You could use Super Fdisk to put a 75 gigabyte partition on the SSD. Sure, it's a bit of a waste of space, but it would work that way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5ivV5tyfRs

The problem is the SSD/IDE atapter. your drive is likely sata 3. Most sata 3 devices wont talk to sata 1 adapters. (they SHOULD...)

so the solution is to use a better sata adapter. Get a PCI one. I know you said you are out of slots, but you have 5 slots. What are you doing to take 5 slots? video is in the agp (hopefully). even with a pair of voodoo 2's you have 3 slots. sata takes #3, I assume sound in #4 and maybe a NIC in #5?

"Promise SATA 300 TX4" are my go-to card. The cards are cheap, drivers are easy, and it should boot normally. (it does for me) I'd personally add, disable all IDE controllers if possible. This will make life SO much easier for Windows 9x.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-12-13, 23:30:

You could use Super Fdisk to put a 75 gigabyte partition on the SSD. Sure, it's a bit of a waste of space, but it would work that way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5ivV5tyfRs

I actually formatted the drive to be under this limit, although PLOP's installer shows 137GB.

luckybob wrote on 2021-12-13, 23:53:

The problem is the SSD/IDE atapter. your drive is likely sata 3. Most sata 3 devices wont talk to sata 1 adapters. (they SHOULD...)

so the solution is to use a better sata adapter. Get a PCI one. I know you said you are out of slots, but you have 5 slots. What are you doing to take 5 slots? video is in the agp (hopefully). even with a pair of voodoo 2's you have 3 slots. sata takes #3, I assume sound in #4 and maybe a NIC in #5?

"Promise SATA 300 TX4" are my go-to card. The cards are cheap, drivers are easy, and it should boot normally. (it does for me) I'd personally add, disable all IDE controllers if possible. This will make life SO much easier for Windows 9x.

The weird thing is that the drive works perfectly fine when I use something else to chainload, for example, selecting the 'boot from hard disk' option on the W98 Floppy or a copy of PLOP booted from floppy.

It's only the BIOS which has issues booting from the SSD.

The reason I'm trying to avoid using PCI is because the final slot is one I use for various things, for example, I recently put in a SCSI card to dump an old HDD, USB 2.0/Firewire, Diag card, etc. Of course not swapping them around all the time.

In time I hope to replace the SB Live PCI sound card with an ISA SB due to issues in DOS 6.22, but that likely wont be for a while.

Since I have the Ethernet card with a socket for an option ROM, I'm thinking this may be the easiest work around for now without resorting to a boot floppy. If I go down this route, I have a TL866ii and UV eraser, it's really just picking an E/EPROM and what software.

Jan Steunebrink (Ckcpu here) might be able to lend a hand on how to patch the BIOS for large drive support. DIY Bios Modding guide Jan Steunebrink k6-2+/3+ 128gb

Hi tech3475,

I’ve checked the GA-6BXE F3a BIOS for any 32GB and 64GB limit bugs, but there aren’t any. So this BIOS fully supports IDE drives up to 128GB and an 120GB HDD or SSD should work! 😀

Not surprising for a 02/2001 BIOS, as Award already ironed out these bugs a year before. The reason that many motherboard manuals stated odd limits like 75GB is that they simply hadn’t a bigger drive to test with at the time. 😉

To break the 128GB barrier, you need a BIOS with 48-bit LBA support but these came later in 2004, after the ATA-6 specification was published in 2003.
In addition, you have to use Win2000 with SP3 or higher, WinXP with SP1 or higher, Vista or later, or Linux with kernel 2.4.19 or later, as OS.
So Win98 doesn’t support 48-bit LBA out of the box. I know the open source community has been working on a patched ESDI_506.PDR driver, but I don’t know if that came to life.

Cheers, Jan

Chkcpu wrote on 2021-12-15, 20:13:

So Win98 doesn’t support 48-bit LBA out of the box. I know the open source community has been working on a patched ESDI_506.PDR driver, but I don’t know if that came to life.

