I heard that WinME also has problems with DOS mode. Try Win98SE instead. 😀

Harry Potter wrote on 2025-06-14, 16:53:

I heard that WinME also has problems with DOS mode. Try Win98SE instead. 😀

...that wont help either, I recently tried to use a 4Gb Cf card and neither DOS, 98 or ME could partition and format the card correctly and even when I got it setup on another more modern system the card couldn't be booted from on the retro system. DOS could see the card but would only partition 800 meg of it for use, 98SE could manage to partition 2Gb of it but couldn't format it reliably or make it bootable and ME had similar results to 98 but did manage to format and install to it but again couldn't boot from it.

I had to try a few different CF cards till I found one old enough that DOS could partition it correctly to make it bootable. (Ended up using an older slower 2GB Cf card)

My guess is the 16GB card is simply to large and too new for ME to set it up correctly.

Win9x does not have issues with 16GB CF cards. The issue likely lies in your BIOS.

I think same.

When Windows 98SE was current, we had a Pentium III 733 MHz at home.
And it had an 20GB IDE hard disk installed, I still remember that.

Installing Windows Me is best done from plain DOS, I think.
But there are certain steps to take care of, maybe.

Windows Me was sold as an upgrade, so it expects to see an bootable MS-DOS partition (with DOS files).
It will also ask for older Windows system files, to make sure it's an upgrade process.

The existing files will be asked for by Windows Me setup.
Can be a Windows 95, 98, 98SE files. Or Windows 3.1 files, even, depending on the Me edition.

Edit: Some tipps:
Re: Windows Me - "Misunderstood Edition"
Re: ~20 Windows 98 SE Installs later....STILL isn't 100%, ever

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-06-14, 17:19:

Win9x does not have issues with 16GB CF cards. The issue likely lies in your BIOS.

Not saying your wrong but I cant find any reason a Pentium III bios would have an issue with a 16gb cf card . .in my case it was a PIII on a BX board which also shouldn't have an issue but here we are, my board was certainly happy with a 120Gb HDD and a 128Gb SSD .. but point blank refused to work correctly with that 4GB Cf card which does work fine on a more modern PC. The 2Gb Cf card also worked just fine ..

Only reason I know it was fine with the larger drives is because I too thought it was a BIOS issue, but its the latest BIOS so no issues with big drives ...I can only assume there is something about some CF cards that causes problems.

^Hm. Might be related to ATA-7, maybe? It was for CF cards, only, I think?

Jo22 wrote on 2025-06-14, 17:33:

^Hm. Might be related to ATA-7, maybe? It was for CF cards, only, I think?

Could be, I know some newer CF cards use a high speed interface or expect one, I know some CF cards cannot be used as boot drives too.

In any event, it's a compatibility issue with the CF card or size outside the OS. ME itself should have no trouble going up to the typical LBA limit of the day of 137GB, and even that, might be surpassable. So since you are not even able to enable LBA (bad sign) you got a bad CF adapter or bad BIOS, or ?? I'd start swapping hardware and try different combos.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2025-06-14, 17:47:

In any event, it's a compatibility issue with the CF card or size outside the OS. ME itself should have no trouble going up to the typical LBA limit of the day of 137GB, and even that, might be surpassable. So since you are not even able to enable LBA (bad sign) you got a bad CF adapter or bad BIOS, or ?? I'd start swapping hardware and try different combos.

bad adapter is a real possibility here . .some of the chinesium ones are pretty .. so so with the soldering.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2025-06-14, 17:47:

typical LBA limit of the day of 137GB

It's also 128GB limit, depending if it's measured in 1000 or 1024.
The old Gibibyte vs Gigabyte chaos..

https://forums.justlinux.com/showthread.php?1 … 4433#post864433

I'm just saying, because there are 120GB and 128GB SSDs.
Using smaller model might be safer.

Yes, I know full well I can install Windows 98SE, but that's not what I want to do. Trying to get this running is more fun.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-06-14, 17:19:

Win9x does not have issues with 16GB CF cards. The issue likely lies in your BIOS.

If that was true, Windows 98SE wouldn't run, but it does. It's what I had before on that same card.
I also installed Windows 2000 on it before going the ME way, on the same card

There is something fucked up wrong with the windows ME installation I have that does not work with certain hard drive sizes I think. This is the error I just got:

Maybe I need another installation media, anybody can recommend one?
Also I would not discard the problem being partly the CF adapter, it is one of those piece of shit cheap ones. I don't see why I would need to enable LBA for a drive smaller than 128GB though.

kikendo wrote on 2025-06-14, 20:40:

Maybe I need another installation media, anybody can recommend one?
Also I would not discard the problem being partly the CF adapter, it is one of those piece of shit cheap ones. I don't see why I would need to enable LBA for a drive smaller than 128GB though.

