Define "DOS" in this situation. Do you just mean Win98 booting to MSDOS instead of the GUI?

Dos FAT16 does not see anything that is beyond 8GB, if there are several smaller than 2GB logical partitions inside the 8GB limit and one partition is over the 8GB limit, only one logical partiion is visible for dos anymore.

There is a separate partition that boots into pure DOS without Windows. I'm using MS-DOS 7.1, which includes support for FAT32 partitions.

my advice for you: xfdisk incl. Bootmanager with option /autohide in the INI

No data-sharing over dos-partitions, use Lan/CD-ROM/ZIPDRIVE
BOOTMANAGER (X)
2GB P NTFS WARP3/4
2GB P FAT16 DOS/WIN3X
2GB P FAT32 WIN9X
XGB L FAT32 DATA
xMB L LINUX SWAPP
xGB L LINUX NATIVE (LILO at the beginning)
xGB L TYP76 AMITHLON (use Floppy with freedos and autoexec Amithlon Kernel from the DATA FAT32 Partition)

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-11-18, 10:59:

There is a separate partition that boots into pure DOS without Windows. I'm using MS-DOS 7.1, which includes support for FAT32 partitions.

What exactly do you want to do?

I keep DOS on its own, to handle the event that an application misbehaves and blows away the partition. I had this happen a few times before I ended up with this particular layout.

Now I only have to rebuild the small 500MB DOS partition, which I can easily backup in a zip file and restore from Windows.

The system normally boots to the Windows 98 partition, and the boot manager files exist there. So even if the DOS partition is destroyed, it won't affect the ability to boot.

My layout is somewhat similar, although I never dual boot dos and Win9x I do have a few with NT which causes similar limitations.

c:\ 2GB Primary FAT16 (2GB is plenty of space for Dos or Win9x, and keeping it FAT16 allows NT's bootloder to work)
d:\ 2GB Logical FAT16"dump" as a common drive between OS's, typically has at least the Win9x install files and basic drivers to get network going
e:\ xxGB Logical FAT32 "Games" wont show up in the other OS but also not required.
f:\ 2-4GB Logical NTFS, "Windows NT" chucked t the back so it doesn't mess around with the drive letters, even if it's Windows 2000 which can access Fat32

but to answer your other question, no I've never run into problems with Win9x and FAT32 partitions upto 120GB

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-11-18, 10:59:

There is a separate partition that boots into pure DOS without Windows. I'm using MS-DOS 7.1, which includes support for FAT32 partitions.

In that case it should be fine assuming the BIOS supports INT13 extensions.

Forget about DOS7x if you want a real Dos-Machine. Use XFDISK seperate nearly everything and use it's bootmanager that does not require a partition. I also recommend beginning with all primary partitions!

>Has anyone experienced any issues with software misbehaving with partitions larger than 8GB?
Just referring to the topic title.
DOS 7.1 seems to run OK since it works with the start of the disk. But Windows 95 setup ScanDisk will try to access the last cylinder of the partition, and will show an error when unable.

chinny22 wrote on 2022-11-18, 12:57:

My layout is somewhat similar, although I never dual boot dos and Win9x I do have a few with NT which causes similar limitations.

I will sometimes want to drop down into real DOS for games that only have Adlib sound, which may not be available in Windows (such as when using WDM drivers). One game in particular is Dungeon Master, which cannot run from within Windows at all with sound, even if Adlib is available.

I used to prefer to use a boot menu to choose between DOS and Windows. This would allow me to use only one partition instead of three; DOS and Windows would live on the same partition, and then I wouldn't need another logical partition to share between the two. The problem with this is that any kind of file system corruption blows away both operating systems and all of my games and configurations. If I separate DOS out, I can at least limit the extent of the damage.

gerwin wrote on 2022-11-18, 14:31:

DOS 7.1 seems to run OK since it works with the start of the disk. But Windows 95 setup ScanDisk will try to access the last cylinder of the partition, and will show an error when unable.

I always choose 98se over 95, so I hadn't ever encountered this. Thanks for the tip.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-11-18, 15:08:

gerwin wrote on 2022-11-18, 14:31:

DOS 7.1 seems to run OK since it works with the start of the disk. But Windows 95 setup ScanDisk will try to access the last cylinder of the partition, and will show an error when unable.

I always choose 98se over 95, so I hadn't ever encountered this. Thanks for the tip.

It should not matter Windows 95 or 98. (Windows 95 OSR 2 was what I used). It is a BIOS limitation of certain systems. The thing is; DOS 7.1 does not trip over the limitation while still in the range that the BIOS can handle, but is expected to trip over it once the size of this limit is filled up (in my case that would be 8GB of the 16GB total). ScanDisk at least warns you properly, that this is not gonna work in the long run.

I overcame corruption issues with large disks in Windows 98 with RLoe's 48-bit LBA patch. This is due to Windows specifically, and not the BIOS.

I talked about this problem here:

Trying to figure out the cause of data corruption in Windows 9x

This thread is specifically regarding software that behaves incorrectly due to a programming error when examining the disks in a system, and not a fault of the BIOS or a bug in the operating system.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-11-18, 15:08:

chinny22 wrote on 2022-11-18, 12:57:

My layout is somewhat similar, although I never dual boot dos and Win9x I do have a few with NT which causes similar limitations.

I will sometimes want to drop down into real DOS for games that only have Adlib sound, which may not be available in Windows (such as when using WDM drivers). One game in particular is Dungeon Master, which cannot run from within Windows at all with sound, even if Adlib is available.

I used to prefer to use a boot menu to choose between DOS and Windows. This would allow me to use only one partition instead of three; DOS and Windows would live on the same partition, and then I wouldn't need another logical partition to share between the two. The problem with this is that any kind of file system corruption blows away both operating systems and all of my games and configurations. If I separate DOS out, I can at least limit the extent of the damage.

I guess I should have said I never dual boot a previous version of dos on Win9x PC's
All my Win9x PC's are configured to boot into pure dos but I just use the Dos 7 that's a part of the windows install. (I have a shortcut on my desktop but boot menu is another way)
Many reasons you may want to do this. As you said compatibility is on reason (in my case dos networking for LAN games mostly) nostalgia (dos is dos) is another.

Your right if Windows needs installing then that's both OS's gone but you can limit it. All my pure dos drivers live in c:\dos as well as a copy of my dos shortcut. so restoring dos is as simple as copying that folder and shortcut back.
Dos games on a separate partition wont get touched, many windows games also don't need a full reinstall , simply run the exe. Some are even better off as you miss out on the bloat like long dead internet clients eg westwood chat.