple of others began showing up during the spring and summer of 1999. Although this barrier is often referred to as the 32 GB barrier similar to the one immediately above, that description is a bit of a misnomer.

This particular barrier is caused by some versions of the Award BIOS not being able to handle drives having more than 65,535 cylinders. Most hard disk parameters use 16 heads and 63 sectors, which works out to a capacity of approximately 33.8 GB or 31.5 GiB. It is our understanding that on or about June of 1999, this problem had been corrected by Award. This is somewhat of an unusual barrier given that most, if not all, hard disks above 8 GB no longer use discrete geometry for access, instead Logical Block Addressing is used along with a flat sector number from 0 to one less than the number of sectors on the drive. No doubt this 65,536 cylinder problem must somehow be related to some older code that was being used, or a compatibility issue with older hard drives (or both). From everything we have been able to examine, this issue was limited to a few machines that relied upon old Award BIOS code that was subsequently corrected with an update.

The Windows 98/98SE 64GB Barrier

This barrier is often mischaracterized as a Windows® 95/98/SE barrier, when in fact it is not a limitation of the operating system at all. Rather, the barrier (a limitation actually) is caused by the use of an old version of Microsoft's disk setup tools, Fdisk.exe and Format.com.

When you use Fdisk.exe to partition a hard disk that is larger than 64 GB (64 gigabytes, or 68,719,476,736 bytes) in size, Fdisk does not report the correct size of the hard disk. The size that Fdisk reports is the full size of the hard disk minus 64 GB. For example, if the physical drive is 70.3 GB (75,484,122,112 bytes) in size, Fdisk reports the drive as being 6.3 GB (6,764,579,840 bytes) in size.

The reason for this is that Fdisk uses some 16-bit values internally to calculate the size of the drive. Some of these variables overflow when the drive size is equal to or larger than 64 GB. Microsoft has made a fix available for this problem, which is an updated version of Fdisk.exe.

The new file information is as follows:
File Date Time Stamp File Size File Name Windows Version
05/19/00 10:30AM 64,428 Fdisk.exe Windows 98
05/18/00 08:35AM 64,460 Fdisk.exe Windows 98 SE

You can read more about this issue in the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article titled: Q263044 - Fdisk Does Not Recognize Full Size of Hard Disks Larger than 64 GB.

You can download the new Fdisk.exe from either of these links:

Download Fdisk.exe directly from Microsoft (English)

You can download Fdisk.exe from our servers (English)

The FAT 32 Limitation (124.55 GiB / 127.53)

Although many of the limitations imposed by the FAT 32 file system are outlined above, this particular limitation is actually imposed by one of the disk tools included with Microsoft Windows® 95, 98 and Windows® Millennium Edition.

* The ScanDisk tool included with Microsoft Windows 95 and Microsoft Windows 98 is a 16-bit program. Such programs have a single memory block maximum allocation size of 16 MB less 64 KB. Therefore, The Windows 95 or Windows 98 ScanDisk tool cannot process volumes using the FAT32 file system that have a FAT larger than 16 MB less 64 KB in size. A FAT entry on a volume using the FAT32 file system uses 4 bytes, so ScanDisk cannot process the FAT on a volume using the FAT32 file system that defines more than 4,177,920 clusters (including the two reserved clusters). Including the FATs themselves, this works out, at the maximum of 32 KB per cluster, to a volume size of 127.53 gigabytes (GB).

There are no fixes or work-arounds for this issue!

For further information, see: Microsoft Knowledge Base Article Q184006.

The ATA Interface Limit (128 GiB / 137 GB) Barrier

In order to avoid previous disk barriers and limitations, other than those imposed by the operating systems themselves, today's hard drives no longer rely upon discrete geometry (specific cylinder, head and sector numbers) and instead use logical block addressing and a sector number. Unfortunately, even when we move away from bit addressing in favor of head and sector numbers, we still reach the limit of our ability to address all of the bits when taken together. Let's take a look at the ATA interface. There are 28 bits used for the sector number interface with the operating system, BIOS and the hard disk. This means a hard disk can have a maximum of 2^28 or 268,435,456 sectors of 512 bytes, placing the ATA interface maximum at 128 GiB or approximately 137.4 GB.

As little as one or two years ago, no one thought there would be hard drives exceeding 137.4 GB. However, as many of you have seen, hard drive capacity surpassed this mark when Maxtor released their DiamondMax Plus 540X at 160 GB on October 29, 2001. Of course, Maxtor's release of a drive at 160 GB caught many techno-geeks off guard. How could they possibly make these huge drives work? Maxtor considered the 137 GB barrier well before releasing the drive as part of an entirely new initiative to take storage capacities into the petabyte region. To conquer the 137GB barrier, when Maxtor released their new drive, they made a new Ultra ATA/133 PCI adapter card available as part of the package. Believe it or not, for a limited period, the add-in card was "free ". The adapter itself, however, was Maxtor's method of bringing these new drives to market and in the process temporarily solving the barrier problem without requiring users to purchase new computers to handle the new technology.

Significant changes have occurred to the ATA interface between the hard disk and the rest of the computer system in less than a year, and more are in the making. One entity charged with the responsibility of developing the new standards for this interface (and its changes) is Technical Committee T13. It is responsible for the coordination and development of all interface standards relating to the popular AT Attachment (ATA) storage interface utilized on most personal and mobile computers today. A few years ago a number of different proposals to expand ATA addressing from 28 bits to either 48 or 64 bits were made, and over those few years the committee examined each very closely. Either of these technology changes would permit huge drive sizes. The first to surface, however, was 48 bit addressing and delivered in the form of a hard drive at 160 GB by Maxtor. Using 48-bits like Maxtor takes drive sizes 100,000 times higher than current limits. This is most definitely a signal of what lies ahead!

