I'm trying to load Win98 onto a 100GB,
Fdisk shows C: 25826mb , but then total space is 8033mb after I partitioned it.
Win 98 SE boot floppy
P3 Slot 1 - 512MB PC100 - 128GB SSD - RADEON 9200 SE , SB Awe64 ISA - GOTEK MOD
BIOS limitation I guess? What you see is a modulo of track count in CHS mode by 1024. The max CHS can handle is 8.4G.
It might be possible to make a ~8G partition and put C: with Windows on it, and then once Windows starts and loads its own 32-bit drivers you will have access to the rest of the SSD space via LBA. Not sure if that space will be accessible under DOS mode - surely not with pure DOS 7 as the boot floppy shows.
Also, SSD in a system without TRIM will degrade write performance if you choose to allocate most of the free space to partitions, unless the SSD itself can somehow figure out the FAT32 structures and run it's own cleaning process.
Looks like the BIOS still has the 32GB hard limit for Drives, that's why Fdisk can see 25Gb of the drive but Windows98/DOS 7.1 can only address 8Gb of that space for the primary active partition, however the remaining space should be able to be partitioned into its own secondary logical drive.
The 32Gb limit depending on the motherboard/BIOS may be able to be patched to increase it to 132Gb IIRC.
Would need more details about the Motherboard.
Trashbytes wrote on 2023-07-18, 09:40:Looks like the BIOS still has the 32GB hard limit for Drives, that's why Fdisk can see 25Gb of the drive but Windows98/DOS 7.1 can only address 8Gb of that space for the primary active partition, however the remaining space should be able to be partitioned into its own secondary logical drive.
The 32Gb limit depending on the motherboard/BIOS may be able to be patched to increase it to 132Gb IIRC.
Would need more details about the Motherboard.
Sorry, the system is a more Modern Atom (only 10 years old), had a 250GB IDE drive in it before I started so it shouldn't be a LBA/CHS issue. There is no option for CHS only in the BIOS due to it's newer vintage.
P3 Slot 1 - 512MB PC100 - 128GB SSD - RADEON 9200 SE , SB Awe64 ISA - GOTEK MOD
RobDos wrote on 2023-07-18, 10:58:Trashbytes wrote on 2023-07-18, 09:40:Looks like the BIOS still has the 32GB hard limit for Drives, that's why Fdisk can see 25Gb of the drive but Windows98/DOS 7.1 can only address 8Gb of that space for the primary active partition, however the remaining space should be able to be partitioned into its own secondary logical drive.
The 32Gb limit depending on the motherboard/BIOS may be able to be patched to increase it to 132Gb IIRC.
Would need more details about the Motherboard.
Sorry, the system is a more Modern Atom (only 10 years old), had a 250GB IDE drive in it before I started so it shouldn't be a LBA/CHS issue. There is no option for CHS only in the BIOS due to it's newer vintage.
Hmm that is a bit odd, is it possible its simply not compatible with Windows 98 ? or did ti originally have 98 on it ?
If it did come with 98 perhaps they were using some custom drivers for the chipset.
RobDos wrote on 2023-07-18, 10:58:Sorry, the system is a more Modern Atom (only 10 years old), had a 250GB IDE drive in it before I started so it shouldn't be a LBA/CHS issue. There is no option for CHS only in the BIOS due to it's newer vintage.
I really can't remember much of 98 DOS tools but perhaps both FDISK and FORMAT are still limited when running in pure DOS? See if Windows installer can do the partitioning and formatting, if not then try to create a big FAT32 partition on another machine and only then install Windows 98 on it. Cluster size for system drive should preferably be 4k to match the x86 page size - this helps with swap file performance. But bigger clusters will work too.
If I remember correctly I used fdisk and format from FreeDOS to format my 120GB SSD and install win98. It supports bigger drives without issues.
Another tool mentioned is Super FDisk, but I can't say if it helps or not as I haven't used it
This is normal, Win98 fdisk is buggy. Either use the WinME version (or later) or
Solo761 wrote on 2023-07-18, 12:44:If I remember correctly I used fdisk and format from FreeDOS to format my 120GB SSD and install win98. It supports bigger drives without issues.
Another tool mentioned is Super FDisk, but I can't say if it helps or not as I haven't used it
Do not use Windows 98 fdisk as it fails 'measuring' disks over 64 if I remember correctly. Although it reports a bad partition size, it should be able to create it up to approximately 128gb.
I used the Win98 Fdisk recently on a 120GB SSD. It worked for me when I used a percentage (50% in my case) to create a primary partition and an extended partition of equal size. Format.com correctly formatted both partitions with FAT32.
That would be a BIOS problem. Win98 supports up to 127 GB drives
World's foremost 486 enjoyer.
