I got my SSD and PATA-SATA converter up. I tried creating a FAT32 through Diskpart on XP but as Swaaye said. won't be seen in windows 98se.

Created a Gpart bood cd. I'm no linux user so is there a step by step guide to create the aligned partition :embarrased:

Why oh why can't you use the Gparted GUI?!?!? I created a fat32 under gparted gui but haven't tried it out yet and know its probably not aligned when selecting ms-dos.

You should try using linux fdisk instead, as described at this link. This utility is included with most distros including Parted Magic and GParted Live (I think).
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_St … _is_Recommended

Getting an aligned partition to be DOS compatible is tricky but this method worked for me.

I'm currently using the Gparted Live cd iso that you provided.

at the terminal screen I will type
fdisk /dev/sda

Return is:
fdisk: unable to open /dev/sda: Permission Denied

I get that with unallocated space or with a sudo gdisk fdisk using fat32. Do I have to unmount or something?

Ok, realized I need sudo for super user, didn't know that.

So following the archlinux.org there are still problems.

I do the sudo fdisk -H 32 -S 32 /dev/sda

There is no error about cylinders like the code given.

command o
goes fine

command n
create (primary) p

Partition number (1-4)
used 1

Then It shows first sector (2048-62533295)

no first cylinder like in code, I'm confused!!

Do I have to set cylinders manually. I thought it would work itself base on disk size?!?!?

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showt … nux-using-fdisk

Look at that too. Don't use the -c command though because that disables DOS compatibility. I don't have a SSD to test with DOS right now unfortunately...

Gonna kill myself over here. spent all night trying to get it to run and my previous windows on my mechanical hdd didn't have the drivers installed for the second ide controller !!

it sees it now, gonna try to resize for max instead of just 29gig though.

Thanks! I hate linux 😉

Will try to write my instructions here soon. just really late now

@ Swaaye,

So I can clone to the drive but it won't boot off it (ghost 7.5 IIRC), also using an old version of hdtune (like 2.75?) it says there is no media/ boot area. Is this what you mean about the DOS sys.com? What did you have to do to it?

I marked the drive with boot and lba in gparted so hope thats not it.

Heading home in a bit so haven't had time to mess with it since last night.

Try booting a DOS CD or floppy and run sys c:. That got it booting for me when Win98 setup didn't. I too had the boot flag set but it didn't matter.

Ok, still no difference when cloning the c: drive to it and then doing a sys e: (ssd) even though system transfers.

I also notice when starting up from w98 startup disk and using fdisk it sees the drive but no partitions. I go to create a partition and says there is no space!!

Sounds like I'm back to square one again. Was I not supposed to use a -H 32 -S 32 geometry?

For the SSD I did set the geometry with the cfdisk to make sure its 32/32.
Set start sector 2048
Drive type 'c' Win95 Fat 32 (LBA)
Set bootable
Used max sector size. Maybe that is the problem?

EDIT: If I do a sudo fdisk -H 32 -S 32 -u /dev/sdb
Creating a new partition will ask
First Cylinder (3-61067, default 3):

WTH!! Do I pick 4 or 6? why aren't the first 2 cylinders there?

After writing the partition and going back with the fdisk -l it shows the start position as 2048 sectors.

I really have no idea. I spent hours on this too before I thought the ArchLinux guide + sys.com was the answer.....

You don't HAVE to align the partition. It'll just be a little slower on writes. But still it's not like a SSD is ever going to bottleneck a DOS/9x machine.

Ok, maybe making some headway.

First started messing with the BIOS and setting CHS. Windows still sees the drive but Fdisk still doesn't like it. Then started up Partition Magic 8 and was checking some stuff out.

Looking at the geometry of the drive shows Heads 255 and Sectors 63!! After that I started looking at making a partition under PM8. Using the full drive I get a nice little not that says the cylinder crosses the 1024 boundary and may not be bootable!

Looking up more on that 1024 I see this affects any OS under windows 2000/XP and probably what I'm looking at.

I resized the partiton to around 7.9GB and the message goes away. Right now I'm applying task for PM8 and waiting for it to finish.

Also in the mean time I installed my AMD 960T Zosma in my main machine. Had 4GHz working for a short time @ 1.4v but then locks up. Currently testing 3.8GHz stablity @ 1.4v and so far looking good. Hopefully 4 will work at 1.43~1.45v 😁 My UPS and Prime 95 shows about 198w under load for the system. Oh and my temp sensor must be bad. CoreTemp shows a fluctuation from 24c to 26c, 🤣!

Alrighty.

After messing a bit more I figured trying a few other things to make sure SSD and adapter was working.

Decided to move the SSD to my Pentium 4/HT WinXP setup. The mobo has a built in sata controller. Cloned my OS drive to it. It works just fine as the OS drive now!

On my Win98SE rig using the Pata>Sata adapter and now a Seagate 320GB 7200.11 HDD. Cleaned the NTFS partition and formatted Fat32. Marked bootable. Cloned original OS drive. It is working just fine now as 298GB (formatted size).

The Seagate Sata is even faster than the WD Pata but still no SSD 🙁

Atleast I know both items are capable of working, except that the Pata>Sata adapter does not like to share channel with my Pioneer DVD-Rom no matter how I set up Master/Slave. Just moved the DVD-Rom to 2nd Pata channel. Another thing I'm noticing is that now using the Seagate 320GB with W98SE I cannot use Scandisk without it shows not enough available memory. This maybe an issue as Scandisk is a life saver.

EDIT: Solved the Scandisk issue using 120GB partitions.