Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-09-01, 16:51:

Socket3 wrote on 2023-09-01, 16:32:

P.S. - I've also had problems with network transfer speeds over win9x networking. It seems to be limited to about 1.5-2MB / second (gross estimate), regardless of what LAN card I used. This limitation seems to apply to USB devices as well, as I've never been able to benefit from USB 2.0 speeds, despite installing USB 2.0 drivers.

Is your HDD in PIO mode by any chance, instead of using UDMA?

nope.

I have this issue on all my win98 machines. Form lowly pentium 2's all the way up to my Athlon 64 4000+ single core rig.

Not important but all 32bit OS have a 4GB limit on file size, even XP and Win7 32bit... it is the nature of the beast 😀

Horun wrote on 2023-09-02, 23:37:

Not important but all 32bit OS have a 4GB limit on file size, even XP and Win7 32bit... it is the nature of the beast 😀

I think you're confusing something here.

It's the FAT32 file system which has the 4 GB file size limitation. NTFS does not. This has nothing to do with your OS being 32-bit or 64-bit.

Socket3 wrote on 2023-09-01, 18:43:

nope.

I have this issue on all my win98 machines. Form lowly pentium 2's all the way up to my Athlon 64 4000+ single core rig.

Very odd.

I'm getting around 7-8 MB/s (Megabytes per second) file transfer speeds with a 3Com 3C905B-TX network card on anything equivalent or faster than a P3 CPU. This is when copying a single, large file like an ISO image. Similarly, when I'm using a Transcend JetFlash USB 2.0 flash stick, I get 20 MB/s read speed and 10 MB/s write speed under such conditions. For reference, those are the same speeds that this particular flash stick can achieve on my much newer i5 system.

I have used over 500MB 500GB thanks to XT-IDE
Adding XT-IDE option ROM to Asus P3B-F BIOS [Thanks to DenizOezmen, it actually works!!!]

And I have gotten "decent" throughput over Ethernet under Windows 98 SE . Admittedly, Windows 9x does suck on that front . EDIT: compared to other operating systems on the same hardware
Re: Looking for Windows 95 PCI Gigabit 1000Mbps ethernet card.

darry wrote on 2023-09-03, 05:59:

I have used over 500MB

I'll assume that's a typo, both because you wrote gigabytes in the other thread and because half a gig is a total noissue in any but the oldest machines anyways. Or did you go for such a machine specifically, trying to poke around the 504/528MB BIOS limits?

NJRoadfan wrote on 2023-09-01, 00:59:

Note, since this thread was started the rloew AHCI SATA drivers and his 48bit LBA patch have become freely available. You should be able to use larger drives under Windows 9x now without a problem.

I've found the patched ESDI_506.PDR from the ATADRV98.EXE package (by LittyX/Lixaanli) to be better on larger drives, above 1TB to 2TB.
Faster transfer speeds and much less pausing with file copies. Not sure why but really noticeable.
Another reason is for older Pentium 1 machines that have MW-DMA2 (430fx, hx) you can enable this option in the bios and have IDE DMA transfer speeds in Dos and windows without any DMA driver.
This makes a massive difference with an SSD on an older mahcine. Win98 with a P75 and 48MB is smooth as silk for general usage with this. Nearly every file transfer maxes out at 16MB/S. from 4kb blocks to 8MB blocks in ATTO, with only 2-3% cpu usage.

elszgensa wrote on 2023-09-03, 09:27:

darry wrote on 2023-09-03, 05:59:

I have used over 500MB

I'll assume that's a typo, both because you wrote gigabytes in the other thread and because half a gig is a total noissue in any but the oldest machines anyways. Or did you go for such a machine specifically, trying to poke around the 504/528MB BIOS limits?

Yes, 500GB , not MB. Sorry about that.

rloew's TBPLUS v3.0 is likely the best solution for this sort of thing.

See his Changelog -

Version 3.0

11/02/2015

Copyright (C) 2010-2015
By Rudolph R. Loew

This Package contains the Patched System Files and SATA INF Files to support
the following features.

1. Large Sector Size support up to 32KB per Sector in DOS.
2. Large Sector Size support up to 4KB per Sector in Windows 98SE.
3. 256 Sector (128KB to 1MB/8MB) Cluster Size support for DOS and Windows.
4. Full 48-Bit LBA Addressing Support for Windows 98SE.
5. Support for 40-Bit Partition Addresses (RFDISK ExtMBR Feature).
6. Boot DOS using any or all above Features.
7. Patched Partitioning bug when using Multiple Primary Partitions.
8. Support for Multiple Extended Partitions.
9. Support for Large Sector Floppy Disks.
10. Native Mode support for SATA Controllers for Windows 98SE.
11. Support for 64-Bit Addressing for SCSI and USB.
12. Generic Drivers for RAID and RAID/AHCI SATA/PATA Controllers.
13. Driver for SI 3512 SATA Controller.
14. Windows Only Partitions.

I tried the 2TB one with Loew's master driver, it works fine.

Anyway 32768 TB, but no one could try this yet: -XD
I tried the 4TB SSD, even under OK DOS/WIN98, formatted with modern Loew drivers in FAT32 ... No, no must GPT.

Even back in ye olde times 4TB was the theoretical.

In reality Windows 98se had an fdisk limit of 64gb and ide controller limits of 128gb.

3rd party utilities let you break the barrier, historically I had a 160gb hd under 98

rmay635703 wrote on 2024-06-04, 18:44:

Even back in ye olde times 4TB was the theoretical.

In reality Windows 98se had an fdisk limit of 64gb and ide controller limits of 128gb.

3rd party utilities let you break the barrier, historically I had a 160gb hd under 98

Anno, I was tense to 98 because it was widespread that it was not running with a big clock, I thought it came with folk belief, with modernizing machines+many RAM when it stopped over 512MB. Then it turned out to be a prime in @4650MHz, of course, a lot of RAM needs the Loew MEM-DRIVER.

I apologize for English knowledge for shortcomings....

I think the maximum would be 2TB the MBR partition size limit.

Don't forget to use rloew's TBPLUS to patch in 48bit LBA support so you don't get the 137GB wrap around bug corrupting your drive.