This turned out to be unstable. It worked for a while, but had bsods occasionally. I think it might have to do with the protected mode IDE driver that Windows 2000 has. I have a suspicion that Windows 98 will work because I think the IDE driver is the real-mode DOS one (not really sure on that though). I plan on giving 98 a try in a few days.

I know about the XT-IDE driver, but I have no free ports right now and 8GB should be enough for me as long as it's stable.

Does anyone know if using an SD card that's bigger than the BIOS will address will result in problems? I should get no more than 8GB, but I won't have problems, right? It just won't see the rest of the drive.

Hm, As fars as I recall, you could try some dynamic drive overly software (DDO) for Windows 9x.
This could work around the BIOS limitations. However, care has to be taken here.
It could be the case that Win9x uses a different drive geometry than Windows 2000 then.

By the way, that also caused some LBA issues in the past (different translation methods in a dual-boot scenario).
If a system was running on, say, DOS 6.x/Windows 3.11 and got later on upgraded to Win95,
the protected mode driver saw the whole HDD in its full glory, thus causing data corrution if the
user switched to DOS again later on and tried to create/move files (DOS used BIOS; Win95 used direct access via driver) .
Or even worse, damaged partitions.

If you can, try to patch the BIOS for best overall compatibility. 😀
Or try to use one of the most recent DDOs, they should be compatible with how Win9x Protected-Mode drivers
handle the fixed disk drives (some even come with a DDL/VXD for Win9x, to be in sync with the DOS counterpart).

If memory serves, Phil from Phil's Computerlab has some tutorials/videos.
On his web page, you also find some of the DDOs.

Anyway, these are just ideas. I have rarely used DDOs before.
If you have a spare ISA slot, try XTIDE BIOS on an ethernet card or try another IDE Enhancer card.

Edit: Small edit, typos fixed.
Edit: Also interesting (source for patched BIOSes) : Re: IDE to Compact Flash as MS-DOS boot drive.

Jo22 wrote:

Hm, As fars as I recall, you could try some dynamic drive overly software (DDO) for Windows 9x. This could work around the BIOS […]
Show full quote

Hm, As fars as I recall, you could try some dynamic drive overly software (DDO) for Windows 9x.
This could work around the BIOS limitations. However, care has to be taken here.
It could be the case that Win9x uses a different drive geometry than Windows 2000 then.

By the way, that also caused some LBA issues in the past (different translation methods in a dual-boot scenario).
If a system was running on, say, DOS 6.x/Windows 3.11 and got later on upgraded to Win95,
the protected mode driver saw the whole HDD in its full glory, thus causing data corrution if the
user switched to DOS again later on and tried to create/move files (DOS used BIOS; Win95 used direct access via driver) .
Or even worse, damaged partitions.

If you can, try to patch the BIOS for best overall compatibility. 😀
Or try to use one of the most recent DDOs, they should be compatible with how Win9x Protected-Mode drivers
handle the fixed disk drives (some even come with a DDL/VXD for Win9x, to be in sync with the DOS counterpart).

If memory serves, Phil from Phil's Computerlab has some tutorials/videos.
On his web page, you also find some of the DDOs.

Anyway, these are just ideas. I have rarely used DDOs before.
If you have a spare ISA slot, try XTIDE BIOS on an ethernet card or try another IDE Enhancer card.

Edit: Small edit, typos fixed.
Edit: Also interesting (source for patched BIOSes) : Re: IDE to Compact Flash as MS-DOS boot drive.

Thanks for the reply. I finally found the 128GB BIOS patch after searching "microstar", not MSI. Unfortunately, it still doesn't work.
I started a new thread with the whole details: Socket 7 SiS 5571 IDE controller problems