smeezekitty wrote:

Windows 98 should work fine with disks up to 64GB (wihtout mods). No need to jumper a 40GB drive down to 32

Hmmm.... I thought that Fat32 had a limit of 32 gigabyte for each partition.

98 has problems with many onboard IDE controllers when fat32 partitions are above a certain size.
If you use a PCI sata controller or an IDE controller that appears to 9x as SCSI, it usually won't matter, and you will be able to access large fat32 partitions in 9x.
An example is the P-Pro I just finished with, its using 2 1-TB Sata III drives, and has no problem with them under 9x. With the PCI sil3512 controller I'm using for it. Which was a drag as I was originally going to put 4x-1TB Single platter drives in it on a promise controller, but ran into a problem with the new sata III drives being unable to negotiate down to sata I speeds with it. So I had to settle for 2 with a controller that has a much newer bios, but still supports 9x.

Fat32 is 2TB per partition limit.
You can't have files larger then 4gb under fat32 tho.

Lets say If your using the onboard controller, and stick in a 120gb drive and it recognizes it fully without an overlay.
Its best to partition it into 3 or 4 fat32 parts under 9x.

I "promoted" or frequently mentioned using SeaTools to limit the drive to 32 GB. It's just what I do.

You can limit it to any size by specifying the number of sectors with each sector having 512 bytes. But there is a dedicated option for 32 GB and that's what I use most of the time. Mother board documentation is often vague about capacity limits but I found that 32 GB works with most motherboards, even Socket 7 hardware.

There are two main limits with Windows 98 that I found.

With drivers over 64 GB some command line tools such as FDISK will display incorrect capacities. However this is purely cosmetic and won't affect the operation. 128 GB is the real Windows 98 limit without any modifications. Beyond that... Well I have no interest in exploring this as I've been going very well with my modern drives set to 32 GB and SATA to IDE adapter and don't want to leave a winning team so to speak.

I made a little video about this:

Windows 98 Hard Drive Limit 127 GB 128 GB 137 GB

I did promote / use PCI SATA controllers for a while but ran into issues in combination with Roland MPU401 games and the use of interrupts. I also struggled finding the right driver and enabling DMA mode.

AlphaWing do you mind uploading the driver you use in your setup to this thread? And maybe a brief sequence of steps.

For promise controllers I use the ones still available on their website.
http://www.promise.com/single_page_session/pa … S&m=722&rsn=144
All their Sata I Controllers with the exception of the SX series have 9x drivers, but they will not work with SATA III drives, they will not negotiate speed down to I levels and simply lockup. All their ATA100\133 IDE controllers appear as SCSI controllers too, and work fine with large drives. Maxtor used these for their ATA 133 controllers, just re-branded, so you can flash them to these and use the promise drivers.

That's the latest problem I ran into, and it wasn't just with the promise controllers, all my via ones had the same problem.
You can get the 9x drivers for sata I Via controllers here.
http://download.viatech.com/en/support/driversSelect.jsp

I did some research and found that the SIL3512 is one of the only Sata I controllers that will get along with Sata III drives, it has a bios as late as 2008, and still supports 9x just not with its latest drivers. Just scroll down the list till 2007 for the 9x\NT4 drivers.
You can get all its drivers and bios here.
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/
The Sil3112\3114 might support sata III drives but I'd need one to test it 🤣 but it also has a much latter bios with a date of 2008 and 9x support.

Why not use a Sata II controller you ask... Try finding one with 9x support, I don't know of one that does, and sata III drives won't let you set a jumper to slow them down to I speeds, just II.

Theres no steps you just install the driver for the contoller after loading 9x, its not like NT.
The drives will function in MS-DOS mode till the driver is installed.
You partition all the drives with G-Parted Or Freedos's FDISK, first tho.
Then format them with 9x's Format, which will display the incorrect size, but still proceed. It will be the correct size of the partition when its done, despite what it says.
If you don't use 9x's format.exe you will need to disable scandisk on boot, as it will give false errors constantly, and take an ridiculous amount of time to scan the drive.
As for enabling DMA mode with an external controller, you don't have to, the controller does it, there's actually no option for you to do it yourself.
Because to 9x they are appearing as a SCSI device once the driver for the controller is loaded.

Thanks for the pointers, very useful!

No problem, I've had long experience with the promise controllers, so I tend to favor them, but now with SATA III drives not working with them it looks like I'll be ditching them slowly for the Silicon Image based ones.

For a '99 build, you can't be period correct with SATA since it wasn't created until 2003 (after XP!)

Ahhh... I see. Well. Starting to wonder if I have to "play" a bit more.
I had this idea, that the 32gb was the limit. Hmmmm.... Have to play 😁

Thanks for the advice, I am just not more enlightened, than 32gb max 😁
Feeling like a caveman now. 🤣.

smeezekitty wrote:

For a '99 build, you can't be period correct with SATA since it wasn't created until 2003 (after XP!)

