Hook them up to a newer computer.

Write down the parameters that the BIOS configures them as and then manually enter those parameters on your older machine.

The other option is to partition and format them on a newer computer... which may need to be done either way.

Back in the day, we used what was called a drive overlay. Some mfgs had them available for download.

You would set specific parameters in the BIOS for the drive and then install the overlay which would make the OS be able to see the full size of the drive

I called them slim 3.5 inch hard drives and there were not that rare back then https://www.disctech.com/Maxtor-6E040L0-IDE-Hard-Drive and https://www.ebay.com/itm/124038717605 , they are slim because they have a lower platter count inside them and should work as well as 'normal' drives so if the bios of your motherboard was 'seeing' the old drive normally the slim one should work also. As you can see in the picture of the ebay add they have a 'cap limit' jumper selection on them (The jumper for master, slave and cable select. Check the settings and play with them).

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-05-06, 17:57:

Hook them up to a newer computer. […]
Show full quote

Hook them up to a newer computer.

Write down the parameters that the BIOS configures them as and then manually enter those parameters on your older machine.

The other option is to partition and format them on a newer computer... which may need to be done either way.

Back in the day, we used what was called a drive overlay. Some mfgs had them available for download.

You would set specific parameters in the BIOS for the drive and then install the overlay which would make the OS be able to see the full size of the drive

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-05-06, 18:13:

I called them slim 3.5 inch hard drives and there were not that rare back then https://www.disctech.com/Maxtor-6E040L0-IDE-Hard-Drive and https://www.ebay.com/itm/124038717605 , they are slim because they have a lower platter cont inside them and should work as well as 'normal' drives so if the bios of your motherboard was 'seeing' the old drive normally the slim one should work also. As you can see in the picture of the ebay add they have a 'cap limit' jumper selection on them (The jumper for master, slave and cable select. Check the settings and play with them).

What is strange to me is that other IDE HDDs (normal, not slim) I've used in the past on this exact PC (ASUS CUSL2 board) were all at least 120GB and were detected first time in the BIOS and correctly displayed size wise on Win98, I wouldn't even think an overlay like EZ Bios was needed for this PC.

To try and understand, if these are 160GB IDE drives, why is this happening this time? Is it because they are "more recent" IDE HDDs? Is it because they are presently in NTFS as the Win2k CD setup indicated? I tried formatting through it but not even a mention of FAT32 in the format options. No matter what the BIOS only displays 8GB for both.

Checked the jumpers and both don't have the 32GB cap enabled, and are set as master drives.

So my only option is to connect them to my XP build, and format the drive to FAT 32 through the XP CD? My XP build is heavily configured, I admit I would be afraid to try it and possibly screw up...

andre_6 wrote on 2023-05-06, 18:28:

What is strange to me is that other IDE HDDs (normal, not slim) I've used in the past on this exact PC (ASUS CUSL2 board) were a […]
Show full quote

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-05-06, 17:57:

Hook them up to a newer computer. […]
Show full quote

Hook them up to a newer computer.

Write down the parameters that the BIOS configures them as and then manually enter those parameters on your older machine.

The other option is to partition and format them on a newer computer... which may need to be done either way.

Back in the day, we used what was called a drive overlay. Some mfgs had them available for download.

You would set specific parameters in the BIOS for the drive and then install the overlay which would make the OS be able to see the full size of the drive

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-05-06, 18:13:

I called them slim 3.5 inch hard drives and there were not that rare back then https://www.disctech.com/Maxtor-6E040L0-IDE-Hard-Drive and https://www.ebay.com/itm/124038717605 , they are slim because they have a lower platter cont inside them and should work as well as 'normal' drives so if the bios of your motherboard was 'seeing' the old drive normally the slim one should work also. As you can see in the picture of the ebay add they have a 'cap limit' jumper selection on them (The jumper for master, slave and cable select. Check the settings and play with them).

What is strange to me is that other IDE HDDs (normal, not slim) I've used in the past on this exact PC (ASUS CUSL2 board) were all at least 120GB and were detected first time in the BIOS and correctly displayed size wise on Win98, I wouldn't even think an overlay like EZ Bios was needed for this PC.

To try and understand, if these are 160GB IDE drives, why is this happening this time? Is it because they are "more recent" IDE HDDs? Is it because they are presently in NTFS as the Win2k CD setup indicated? I tried formatting through it but not even a mention of FAT32 in the format options. No matter what the BIOS only displays 8GB for both.

Checked the jumpers and both don't have the 32GB cap enabled, and are set as master drives.

So my only option is to connect them to my XP build, and format the drive to FAT 32 through the XP CD? My XP build is heavily configured, I admit I would be afraid to try it and possibly screw up...

First check the 'cap limit' = capacity limit jumper position.

There are several things that can happen on old computers when touching a technical border of such a system.

From 120 GB to 160 GB there is a border at 137 GB (128 GiB). It's the so called 48-Bit-LBA border.
Earlier systems had borders at 32 GB, 8 GB, 2 GB and 504 MB.

