huguia27 wrote:

Hey, I'm currently building a Pentium 3 retro rig. […]
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Hey, I'm currently building a Pentium 3 retro rig.

The system specs are:
Pentium 3, 800Mhz
The MoBo is a Matsonic, I don't remember the exact model, but it's a pretty stable motherboard.
768mb of RAM (PC133)
Riva TNT2 or a Radeon 9600 (the Radeon may be too new for this build, but at least it wil perform well)
TPLink Lan Card
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy LS
USB 2.0 pci card (can you guys help me here? The chipset is the same, VIA, but I don't know which one looks better built http://www.ebay.com/itm/480-Mbps-5-Ports-USB- … UUAAOSwc0FUq83H or this one? http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-2-0-4-1-5-Port-48 … vsAAOSwMpZUm3Rl)

About the storage: this is where my main problem start. I have two Seagate HDD's: one SATA 160gb and one 40gb IDE. I intend in installing Windows 98SE on the IDE Drive and Windows 2000 on the SATA Drive.

Should I get a PCI SATA controller in order to use the drive or should I use a SATA-IDE adapter?
In any case, would Windows 98SE recognize the SATA drive since it is 160gb? Isn't Win98 limit 137GB?
The PCI SATA controller in question is this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/VIA-3-SATA-Serial-ATA … 6cAAOxy3NBSczae

Greetings retro people!

Okay, here's the thing. These VIA VT6421 cards do work, and you won't have to worry about the 137GB limit either, that's only an FDISK and Scandisk problem. As long as you're not using these cards for booting, you should be okay.

However... You need to find a driver version that your machine is okay with. I've had a lot of issues where the PC would just lock up during a data transfer, it was frustrating as hell.

I actually recommend considering an alternative card like a Silicon Image SIL3112 or SIL3114. They are a bit more expensive, but I think you'll have better luck with them. I tried to order a pair, but sadly they got lost in the mail, so I can't vouch for them.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-SATA-Hard-Disk-Driv … zQAAOSwd0BVwtFm

Otherwise, these work great for drives up to 250GB, not sure how well they'll work for bigger drives. Just note that you need to manually enable DMA for the drive after Windows 98SE is installed on it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SATA-7-15-TO-PATA-IDE … qUAAOSwv-NWXovY

As for your other questions. Definitely use the Radeon 9600, the TNT2 is a little slow for that system. Also, you can use a full 160GB drive in Windows 98SE, just disable Scandisk.