Are you using FDISK in DOS 7.1 (from the Windows 98 CD) or the FDISK included with DOS 6.22?

What exact message are you getting when you choose option 1 to create a primary partition?

Socket 370 or Slot 1 board?

Are you enabling large disk support when you first run fdisk and it asks you?

Dan386DX wrote on Yesterday, 06:31:

Are you using FDISK in DOS 7.1 (from the Windows 98 CD) or the FDISK included with DOS 6.22?

What exact message are you getting when you choose option 1 to create a primary partition?

It doesn't really give an exact error or warning, it acts like the partition was created, says verifying the partitions, and tells me restart after applying the changes. Naturally I do, and I go back into DOS from Win98 SE cd, try to format C:, invalid drive specification. Go back into Fdisk (not applying any changes, just to verify things) and back to square one, no partitions shown on the disk.

I don't have access to MS-DOS 6.22 just MS-DOS 7.1 from the Win98 SE cd.

RetroLizard wrote on Yesterday, 06:33:

Socket 370 or Slot 1 board?

Are you enabling large disk support when you first run fdisk and it asks you?

Socket 370 board, not Slot 1, and yes enabling large disk support

Hm. What does the bios setup utility say about the hard drive? I'd suspect either an incorrectly configured hard drive in the bios, a bad IDE cable, or a faulty cf-ide adapter.

Well, like I said, I'm using custom sizes in the bios to try and get it to work. And also I have both CF-IDE as well as some physical IDE drives.

I actually made a bit of a breakthrough, kind of. I have two 30-year-old drives which still work. One (640mb) had Win 3.1 and that booted up fine, trying to install 98 on it, but I think the drive has some bad sectors, as it's locking up at around 30% for file copying.

And another 1gb drive, which has Windows 98 installed on it, but can't get it to boot. So at least that tells me it's a drive configuration issue in the BIOS. If I can get into Win98 at all, I can hopefully do a bios update. Tried in DOS, and no dice.

I'd hazard that this is a 'bios int13 limitation' related problem, and that either ezdrive (0$, but eats a few kb low memory), or XTIDE XUB (needs suitable controller, nic, or bios card, which costs money) will fix it.

Wonder if it doesn't like the drive geometry.

Also, try fdisk /mbr

ETA: Also, instead of setting custom sizes in the BIOS, consider connecting the drive to a modern PC and running Victoria for Windows to shrink it to desired size. I find it much more compatible.

It's a Socket 370 board. How large are the drives in question that you're trying to use?

RetroLizard wrote on Yesterday, 22:21:

It's a Socket 370 board. How large are the drives in question that you're trying to use?

Nothing crazy really, I've tried with an 8GB CF card, 512MB CF Card, and and a 32GB one too.
Also have an 18.6GB IDE hard drive, no luck with either.

As I've said several times, basically just trying to get into Windows to:
A) Update BIOS - as no progress with DOS.
B) To see how the performance is.

I only just got this board in the last week, and long story short, I was supposed to have a different board (and different cpu socket), but the seller on ebay screwed up royally.

Your board should be able to easily handle 32GB hard drives no problem.

Do you have any other ide cables you can try?

What adapter are you using for your CF cards?

I'd try to let auto detect configure the hard drive(s) in the bios settings and see if fdisk is happier with that.

RetroLizard wrote on Yesterday, 23:13:

Your board should be able to easily handle 32GB hard drives no problem. […]
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Your board should be able to easily handle 32GB hard drives no problem.

Do you have any other ide cables you can try?

What adapter are you using for your CF cards?

I'd try to let auto detect configure the hard drive(s) in the bios settings and see if fdisk is happier with that.

Yeah I do have other cables, have tried pretty much all of them, same results. I have tried the auto-detect option too, it ends up detecting the 32gb as 8gb or so.

Okay. I think I see what you're trying to do.

Do you have a burnable disc you can put the bios update file on, or something?

RetroLizard wrote on Yesterday, 23:13:

Your board should be able to easily handle 32GB hard drives no problem. […]
Show full quote

Your board should be able to easily handle 32GB hard drives no problem.

Do you have any other ide cables you can try?

What adapter are you using for your CF cards?

I'd try to let auto detect configure the hard drive(s) in the bios settings and see if fdisk is happier with that.

For the CF to IDE cards, I have both of these:
https://amazon.com/dp/B000T9QQP0
https://amazon.com/dp/B097XS4SXP

One other thing I will say, the CF card I'm using isn't "true" 32gb. It's actually a microsd to compactflash, since CF cards can be pretty pricey.

palyon1981 wrote on Today, 04:18:

One other thing I will say, the CF card I'm using isn't "true" 32gb. It's actually a microsd to compactflash, since CF cards can be pretty pricey.

That's probably your problem.
Compactflash cards work in native IDE mode. They can essentially function exactly the same as an IDE HDD.
SD cards are completely different and the adapters to make them appear as compactflash cards are garbage.

Dan386DX wrote on Yesterday, 21:59:

Wonder if it doesn't like the drive geometry.

Also, try fdisk /mbr

ETA: Also, instead of setting custom sizes in the BIOS, consider connecting the drive to a modern PC and running Victoria for Windows to shrink it to desired size. I find it much more compatible.

How do I resize the disk/partitions? I can't find it anywhere in the program.

You specify the partition size when you first make it in fdisk.

Also I agree with the sd card adapter thing. It's not worth the hassle if you can't get it to work easily, and older tech is already finicky enough.

Edit: nevermind. I have no knowledge on Victoria for Windows. Realistically, though, any formatting tool will work as long as it lets you format the drive with FAT32.