If it were me I would use a SATA to IDE converter and a 128 GB SSD.

You can use a SATA drive, but if you are using one >128GB in total size, you'll need to install a patch so it will work properly with Win98. Note that this issue isn't about partition size, but total drive size.

Personally, I just use 128GB SATA drives with Win98. Though 128GB drives are harder to come by these days.

But getting Windows 98 SE installed, will be possible, with a SATA drive? The drive cost all of 16 bucks, hence I bought it, haha. I don't mind if I can't use all the space as long as I can INSTALL the OS.

EDIT: I think I'll just return the drive and get a 128gb SATA SSD, I already have a good adapter I use for my OG Xbox I can take out. And a 40 pin/80 wire cable.

I have a 250Gb SATA disk that has 2 partitions on it, Win98 installed on one and storage on the other.
I dont have any kind of patch installed to make it work.

I considered using a SATA SSD but they get slower over time and there is some extra messing about with it so I decided against it.
If I was to change I think i would get hold of an SSHD instead.

I'd try out the existing IDE drives first, no point having them sit on a shelf and they are more durable then you think!
Run scandisk over the drive a few times is a cheap and easy way to do a burn in test.

Otherwise I'd use a SATA to IDE adapter, SSD or spinning rust is your choice

Phil did a video on how to use seagate tools to limit the hard drive
https://youtu.be/cCulATQ7GlM?si=SJAtJWVXGE-qamR7

With the proper drivers and/or patches ( and XTIDE option ROM,if needed, to support LBA48),Windows 98 SE runs fine on a 500GB or even 1TB drive. Partitioning into 127 GB or smaller partitions avoids the need to install a specific patch for that limitation.

IDE to SATA adapters can work well, but not all combinations of adapter chipsets+ ide controllers + SATA drives will work well.

This has been discussed here multiple times. I might share some links if I have a moment.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-11, 01:58:

I have a 250Gb SATA disk that has 2 partitions on it, Win98 installed on one and storage on the other. I dont have any kind of p […]
Show full quote

I have a 250Gb SATA disk that has 2 partitions on it, Win98 installed on one and storage on the other.
I dont have any kind of patch installed to make it work.

I considered using a SATA SSD but they get slower over time and there is some extra messing about with it so I decided against it.
If I was to change I think i would get hold of an SSHD instead.

That is not surprising if you are using a disk controller whose option ROM (or the integrated motherboard BIIS routines) support LBA48 AND the Windows driver for the controller also supports LBA48.

darry wrote on 2024-09-11, 06:40:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-11, 01:58:

I have a 250Gb SATA disk that has 2 partitions on it, Win98 installed on one and storage on the other. I dont have any kind of p […]
Show full quote

I have a 250Gb SATA disk that has 2 partitions on it, Win98 installed on one and storage on the other.
I dont have any kind of patch installed to make it work.

I considered using a SATA SSD but they get slower over time and there is some extra messing about with it so I decided against it.
If I was to change I think i would get hold of an SSHD instead.

That is not surprising if you are using a disk controller whose option ROM (or the integrated motherboard BIIS routines) support LBA48 AND the Windows driver for the controller also supports LBA48.

I couldnt tell you.
Its a Dell GX270 and the Windows 98SE CD is a bog standard CD from a Select account.

Ide to SD card is a more stable and compatible solution I prefer to use. Get an SD card with decent specs and you can transfer files from modern pc very quickly.
Sata for me always seems to corrupt or cause issues in the long run for the systems I've used for win98 even with promise fasttrack cards

I usually use an old 20, 40 gb IDE hard disk and it is more than enough

when I want to play an ISO image game I just put it on a pen drive and mount it wih deamon tools

For Windows 98 SE I would recommend a fast IDE (called PATA today) HDD with a size of 60 to 120 GB and 7,200 RPM, so you'll definitely have no problems. It should support up to UDMA100 or UDMA133. SATA should also work, but you'll have to fiddle around with IDE/RAID/AHCI modus and/or drivers and it's also not worth it as the SATA HDDs from back then were the same as the IDE ones (just with another interface)...AHCI/NCQ is only available from Serial ATA 3.0 Gbit/s (aka SATA-II) onwards which isn't supported by your motherboard.

kind regards
soggi

chinny22 wrote on 2024-09-11, 05:21:

I'd try out the existing IDE drives first, no point having them sit on a shelf and they are more durable then you think!

+1

There are indeed quite a few IDE drives that have proven themselves to be reliable over the years.
My personal favorite are the old(er?) Seagate Barracuda series, like 7200.7, "ATA IV", and "ATA V". Very few failures from these. Don't fret if you see a couple of bad sectors on a drive. As long as it's under a 50-100 or so bad sectors and not increasing with read/write operations, they should last longer than you care to use these drives. My oldest is an ATA IV from 20 years ago. Still holds all of the data I put on it from then and has incremented only 1 addition bad sector over all of these years.

As for other drives...
Maxtor, despite the name it made for itself as being unreliable, also had a few models that were pretty decent (and also a few that were total flops, like the slim ones they made, along with late Diamondmax series.)
IBM/Hitachi is also hit or miss depending on the series.
75GXP line got a pretty bad rep for failing, but IME they are not that bad at all if you provide them with good cooling / active airflow. The two problems they suffered most often were the magnetic media degrading and literally flaking off the glass platters, destroying more of the platters if this progressed unchecked. This is due to different expansion rates of the glass platters and the magnetic coating on the top... hence the reason to keep these drives cool. The other issue is corrupted buffer (cache) that happens at elevated temperatures (41-42C and onwards from my experience.) Being a cache chip problem, I've also seen this affect a few later Maxtor DiamondMax series too.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-09-11, 05:21:

Run scandisk over the drive a few times is a cheap and easy way to do a burn in test.

