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Reply 60 of 91, by khyypio

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bloodem wrote on 2020-10-23, 10:43:
TL;dr... […]
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TL;dr...

So far I have six retro PCs (Tualatin, Athlon XP, Athlon 64 and three Core 2 DUOs) with SSDs (all of them Kingston A400 120 GB) running Windows 98.

For the Core 2 Duo systems I'm using the onboard SATA controller in compatible mode.
For the other three I'm using these SATA to PATA adapters without any issues.

I didn't do anything special, simply ran fdisk (the one found on the Windows 98 startup disk), I partitioned the SSDs, set the active partition, formatted the partitions with the standard format command, removed the SSD, copied everything I need on it from my main work rig (including the Windows 98 install folder, driver collection, utils, etc), reinserted the disk and installed Windows. Never had any issues.

I´m starting to think that SSD doesn´t go well with my desired partitions, no matter how I align and format it. I have a similar Kingston A400, maybe I test that one.

You happen to have any benchmarks of your SSDs?

Reply 61 of 91, by darry

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khyypio wrote on 2020-10-23, 09:42:
So I did what you said, it didn´t pan out :( Then I just simply did the partitioning and formatting with Super FDisk 1.0 and eve […]
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darry wrote on 2020-10-22, 18:00:
Having thought about it, if on a modern system, you formatted a filesystem bigger than 32GB with a forced cluster size of 4K rat […]
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khyypio wrote on 2020-10-22, 16:29:

I suppose that´s one possiblity. You have a very similar system as I do, right? How did you get it up an running?

Having thought about it, if on a modern system, you formatted a filesystem bigger than 32GB with a forced cluster size of 4K rather than the 32K that it should default to, that is likely the reason Windows 98 SE and its DOS are choking on it as using a cluster size too small on a big file FAT32 filesystem will result in too many cluster for Windows 98 SE (and its DOS) to handle .

EDIT : See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previo ... dfrom=MSDN
With a 4K cluster size and a maximum of 4,177,918 of cluster , you can create a FAT32 filesystem about 16GB (a bit less actually) in size . Creating anything bigger with 4K clusters will be out of spec and Windows 98 SE (and its DOS) will not like it . If you want to create a bigger FAT32 filesystem, you must use a cluster size bigger than 4K . The biggest that Windows 98 Se will allow is 127GB with a 32K cluster size .

It has been a while (I last installed something like 4-5 years ago), but I think I was using a SIL3114 (or possibly a SIL3512) SATA controller at the time and I created my partitions in Linux (or maybe Freedos FDISK, which I do not recommend), formatted them in Windows 98SE's DOS and installed Windows . Even though it was not absolutely necessary at the time (SIL3114/SIL3512 do not use ESDI_506.PDR, so Windows was using BIOS compatibility mode until I install the SIL drivers), I still installed BHDD31.ZIP for the included utilities. I eventually switched to the onboard ICH2 controller and since BHDD31 was already installed, I did not need to do anything special .

My recommendation is to

a) partition with whatever modern alignment aware tool you like on a modern PC .
b) format as FAT32 on the destination retro PC (or on a modern PC with a 32K cluster size) and make sure everything is readable and writable .
c) Optionally, confirm on the modern PC that alignment is still OK (it should be)
d) Install Windows 98SE following the instructions provided with BHDD31.ZIP

If step b) fails, something is wrong either on you retro setup or the partition tools you used to create your partitions .

So I did what you said, it didn´t pan out 🙁 Then I just simply did the partitioning and formatting with Super FDisk 1.0 and everything is running smoothly (and yes, I replaced ESDI_506.PDR as instructed). All the drivers are installed, no games though. Snappy boot-up and everything seems to work smoothly. BUT then I ran HDD benchmarks and take a look:
Attocomp.jpg
SSD on the left, SD on right. SSDs rates are terrible compared to SD! If this is the best I can get, then it´s better just to get 120 Gb SD card.

Another weird thing: swithing DMA mode on from Device Manager turns performance to shit so boot-ups takes like 2 minutes and desktop use is horrbily choppy.

Glad you managed to progress further.
Don't feel like have to, but if you could post, in brief what did not work in my suggestion, it may be helpful to others reading this and to myself .

As for you current issue, if you can't enable DMA using the standard patched ESDI_506.PDR , it seems like there might be a hardware defect or compatibility issue . Even those SD card numbers don't look that great (maybe normal if DMA is off).

Are the benchmarks you posted with DMA off for both SSD and SD ?

Is your SD card adapter also going through the the Startech IDE to SATA ?

Are you using an 80-conductor, 40-pin IDE cable and could you try a different one ?

Are there any IDE DMA related options in BIOS that might need to be enabled ?

Reply 62 of 91, by khyypio

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darry wrote on 2020-10-23, 11:38:

Glad you managed to progress further.
Don't feel like have to, but if you could post, in brief what did not work in my suggestion, it may be helpful to others reading this and to myself .