Solution:

Due to BIOS limitations as well as those unique to Windows®, partitioning and formatting drives larger than 137 Gigabytes without proper driver or controller support will result in data loss when storing data to the drive beyond the 137 GB Barrier.

In order for you system to recognize more than 137 GB you will need to utilize one of the following recommended solutions:

1. If you have a motherboard that has a Intel chipset (810, 810E, 810E2, 815, 815, 815E, 815EP, 815P, 820, 820E, 830M, 830MP, 830MG, 840, 845, 850, or 860) please visit Intel's web site and download the Intel Application Accelerator. Intel's Application Accelerator supports the full capacity of drives larger than 137 GB.
2. If you do not have a motherboard that has a Intel chipset then it is recommended that you purchase an Ultra ATA 133 PCI card that supports 48 bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA). You can purchase the Maxtor Ultra ATA 133 PCI Card, which supports drives that are larger than 137 GB, directly from us or your local distributor.

If you do not follow either of the above steps, and you attempt to use a drive that exceeds 137 GB and/or that relies on 48-bit Logical Block Addressing by attempting to "tweak" the system even though your ATA controller, chipset drivers and/or system BIOS do not properly support 48-bit Logical Block Addressing, data loss will occur when storing data to the drive beyond the barrier.

What the future holds!

Although in development for quite some time, you might want to take a look at Serial ATA as the next major development in hard drive technology.

How a BIOS handles Oversized Hard Disks

When you install a hard disk into a computer system that is larger than that which the BIOS is capable of handling, the system may react in a number of different ways, most of which are predictable. How a particular system responds though, will depend largely on the system, the BIOS date, and the overall quality of the BIOS routines. Most, if not all, issues noted below occur as the result of the hard disk having a total cylinder count larger than the maximum supported by the BIOS.

These are the four most common reactions you may expect with a machine having an older BIOS and a hard disk larger than it is capable of supporting, listed in the order of probability.

Truncation:
A BIOS, when presented with a logical geometry containing more cylinders than it can handle, will simply truncate the total number of cylinders to the maximum it can support. You will usually experience this in an older BIOS that doesn't support more than 1,024 cylinders, or in some cases in a BIOS with a set maximum of 4,096 cylinders. This is commonly found in systems that do not support Int13h extensions, as these systems typically see drives larger than 8.4 GB as being just 8.4 GB in size. Although truncation defeats the purpose behind adding a larger hard disk, the risk of losing data is minimal to nonexistent, and preferable to the other possibilities outlined below.

Wrap-Around:
Many an old BIOS will presume that the number of cylinders in a drive will always be 1,024 or below, and therefore will only look to the bottom 10 bits of the cylinder number reported by the hard disk (2^10 = 1,024). As a result, when drives report cylinders over 1,023, the BIOS counts up to 1,024 and then wraps around to zero and starts over. As an example, let's presume for the moment that you have purchased a brand new 60 GB hard drive for your computer. For the purposes of this example, we'll presume this new drive was manufactured by Maxtor and it has 119,150 actual cylinders. Even in a recent manufactured computer you could only manually enter a maximum of 16,383 with current ATA specifications. In this scenario, the BIOS would only see 366 cylinders. This is because the BIOS would count up to 1,024 one hundred and sixteen (116) times to yield 118,784, or wrap around 116 times, ending with a net 366 cylinders (119,150 minus 118,784 = 366).

A nearly identical scenario can occur with a BIOS that supports only 4,096 cylinders, as it will only look at the bottom 12 bits. A troubling problem surfaced only a few years ago when computers began upgrading storage in older systems with small (by today's standards) 2.5 GB hard disks only to learn that they had only about 400 MB of usable space showing up. Unfortunately, this was a common failure in systems that had a BIOS that didn't support more than 4,096 cylinders.

Even some BIOS's that support translation may wrap the cylinders if you disable translation. When you re-enable translation the problem may go away.

BIOS Ignorance: This is truly an ugly issue. Some systems with an older BIOS correctly reports the true number of logical cylinders of the drive, making you think the motherboard and BIOS (your system) supports the full size of the hard disk. In reality, the BIOS doesn't have a clue as to the number of cylinders or what to do with them. It's actually just reporting what the drive reports. When you attempt to partition and format the hard disk, you're faced with the stark reality of a 1.024 cylinder limitation, but this is not readily evident. It can have you chasing your tail for hours trying to determine what is wrong. Fortunately though, this is only seen in systems with an older BIOS and the 1,024 cylinder limitation.

BIOS Failure: While you may not view it this way, a BIOS failure when attempting to install a large hard disk in a system with a BIOS that doesn't support is probably a very fortunate situation. Obviously no one wants to deal with a barrier when upgrading their computer, but this particular failure might save you hours of searching for the reason for the failure. Many times and older BIOS will cause the system to completely lock up if you try installing a hard disk larger than can be supported. While fairly uncommon, it does occur with the more proprietary computer systems where the manufacturer withholds accurate BIOS and disk support information. Often you will experience this with some of the larger hard disk barriers and also with some of the more obscure ones.

 

the above copied from post by hawk22

98 will try to read/write sectors above 137g but instead it will in fact be using sectors some where at lower part of disk. In my system all partitions above 137 are NTFS or linux so I can not make the mistake again. As hawk22 posted if you have certain Intel chipset they have a patch or read:www.msfn.org and download there patch for 48BITLBA.EXE . The above is for 98se OS only, not if problem is with the bios.

 

Thanks hawk, some good research there