maw wrote:I just want to use a 120GB SSD but is there generally a way to test it just out of curiosity. Like a program to write the drive full?
120GB is fine, that will not run into LBA 48 issues. HOWEVER, fdisk and format that come standard with win 98 are bugged and have problems above 64GB. Fdisk is the more critical one as it has problems creating partitions on drives above 64GB, either find a patched fdisk, or partition it with another OS. Format only has a display bug and shows a capacity of at max 64GB regardless, but works fine.
FFXIhealer wrote:
Hmmm. This sounds like an issue I was having with my Dell laptop running Windows XP SP3. The BIOS only reports the hard drive size of 137GB (BIOS limitation) after I swapped out a 80GB HDD for a 240GB one. A 320GB HDD at the time simply wouldn't be seen (BIOS reported NO HDD installed for that one).
Your Bios does not support 48bit LBA, this behavior is typical for that. However, as long as the drive is recognized at all it is not an issue unless it tries to access areas above the reported size during the boot process.
Windows XP should be a non issue in this case as it supports 48bit LBA since service pack one.
FFXIhealer wrote:
Windows XP would work for a couple of months, but invariably, I'd download and install some kind of patch or update and then XP would just refuse to boot at all, giving me nothing but a blinking cursor. "Repairing" XP wouldn't fix it at all. Same cursor. No boot.
I suppose updates might move file necessary to boot to areas not accessible by the bios but I can't say I have ever seen that happen myself. the files would be anything that windows loads before and up to the driver for the controller, as once the driver for the controller is loaded the bios has no relevance to operating anymore.
FFXIhealer wrote:
The permanent fix was to divide the hard drive into TWO partitions, one 40GB one at the front for Windows XP to live inside and be locked into and then a second 200GB partition for games and the like. Windows XP has never had an issue since, though you make me wonder if the underlying issue is still there and XP is hiding it now because it boots fine.
The underlying issue would still be there, but since the OS drive is wholly within the 137GB boundary the bios will have no reason to access any space above it during boot and during operation, the windows drivers will bypass the bios anyway.