Windows 98 doesn't have an IDE driver that will handle disks more than 128 binary gigabytes.

Keep your partition smaller than that, within the boundary of the first 128 binary gigabytes, as that may be the source of your corruption.

canthearu wrote on 2020-01-22, 21:49:

Windows 98 doesn't have an IDE driver that will handle disks more than 128 binary gigabytes.

Keep your partition smaller than that, within the boundary of the first 128 binary gigabytes, as that may be the source of your corruption.

They're two partitions of 125GB so I took that into account - I forgot to mention that. Both C & D are the same size.

Also: my P233MMX has a 128GB SSD formatted with a 30GB partition (the BIOS won't see any drive bigger than that) so I can conclude that Windows 98 itself is unlikely to be blamed. I have the exact same software on there except for VLC and WinAMP (except for the drivers of course).

red_avatar wrote on 2020-01-22, 21:50:

canthearu wrote on 2020-01-22, 21:49:

Windows 98 doesn't have an IDE driver that will handle disks more than 128 binary gigabytes.

Keep your partition smaller than that, within the boundary of the first 128 binary gigabytes, as that may be the source of your corruption.

They're two partitions of 125GB so I took that into account - I forgot to mention that. Both C & D are the same size.

Also: my P233MMX has a 128GB SSD formatted with a 30GB partition (the BIOS won't see any drive bigger than that) so I can conclude that Windows 98 itself is unlikely to be blamed. I have the exact same software on there except for VLC and WinAMP (except for the drivers of course).

Using the second partition will probably cause corrupt the first partition then in WIndows 98, since windows 98 can only safely access the first 128gb of your drive, placing any data beyond the first 128gb of your SSD will cause the writes to wrap around and hit the wrong parts of the disk.

Try with a single 120gb partition, leave the rest un-partitioned.

Have you tried using something like Puran File Recovery to recover the files? It doesn't solve the problem of the files getting deleted, but might be useful. I've never used it to recover system files though, so can't guarantee it will help.

canthearu wrote on 2020-01-22, 21:49:

Windows 98 doesn't have an IDE driver that will handle disks more than 128 binary gigabytes.

Keep your partition smaller than that, within the boundary of the first 128 binary gigabytes, as that may be the source of your corruption.

The limit has nothing to do with partition size. If the drive is larger than 128 GB, Windows will write to wrong LBAs, even if you install it onto a 1 GB partition. You simply can't use a drive that large. This also applies to external media like USB sticks.

Apparently there were third-party drivers that could get around this, but I've never seen or tested them, nor would I trust them to always work correctly (if at all). Like the >512 MB RAM issue, this is a fundamental design flaw in 9x and is best avoided by using period-correct hardware.

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-23, 06:48:

canthearu wrote on 2020-01-22, 21:49:

Windows 98 doesn't have an IDE driver that will handle disks more than 128 binary gigabytes.

Keep your partition smaller than that, within the boundary of the first 128 binary gigabytes, as that may be the source of your corruption.

The limit has nothing to do with partition size. If the drive is larger than 128 GB, Windows will write to wrong LBAs, even if you install it onto a 1 GB partition. You simply can't use a drive that large. This also applies to external media like USB sticks.

Apparently there were third-party drivers that could get around this, but I've never seen or tested them, nor would I trust them to always work correctly (if at all). Like the >512 MB RAM issue, this is a fundamental design flaw in 9x and is best avoided by using period-correct hardware.

So I should get a 64GB or 120GB SSD then to play safe? I figured it was something related to how Windows reads/writes to the drive but didn't know if it was a BIOS problem or a Windows problem.

Getting a SSD smaller than 128 GB will work, yes.

you can patch the OS so there is not a limitation.
https://archive.org/details/hcdp_20191002
Also suggest the sata patch if you use sata ssd
https://archive.org/details/PTCHSATA

There's another thing that comes to mind.. alignment. I know, this matter is getting annoying..
Anyway.. Unlike CF/SD cards, true SSD likely aren't made with FAT32 in mind, but rather NTFS or EXTx.
With a wrong alignment, a flash drive's performance and life time *may* drop noticeable.
And problem is, aligning FAT32 is difficult to impossible. 🙁
I'm no expert here, so please have a lookt at one of my earlier posts, which has a lot of links added to it.
Re: SSD in a Vintage Computer

Edit: More precisely, aligning FAT32 clusters is the problem.
FAT32 itself can be aligned using GParted quite easily, of course, but this doesn't solve the issue.

Edit: Another thing that I forgot to mention. The CacheMap mechanism.
Win98 can run executables that are aligned to 4K boundaries straight from the cache.
Anyway, this isn't related to the SSD/alingnment matter really. Just mention it since it's special to Win98/Me.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/speed-up … -with-winalign/
https://msfn.org/board/topic/151798-does-fat3 … age/2/#comments

You don't need a smaller drive!!!

You simply need to make sure that you don't use any part of the disk after the first 128 binary gigabytes. If you don't have any partitions after the first 128 binary gb on the drive, the operating system won't try to access anything further than that and you won't get corruption.

If you have a 500gb drive, and you only allocate the first 100gb on it to partitions, you are fine, no corruption.
If you have a 500gb drive, and you try to allocate 200gb of partitions on it, you will get corruption.

A guy called Lowe did make an IDE driver that fixed this issue, but I do not know if it works properly, and I do not know if it works in Pure DOS mode (DOS 7.0)

Now, knowing this limitation, you may switch to a smaller drive so you are not wasting space on the bigger drive, but it isn't a requirement to get things working.

Edit: You can use a low level disk tool to adjust the Host Protected Area on your drive, make it appear to be a smaller drive than it was originally, however, some BIOSes stupidly use this themselves to do BIOS backups and will overwrite your HPA setting.

Warlord wrote on 2020-01-23, 08:01:

you can patch the OS so there is not a limitation. https://archive.org/details/hcdp_20191002 Also suggest the sata patch if you […]
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you can patch the OS so there is not a limitation.
https://archive.org/details/hcdp_20191002
Also suggest the sata patch if you use sata ssd
https://archive.org/details/PTCHSATA

Thanks for the info. The motherboard doesn't have SATA - I just used a small device to convert PATA to SATA. Would it still need the SATA patch then?

The first link is interesting. As someone else already mentioned, it may still be better to just limit myself to 120GB to avoid running into problems under DOS. 120GB should be plenty for Windows 98.

It's simpler to use a smaller partition but here is the rlowe patch from the main website if you want to use it
https://rloewelectronics.com/distribute/PATCH137/

Quick update: sticking to one partition of 128GB fixed it indeed. Everything works great now - having a PC that age that is extremely quiet (CPU has a modern ultra quiet Arctic fan that I can't even hear when it's spinning) is really sweet. The "real" hardware back then was noisy as hell with rattling cases, CD/DVD drives that sound like a jet engine (I use Daemon Tools for everything and store all images on the hard drive).

One question though: if I were to add a second 128GB SSD drive, I assume it would work fine then?

Yes, you can add a second drive and it will work fine (within the first 128 binary gigabytes)