No need. Running it once is enough. Running it more than that will just make the drive run hot for no reason. On that note, it's always a good idea to put a fan on an HDD that is being thoroughly scanned or zero-filled. Prolonged heating and cooling cycles can degrade the disk surface over time.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-11, 06:46:

Its a Dell GX270 and the Windows 98SE CD is a bog standard CD from a Select account.

IIRC, the GX270 SATA controller is SATA I mode. Being that these were still compatible machines with Windows 98, perhaps Dell actually did a properly compatible implementation of a SATA IDE emulation in BIOS... hence why everything worked from the get-go. With more modern motherboards with SATA, this isn't usually the case.

Left field option: don't use IDE. Use SCSI. Yes, you'll need a SCSI HBA (host bus adapter card) plus the cables plus drives plus terminators (if the drive doesn't have termination itself, though most do)... but no drive size limits. You can still find/buy all of the above for not too much money. I use SCSI in several retro PCs.
(edit) ah yes you may need adapters too. Like 68-pin to 80-pin SCA adapters, depending on the bus the card and drives use. But you can still find those quite easily too.
The setup I use in several Win98/Win2k machines is: AHA2940UW card - 68pin cable - 68-to-80-pin adapter - 80pin SCA Seagate Barracuda 500GB drive. I have a bunch of those drives I bought at one point. They work great.

I use a 32 GB Transcend PATA SSD in my Win98 system. It's basically transparent to the system and provides the performance benefits of being solid state instead of spinning drive. They come in larger sizes though they get pricey for that. https://us.transcend-info.com/embedded/produc … olutions/psd330

I just spent a few nights on ebay looking for IDE HDD, you can still find new old stock for not that much (30€ with shipping from china). Just ordered me an 80GB 7200rpm IDE from WD that's listed as "new", from a professional seller and ebay warranty.
I don't see much the point of going with an SSD on sistems and softwares that weren't desingned to take advantage of the speed increase, and it's not like I need that speed bost for my use case, so I just need a reliable HDD that could last me a decade at least.

y2k se wrote on 2024-09-18, 02:35:

I use a 32 GB Transcend PATA SSD in my Win98 system. It's basically transparent to the system and provides the performance benefits of being solid state instead of spinning drive. They come in larger sizes though they get pricey for that. https://us.transcend-info.com/embedded/produc … olutions/psd330

Do they "just works" out of the box on vintage MOBOs, or do you need to tinker a bit?

Do SSHDs work as intended through one of the Startech SATA to IDE adapters?

They seem to give accelerated performance over a normal SATA drive and dont have the problems associated with a SSD with regards to slowing down over time.

Could you get a 500Gb SSHD, partition it to say 120Gb, install Windows 98 onto it and have it use all of the solid state memory for Windows?
Is there a way to force it to use all of the solid state memory for Win98 in a case like that?

Mondodimotori wrote on 2024-09-18, 08:20:

Do they "just works" out of the box on vintage MOBOs, or do you need to tinker a bit?

They work just like an older spinning IDE drive, which is to say it just works.

y2k se wrote on 2024-09-18, 11:10:

Mondodimotori wrote on 2024-09-18, 08:20:

Do they "just works" out of the box on vintage MOBOs, or do you need to tinker a bit?

They work just like an older spinning IDE drive, which is to say it just works.

Yup, I'd say this is within the "it just works" scenario. That's actually pretty neat and I'll keep them in mind if I'm ever in dire need of an IDE drive and can't find cheap IDE HDD. May even be an option for OP, at this point.

stamasd wrote on 2024-09-17, 18:19:

Left field option: don't use IDE. Use SCSI.

Ah yes, good old SCSI.
I have had a working system with these too. One thing I don't like about SCSI, though, is that it can get difficult to take one drive and put it onto another system and read the data there, especially if you set up some kind of RAID (and in some cases like mine, even if you didn't.)
Also, 68-pin cables have been getting more expensive and less easy to find in my area. The drives and controllers are not a problem, yet. Still, by the time you get everything to go into a system, you might as well have spent the money on a SSD + SATA-to-PATA adapter or just plain get several IDE HDDs.
The last thing I don't like about SCSI HDDs is that they tend to be very loud. And at least in my area, the choice of drives always seems to be either very old 7200 RPM crap with ball bearings that sounds like a tank running on your driveway, or newer 10k RPM HDDs that sound like a jet engine / airplane at take off. Not that old IDE HDDs are that much more quiet... but overall I find it easier to find models that use FBD and aren't as loud as SCSI.

Mondodimotori wrote on 2024-09-18, 08:20:

I just spent a few nights on ebay looking for IDE HDD, you can still find new old stock for not that much (30€ with shipping from china). Just ordered me an 80GB 7200rpm IDE from WD that's listed as "new", from a professional seller and ebay warranty.

Ouch, that's a bit pricey for my tastes. Bu I get it, at least it's tested and has warranty.

Here, there's a local flea market every weekend and lately I've been getting my IDE drives from there. Untested, of course, and have gotten quite a few non-working ones. But then I often get them at $1-2 per drive, so it's worth the gamble. So far my luck has been around 50-ish %. Alternatively, I can often get a whole old desktop for about $7, and these regularly come with the HDDs inside. Right now, the average one is usually a Core2Duo system with a SATA HDD of some sort... but also not uncommon to see Athlon XP PCs with IDE HDDs (in fact, it's the 2nd most common system type here.)