I was hoping to get W98 installed and then get some partitioning software to avoid the problem.

Still wont matter, the hardware (motherboard) still cant address the drive so wont matter which OS you use
BUT all is not lost!
You can use drive overlay software as a work around. Phil's even got a video on it
https://youtu.be/8LzCB6kDVC8

I think I'm just going to have to halt this until I find a stable sub-128GB drive.

Would this be a good devise for connecting an SSD to my computer? https://www.amazon.co.uk/PATA-SATA-Card-Adapt … CMSMX7TJ6WV84Z2

My suggestion would be a brand new sub 120gb HDD ide drive from ebay or the like. I know you can get them for dirt cheap, like $8 or so. They may be random models and makes, but you know for sure you have a brand new drive. If it doesnt work or is dead for any reason you are only out $8 and or can get a refund no problem. Unless you are like alot of us and have access to a bunch of old IDE drives to mess around with. If you have issues with new drives/and or a bunch of known working good old drives under 128gb id recommend a recap.

Still here, tearing my hair out.

Got refurbished 80GB HDD this morning. Plugged in, switched on, detected. Goes to format, gets to 9% then says error detected.

But now it also loses the CD drives at the same time!

It also now has the HDD make an intermittent whining sound. Another one I tried did the same thing. Does this motherboard eat hard drives???

Scandisk: encountered a data terror while reading the FAT entry for cluster 540672.

Do you have another power supply at hand to test with? How do the caps on the board look?

ATX power supply? No. And to my untrained eye the caps look fine.

I think it's time to replace those capacitors. They don't have to be visibly leaking to be on their way out.

Aw really? I've tried soldering before and I suck at it, I tend to kill stuff 🙁

gladders wrote:

Scandisk: encountered a data terror while reading the FAT entry for cluster 540672.

Over the weekend I decided to knock together a system with an NF7S2, XP3200+, and a couple of gigs of DDR to test my 6800GT AGP card. All was going fine (I was actually at the desktop in Windows XP) when it got weird. I ended up swapping the power supply, the video card, the hard drive, and the memory, and it still wouldn't finish installing Windows XP. This board worked fine last time I tried it, and has been stored in an anti static bag since last use (probably four or five years ago). None of the capacitors are jiffy popped, but they are still the most likely culprit.

Would anyone be willing to do it for me? I'm certain to destroy this board if I try to do it.

Repo Man11 wrote:

gladders wrote:

Scandisk: encountered a data terror while reading the FAT entry for cluster 540672.

Over the weekend I decided to knock together a system with an NF7S2, XP3200+, and a couple of gigs of DDR to test my 6800GT AGP card. All was going fine (I was actually at the desktop in Windows XP) when it got weird. I ended up swapping the power supply, the video card, the hard drive, and the memory, and it still wouldn't finish installing Windows XP. This board worked fine last time I tried it, and has been stored in an anti static bag since last use (probably four or five years ago). None of the capacitors are jiffy popped, but they are still the most likely culprit.

Does this account for the popping sound my hard drive made partway through formatting though?