While it isn't the opensource community. It is now available since the developer passed on to the eternal programming fields.
https://rloewelectronics.com/distribute/PATCH137/

If 128gb is the limit could you format the disk into 2 120gb partitions? Boot from one partition and have the second as a storage partition?

ODwilly wrote on 2021-12-16, 00:52:

If 128gb is the limit could you format the disk into 2 120gb partitions? Boot from one partition and have the second as a storage partition?

If the limiting factor were Windows 98, the drive can be partitioned up to the 137 gig limit with the rest "unseen" by the OS. But in this case the limiting factor is the motherboard's BIOS, which has already been expanded as far as it reasonably can. I've used 230 gigabyte SSDs with Windows 98 where I only used a 130 gig partition, but they were attached to controller cards that were capable of dealing with substantially larger drives, so they didn't have the OPs issue.

Sorry I should have quoted Chkcpu, he mentioned that he checked the bios for the Gigabyte board and it supported up to 128gb drives. On mobile and I cant seem to get quotes correct.

I have the same board. I use a kingston value 120gb SSD with a startech IDE to SATA adapter and it works just fine.

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-120GB-Solid-S … G/dp/B01N6JQS8C

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Drive-Opt … B00EOJNGC2?th=1

tech3475 wrote on 2021-12-13, 23:18:

I current have a gigabyte GA-6BXE 440BX motherboard with that latest F3a BIOS. […]
Show full quote

I current have a gigabyte GA-6BXE 440BX motherboard with that latest F3a BIOS.

Recently I decided to try switching from the old 60GB HDD I had to a 240GB SSD I had lying around using a IDE to SATA adapter, but by default the BIOS can’t boot from it even with a replacement bootloader (both plop and XFdisk), however it works fine if I use a boot disk e.g. the W98 setup floppy and select ‘boot from hard disk’.

Going by the notes, I know that 75GB is the official size supported for this Motherboard.

I know that some of my options are:
1) Purchase a 64GB SSD.
2) Use a PCI IDE adapter (not ideal since I’ve used all my PCI ports up as of now).
3) Stick with the old 60GB HDD (not ideal, it’s louder than the fans).
4) Use a ‘boot disk’ (kind of annoying using a floppy all the time though).

However, I’m wondering, does anyone know of any successful way to modify or extend the BIOS? My ethernet card (Belkin F5D5000 PCI) does have a 28pin rom socket and I have the ability to write/erase E/EPROMS. The only issue is that I don’t have any spare compatible chips lying around to test with.

Would purchasing a suitable sized chip and using something like PLOP be suitable?

Or is there another option I’m missing?

Thank you.

Doing something like this might be possible with your motherboard too .

Adding XT-IDE option ROM to Asus P3B-F BIOS [Thanks to DenizOezmen, it actually works!!!]

Well I have egg on my face right now.

First of all thanks to everyone for their feedback and sorry for the late response as I had things come up and I wanted to test something.

Just before posting I decided to check the system using my PCI diag card to see if it would suggest anything.

Whilst I was looking up the code in the manual while it hung.....it booted from the SSD.

Turns out, it does work but it's incredibly slow to boot the drive, in comparison to anything else including the floppy as a proxy.

For some reason it seems to just be slow when on "FF 63" (which according to the manual is the INT 19 boot attempt).

That said, it's not ideal, so I'll probably be looking at the different options, but at least I know the thing can boot on it's own.

DIY Bios Modding guide Jan Steunebrink k6-2+/3+ 128gb

Follow this thread

Jan knows how to patch up to 120gb

But best option is a add in sata card.

I like my promise tx4 sata 300 pci card🤷‍♂️

ODwilly wrote on 2021-12-16, 00:52:

If 128gb is the limit could you format the disk into 2 120gb partitions? Boot from one partition and have the second as a storage partition?