You may feel strange behaviour, like hanging disk on bootup or wrong capacity.
To deal with those limits you may limit the capacity of your hard disk. You can do this either by jumper (like bogdanpaulb has posted) or by a software that can set MaxLBA.
I guess when you set a MaxLBA limit to ~ 120 GB, your disk will work.

Disruptor wrote on 2023-05-06, 18:37:

There are several things that can happen on old computers when touching a technical border of such a system. […]
Show full quote

There are several things that can happen on old computers when touching a technical border of such a system.

From 120 GB to 160 GB there is a border at 137 GB (128 GiB). It's the so called 48-Bit-LBA border.
Earlier systems had borders at 32 GB, 8 GB, 2 GB and 504 MB.

You may feel strange behaviour, like hanging disk on bootup or wrong capacity.
To deal with those limits you may limit the capacity of your hard disk. You can do this either by jumper (like bogdanpaulb has posted) or by a software that can set MaxLBA.
I guess when you set a MaxLBA limit to ~ 120 GB, your disk will work.

Thank you, I get it now. So I guess it was just lucky ignorance when I got the previous 120GB HDD for the PC. I only thought these issues went up to Win95 (I have EZ BIOS enabled on that build).

The Seagate only has normal jumper settings, but the Hitachi one has the jumper limit option it seems (see pics).

But these drives will end up being useful for later builds so I might as well get another 120GB HDD IDE and be done with it that way.

If it came to software, would this do the trick at least with the Seagate drive? https://www.philscomputerlab.com/seagate-seatools.html

andre_6 wrote on 2023-05-06, 18:52:

Thank you, I get it now. So I guess it was just lucky ignorance when I got the previous 120GB HDD for the PC. I only thought the […]
Show full quote

Disruptor wrote on 2023-05-06, 18:37:

There are several things that can happen on old computers when touching a technical border of such a system. […]
Show full quote

There are several things that can happen on old computers when touching a technical border of such a system.

From 120 GB to 160 GB there is a border at 137 GB (128 GiB). It's the so called 48-Bit-LBA border.
Earlier systems had borders at 32 GB, 8 GB, 2 GB and 504 MB.

You may feel strange behaviour, like hanging disk on bootup or wrong capacity.
To deal with those limits you may limit the capacity of your hard disk. You can do this either by jumper (like bogdanpaulb has posted) or by a software that can set MaxLBA.
I guess when you set a MaxLBA limit to ~ 120 GB, your disk will work.

Thank you, I get it now. So I guess it was just lucky ignorance when I got the previous 120GB HDD for the PC. I only thought these issues went up to Win95 (I have EZ BIOS enabled on that build).

The Seagate only has normal jumper settings, but the Hitachi one has the jumper limit option it seems (see pics).

But these drives will end up being useful for later builds so I might as well get another 120GB HDD IDE and be done with it that way.

If it came to software, would this do the trick at least with the Seagate drive? https://www.philscomputerlab.com/seagate-seatools.html

The Seagate drive should have it also even if it's not documented : https://eshop.macsales.com/Tech/manuals/idehd … s/Seagate72.pdf

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-05-06, 19:03:

andre_6 wrote on 2023-05-06, 18:52:

Thank you, I get it now. So I guess it was just lucky ignorance when I got the previous 120GB HDD for the PC. I only thought the […]
Show full quote

Disruptor wrote on 2023-05-06, 18:37:

There are several things that can happen on old computers when touching a technical border of such a system. […]
Show full quote

There are several things that can happen on old computers when touching a technical border of such a system.

From 120 GB to 160 GB there is a border at 137 GB (128 GiB). It's the so called 48-Bit-LBA border.
Earlier systems had borders at 32 GB, 8 GB, 2 GB and 504 MB.

You may feel strange behaviour, like hanging disk on bootup or wrong capacity.
To deal with those limits you may limit the capacity of your hard disk. You can do this either by jumper (like bogdanpaulb has posted) or by a software that can set MaxLBA.
I guess when you set a MaxLBA limit to ~ 120 GB, your disk will work.

Thank you, I get it now. So I guess it was just lucky ignorance when I got the previous 120GB HDD for the PC. I only thought these issues went up to Win95 (I have EZ BIOS enabled on that build).

The Seagate only has normal jumper settings, but the Hitachi one has the jumper limit option it seems (see pics).

But these drives will end up being useful for later builds so I might as well get another 120GB HDD IDE and be done with it that way.

If it came to software, would this do the trick at least with the Seagate drive? https://www.philscomputerlab.com/seagate-seatools.html

The Seagate drive should have it also even if it's not documented : https://eshop.macsales.com/Tech/manuals/idehd … s/Seagate72.pdf

You're right, mine's not labeled except for the master and slave options but it's there surely, will keep that info.

Thank you all for your help and replies, only on Vogons would I get such quick and detailed help!

1 head of those types are very, slow.

Look for another hard drive with 2 heads, up to 120GB max especially for windows 98SE

Cheers,