For drives and PSU's, I'll make an exception. It is like people installing flash cards in 286 to 486's.
Eventually drives die, and they have to be replaced at some point.
PSU's are the same thing. They die. And this is especially true for AT psu's. Hence the birth of ATX to AT converters.
It is the same as with capazitors. Wich are really hard to find, if they have to be produced before 00.

Can't have a true 99 build. As why I started my post by writing "as-close-to-a-99-correct-build". (or something).
Yes... I could have used my old 8gb drive from 97/98, just that it is inside my P-133 at the moment.
And it is only being fired up a couple of times each year, just to keep it from setting.

brostenen wrote:

Other choices for correct GFX cards, would be Voodoo3 or geForce-256. Even geForce-2 is incorrect, as it was launced in the firs […]
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Billyray520 wrote:

meljor wrote:

Leadtek A250 is a geforce 4 ti4600 right? That's a 2002 card (and awesome) but not exactly a 1999 correct card....

The op's system has the correct 1999 card.

OMG I forgot that! 😊

Other choices for correct GFX cards, would be Voodoo3 or geForce-256.
Even geForce-2 is incorrect, as it was launced in the first half of 2000.
Though it would be nice if it was a 99-card.

I know, it's been in there for so long I forgot that it was an old upgrade. 😊 But I have a lot of games on that pc that just wouldn't be the same without it! 😎

I guess it depends on how much of a purist you want to be. For example converting a classic car to disk brakes or electronic ignition.

About the disc brakes and such....
The same way as I see old vs new PSU's and drives in old computers.

I had to set a Samsung SATA II drive to SATA I through a software that changed the HDDs firmware configuration, as apparently the jumper had no effect. Perhaps SATAIII drives can still be configured with such an utility to be limited to SATA I speeds?

Its Possible , Would have to use another machine to do it with a sata II\III controller or the Sil that doesn't lockup. Since it locks the entire machine up at the point of negotiating speed with the other controlers.
Neither of the drives I purchased came with any config disk despite being in retail boxes 🤣 .
Instead they provided download links to their new utility's, that I never bothered with guess, I should check them out later.

AlphaWing wrote:

How stable is it in 9x with that Rdram based chipset?
I have 1 socket 478 P4 that uses RDRAM and its, not a pleasant board to use.
So much so I haven't tried to reassemble it in many years.

Tested it out, running UT99 and NFS Porche Unleashed.
Must say that I am really impressed by this machine, as it runs rock stable and fast in Win98SE.
NFS-PU runs at 1024x768 all other settings maxed out, and the image quality.... Oh my!!!
A really nice machine, and the only noise I can hear, is from the PSU and the CPU cooler.
As all other components are passive cooled. Even the HDD is allmost silent.

This machine feels like the old K6-2 500 on Gigabyte GA-5AX board, that I had in 97 to 04.
Only faster... Really faster. The same feel that I had back then.
All software and drivers plus Windows are installing and running without any issues at all.

You should be able to stick a 1ghz or 1.13 133mhz PIII coppermine into an i820 with a slocket adapter.
If you wanted to max it, and eliminate the cooler noise with a low profile socket 370\A cooler.

AlphaWing wrote:

You should be able to stick a 1ghz or 1.13 133mhz PIII coppermine into an i820 with a slocket adapter.
If you wanted to max it, and eliminate the cooler noise with a low profile socket 370\A cooler.

Going for 800mhz Slot-1 and possibly a Voodoo3, if it need's to get upgraded.
It's a 99 build (or as pure/close as I can get it), and 800 was the fastest in 99.
The only problem was, that there was a lack of them, so 600 mhz would be a bit more "correct".

EDIT:
Just checked ebay for vc820 boards. They are pretty cheap if you wanted to try one such board.

Sorry for starting this up again. Some might not like it. Anyway... My machine. 🤣

Did a rearrange of my 1999 build.
It was sitting in the closet, as I have used some of the parts for other builds.
And I wanted to use it for testing the SB-Link and a YMF724.
Which again let me to build a 1999 machine with some other parts. Not all parts are 99-only.

The CPU is still the same as well as the mobo and mem.

The machine is now sporting G400, Powercolor V2,
and a SB-Live. I removed the network card.
I never use network on my retro rigs anyway.
The HDD, optical drive and the PSU is the only things newer than 1999.

Just for fun. I tried the "Fastvoodoo2 4.6" drivers. And hurray.
NO MORE SCAN LINE INTERFERENCE....
Never knew that and never heard anyone talk about this.

This build are now named: Green machine.
Because of nearly all PCBS being green.
(should have been "Green goblin" I just really like Kyuss)
The SB-Live is brown as the only one.

Forgot to poste a picture yesterday, of the final build. Was too dark to take a good shot.

Looks very neat and clean!

I absolutely love that case. No PC case is a true PC case if it doesn't support a true PC speaker xD