Yes, this workaround should work. 😉
These year 2000-2003 Award BIOSes allow drives up to 640 GiB to be attached. Drives that report a higher capacity will hang the BIOS during POST. But because these BIOSes still use 28-bit LBA, only the first 127.5 GiB of a larger drive can be seen.

But when all code and data to boot the OS is placed in a partition below the 127.5GiB limit, the whole drive can be accessed by a 48-bit LBA capable OS after bootup!

Chkcpu wrote on 2021-12-16, 16:47:

Yes, this workaround should work. ;) These year 2000-2003 Award BIOSes allow drives up to 640 GiB to be attached. Drives that re […]
Show full quote

ODwilly wrote on 2021-12-16, 00:52:

If 128gb is the limit could you format the disk into 2 120gb partitions? Boot from one partition and have the second as a storage partition?

Yes, this workaround should work. 😉
These year 2000-2003 Award BIOSes allow drives up to 640 GiB to be attached. Drives that report a higher capacity will hang the BIOS during POST. But because these BIOSes still use 28-bit LBA, only the first 127.5 GiB of a larger drive can be seen.

But when all code and data to boot the OS is placed in a partition below the 127.5GiB limit, the whole drive can be accessed by a 48-bit LBA capable OS after bootup!

So if you use another computer to do the partition at the maximum size it will work? I wouldn't have expected that, but that's good to know.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-12-16, 03:00:

I have the same board. I use a kingston value 120gb SSD with a startech IDE to SATA adapter and it works just fine.

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-120GB-Solid-S … G/dp/B01N6JQS8C

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Drive-Opt … B00EOJNGC2?th=1

Would you be willing to run and post a screen shot of the ATTO disk benchmark in that computer? I'm curious to know the actual drive speed achieved.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-12-16, 17:35:

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-12-16, 03:00:

I have the same board. I use a kingston value 120gb SSD with a startech IDE to SATA adapter and it works just fine.

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-120GB-Solid-S … G/dp/B01N6JQS8C

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Drive-Opt … B00EOJNGC2?th=1

Would you be willing to run and post a screen shot of the ATTO disk benchmark in that computer? I'm curious to know the actual drive speed achieved.

It caps out at about 33mb/s, which is the speed of the bus.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-12-17, 01:46:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-12-16, 17:35:

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-12-16, 03:00:

I have the same board. I use a kingston value 120gb SSD with a startech IDE to SATA adapter and it works just fine.

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-120GB-Solid-S … G/dp/B01N6JQS8C

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Drive-Opt … B00EOJNGC2?th=1

Would you be willing to run and post a screen shot of the ATTO disk benchmark in that computer? I'm curious to know the actual drive speed achieved.

It caps out at about 33mb/s, which is the speed of the bus.

Okay, thanks, curiosity satisfied.

tech3475 wrote on 2021-12-16, 09:53:

Well I have egg on my face right now. […]
Show full quote

Well I have egg on my face right now.

First of all thanks to everyone for their feedback and sorry for the late response as I had things come up and I wanted to test something.

Just before posting I decided to check the system using my PCI diag card to see if it would suggest anything.

Whilst I was looking up the code in the manual while it hung.....it booted from the SSD.

Turns out, it does work but it's incredibly slow to boot the drive, in comparison to anything else including the floppy as a proxy.

For some reason it seems to just be slow when on "FF 63" (which according to the manual is the INT 19 boot attempt).

That said, it's not ideal, so I'll probably be looking at the different options, but at least I know the thing can boot on it's own.

Interesting. For the sake of experimenting, I used Super Fdisk to partion a 500 gigabyte SATA drive to 120 gigs in a much newer computer and tried that in my Asus TXP4 (which has one of Jan's excellent patched BIOS) just using a SATA to IDE adapter, but it would hang when it it tried to detect the drive. Using the 120 gig SSD that I normally do worked fine in the IDE port with the adapter.