I followed these steps:
"My recommendation is to

a) partition with whatever modern alignment aware tool you like on a modern PC .
b) format as FAT32 on the destination retro PC (or on a modern PC with a 32K cluster size) and make sure everything is readable and writable .
c) Optionally, confirm on the modern PC that alignment is still OK (it should be)
d) Install Windows 98SE following the instructions provided with BHDD31.ZIP

If step b) fails, something is wrong either on you retro setup or the partition tools you used to create your partitions ."

I got to copy the installation files to C: and start setup, but it says it can´t continue because the hard drive formatted wrongly.

darry wrote on 2020-10-23, 11:38:

As for you current issue, if you can't enable DMA using the standard patched ESDI_506.PDR , it seems like there might be a hardware defect or compatibility issue . Even those SD card numbers don't look that great (maybe normal if DMA is off).

DMA was disabled for SSD, and for SD I think it was enabled? The SD benchmark I took a few months ago. The SD card in question is a 64 Gb Lexar and it was almost completely full, think there was 1 or 2 Gb free space back then. Might explain the write speed?

darry wrote on 2020-10-23, 11:38:

Is your SD card adapter also going through the the Startech IDE to SATA ?

My SD2IDE card adapter is a no-name brand from China: https://www.dx.com/p/sd-card-to-ide-hard-driv … al-2005310.html

darry wrote on 2020-10-23, 11:38:

Are you using an 80-conductor, 40-pin IDE cable and could you try a different one ?

I´m using 40-pin IDE cable

darry wrote on 2020-10-23, 11:38:

Are there any IDE DMA related options in BIOS that might need to be enabled ?

I couldn´t find.

Reply 63 of 91, by Doornkaat

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Did you disable write-behind caching on your system?
To me it looks more like some compatibility issue between IDE controller, SATA-PATA converter and SSD though.
Edit: Or a limitation of the converter chip.

Reply 64 of 91, by khyypio

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Doornkaat wrote on 2020-10-23, 14:08:

Did you disable write-behind caching on your system?
To me it looks more like some compatibility issue between IDE controller, SATA-PATA converter and SSD though.
Edit: Or a limitation of the converter chip.

I don´t know. Should i do that? Where can I find it?

darry wrote on 2020-10-23, 11:38:

Are there any IDE DMA related options in BIOS that might need to be enabled ?

I found the IDE DMA option from BIOS, it´s been on auto mode the whole time. Does this mean that the the DMA box in Device Manager should be left unchecked?

So I tested another another SSD, a 120 Gb Kingston A400. I partitioned a 20 Gb C-drive and a 80 Gb D-drive, same configurations as previously. I ran a HDD benchmark again and... well, see for yourselves:

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I don´t know what to make of that...

Reply 65 of 91, by The Serpent Rider

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Does this mean that the the DMA box in Device Manager should be left unchecked?

Check it. By default, DMA is disabled in Win98, unless you've installed additional ATAPI driver which checked it for you.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 66 of 91, by khyypio

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-10-23, 16:12:

Does this mean that the the DMA box in Device Manager should be left unchecked?

Check it. By default, DMA is disabled in Win98, unless you've installed additional ATAPI driver which checked it for you.

It destroys performance, the computer is barely usable if it´s checked. I tested it with two different SSD.

Reply 67 of 91, by texterted

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I'd grab an add in pci Sata card, something with a SiL 3112 chipset or similar and lose the IDE adapter.

I've had good results with the one I have.

Cheers

Ted

98se/W2K :- Asus A8v Dlx. A-64 3500+, 512 mb ddr, Radeon 9800 Pro, SB Live.
XP Pro:- Asus P5 Q SE Plus, C2D E8400, 4 Gig DDR2, Radeon HD4870, SB Audigy 2ZS.

Reply 68 of 91, by Doornkaat

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khyypio wrote on 2020-10-23, 15:05:
Doornkaat wrote on 2020-10-23, 14:08:

Did you disable write-behind caching on your system?
To me it looks more like some compatibility issue between IDE controller, SATA-PATA converter and SSD though.
Edit: Or a limitation of the converter chip.

I don´t know. Should i do that? Where can I find it?

Where: http://www.jacsoft.co.nz/Omnis/wbc.shtml
It makes a lot of sense on modern SSDs and drives with a large integrated cache to disable write-behind caching in Win9x. They just handle a bunch of small writes very well.
I don't know wether it solves your issue though.

Reply 69 of 91, by khyypio

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texterted wrote on 2020-10-23, 17:00:

I'd grab an add in pci Sata card, something with a SiL 3112 chipset or similar and lose the IDE adapter.

I've had good results with the one I have.

Well probably but I´m starting to get tired of this whole process. I was thinking if I should just save this SSD for something like an ultimate XP build and get SSHD for this one. That at least would work.

Doornkaat wrote on 2020-10-23, 17:00:
Where: http://www.jacsoft.co.nz/Omnis/wbc.shtml It makes a lot of sense on modern SSDs and drives with a large integrated cache […]
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khyypio wrote on 2020-10-23, 15:05:
Doornkaat wrote on 2020-10-23, 14:08:

Did you disable write-behind caching on your system?
To me it looks more like some compatibility issue between IDE controller, SATA-PATA converter and SSD though.
Edit: Or a limitation of the converter chip.

I don´t know. Should i do that? Where can I find it?

Where: http://www.jacsoft.co.nz/Omnis/wbc.shtml
It makes a lot of sense on modern SSDs and drives with a large integrated cache to disable write-behind caching in Win9x. They just handle a bunch of small writes very well.
I don't know wether it solves your issue though.

I tried this, didn´t help... 🙁

Reply 70 of 91, by texterted

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I'd save that one for an xp build. It'd be great. Use that Kingston one you have on your 98 machine but grab a card like I suggested.

I have two SSD's on my 98 machine, using the onboard Promise controller but I've used the pci Sata card that I have with equally good results.
Windows sees it as a SCSI controller, so there's no DMA to worry about. Plus you can disable your primary IDE channel to free up an IRQ.

Cheers

Ted

98se/W2K :- Asus A8v Dlx. A-64 3500+, 512 mb ddr, Radeon 9800 Pro, SB Live.
XP Pro:- Asus P5 Q SE Plus, C2D E8400, 4 Gig DDR2, Radeon HD4870, SB Audigy 2ZS.

Reply 71 of 91, by pentiumspeed

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While on this topic, I know that windows 98se has issues with larger than 127MB capacity. But what about one 127MB FAT32 partition on let say, 256MB SSD?

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 72 of 91, by darry

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pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-10-23, 18:27:

While on this topic, I know that windows 98se has issues with larger than 127MB capacity. But what about one 127MB FAT32 partition on let say, 256MB SSD?

Cheers,

I assume you mean GB, not MB.

Both max disk size and max partition size are separate issues .

See:
Re: SSD Woes On Windows 98 SE

Reply 73 of 91, by texterted

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I downloaded that ATTO benchmark you used (thanks Phil's labs) to let you see how SSD's do on my 98se machine.

This is using the onboard Promise controller on my Asus A8v .

Both disks are actually msata cards in SATA adaptors (so they just look like 2.5" HDD's). My C drive is a 60GB and the D is a 120GB. They are a bit slower than real SSD's.

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Cheers

Ted

98se/W2K :- Asus A8v Dlx. A-64 3500+, 512 mb ddr, Radeon 9800 Pro, SB Live.
XP Pro:- Asus P5 Q SE Plus, C2D E8400, 4 Gig DDR2, Radeon HD4870, SB Audigy 2ZS.

Reply 74 of 91, by darry

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I tested a 16GB Sandisk microSD card with DMA enabled with an IDE to microSD adapter based on the FC1307 . My results are comparable to yours .

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However when using a 250GB Samsung 860 EVO with a Startech IDE to SATA adapter (like yours) on an ICH2 IDE port, with DMA enabled, I get this .

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I am starting to think your IDE to SATA adapter or your Samsung SSD is at issue here (benchmarking the SSD on a modern machine would make sure it has no issues) .

Also, you mentioned using a 40-pin IDE cable . There are 2 types of those 80-conductor ones (required for UDMA66 and higher) and the older 40-conductor ones (UDMA33 max). If I were you, I would definitely try another cable and make sure it's an 80-conductor one .

EDIT: I just realized you tried another SSD with bad results as well.

Last edited by darry on 2020-10-23, 19:35. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 75 of 91, by The Serpent Rider

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Could be mix of motherboard, adapter and SSD hating each other.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 76 of 91, by darry

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-10-23, 19:25:

Could be mix of motherboard, adapter and SSD hating each other.

That or the IDE SATA adapter is defective .

I have tried Samsung 860 EVO SSDs on that model adapter (Startech with Sunplus SPIF223A, unless OP has a different variant) with no significant performance issues, so adapter and SSD are fine together. I also have an ICH2, like OP, so my guess is that it is either the a motherboard compatibilty thing, a bad IDE SATA adapter or a bad IDE cable (or maybe the board is trying to do more than UDMA33 on a 40-conductor cable).

Reply 78 of 91, by khyypio

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So I changed the 40-pin IDE-ribbon to 80-pin cable and that did the trick! Now DMA works and when I ran the benchmark, the results made me so excited I almost started screaming 😁 Here, look at those numbers and that beautiful cohesive curve!

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Now I can finally continue working on my video! You guys have been a tremendous help, without your input this probably would´ve just left undone. So thanks everybody, big thankies all around!!!