I don't know how the drive would report on your BIOS when you disable LBA, so whatever it reports, the maximum disk size supported may be smaller than 28-bit LBA maximum. Some CHS schemes may make the max size 8GB. It could even be as low as 504MB. Who knows, with compact flash and your BIOS 😉 You did indicate that it seemed the reported disk size was quite low.

The partition magic site says this:

Caution: Never change the LBA mode in your system BIOS once data is present on any hard disk. Changing this setting may cause data corruption and loss. Most modern system BIOS designs support LBA or Logical Block Addressing. The LBA mode setting, whether enabled or disabled on your system, determines how your computer translates logical cylinder-head-sector (CHS) addresses. If you change this setting, the resulting shift in CHS values may corrupt all the files and partitions on your hard disk(s).

If you must change the LBA mode setting in your system BIOS, first back up all data on your hard disk(s). Contact the BIOS and/or disk manufacturer's technical support departments to ensure you understand how to proceed safely.

Basically, if you partition and format your drive on another system that is LBA native, and then move that CF card to a system where you disable the LBA... it also won't work, or corrupt the drive. This is likely your problem. The number one rule to achieve compatibility is to partition and format the drive in the target system with the utilities made for the OS you are going to use. Possibly try running "fdisk /MBR" with a proper WinME supplied DOS boot disk. Though I don't know why not just use LBA in the first place too?

the3dfxdude wrote on 2025-06-14, 21:11:

You did indicate that it seemed the reported disk size was quite low.

But the BIOS reports it as 16GB
The BIOS is Phoenix v4 Release 6 on a BX440 motherboard.

Basically, if you partition and format your drive on another system that is LBA native, and then move that CF card to a system where you disable the LBA... it also won't work, or corrupt the drive. This is likely your problem.

This is good to know though, I forgot about it. will keep it in mind.

The number one rule to achieve compatibility is to partition and format the drive in the target system with the utilities made for the OS you are going to use.

But the problem was that when I tried to do that, FDISK would only make a small partition, that doesn't fit ME.

I'm starting over once more, with the Win98SE install I had and seeing if I can upgrade that to ME.

I'm starting over once more, with the Win98SE install I had and seeing if I can upgrade that to ME.

As you wish, it's your decision. ^^

Windows Me Setup should run from as low as Windows 3.1, though, however.

If you can get DOS 7.x onto a big FAT32 partition and have plain Windows 3.1 running,
then the graphical part of Windows Me Setup should start (it's Win 3.1 based).

The advantage would be that no existing Windows 98 installation would mess up Windows Me.
Because, installing Me upon Windows 9x was what made it unstable in first place.

kikendo wrote on 2025-06-14, 21:35:

But the BIOS reports it as 16GB The BIOS is Phoenix v4 Release 6 on a BX440 motherboard. ... […]
Show full quote

But the BIOS reports it as 16GB
The BIOS is Phoenix v4 Release 6 on a BX440 motherboard.
...

The number one rule to achieve compatibility is to partition and format the drive in the target system with the utilities made for the OS you are going to use.

But the problem was that when I tried to do that, FDISK would only make a small partition, that doesn't fit ME.

You disabled LBA though. DOS FDISK is reading what the BIOS says, and for whatever reason, can't properly support it. You shouldn't needed to disable LBA on that MB BIOS, so something is amiss.

One thing you could try is to boot some kind of live linux system, and see what it reports for the disk. Linux doesn't depend on the BIOS. You could also fdisk and format there too and see if it then works. The linux fdisk man page mentions switches for CHS and DOS, so you can try that utility to get your disk set up. But I have no idea if it will work 😀

Any way to add large HDD support to 440BX BIOS?

The BIOS is Phoenix v4 Release 6 on a BX440 motherboard.

Hi, once you've figured out what model of motherboard it is exactly, you could try a BIOS update (patched).

http://wims.rainbow-software.org/index.php?start=0&count=40

the3dfxdude wrote on 2025-06-14, 23:51:

You disabled LBA though. DOS FDISK is reading what the BIOS says, and for whatever reason, can't properly support it. You shouldn't needed to disable LBA on that MB BIOS, so something is amiss.

It was just how it was set by default, I didn't change it. What I did do was preparethe card on another machine, so if that machine set up the drive with LBA on, then the problem you mentioned probably arose.

As I said I have this drive running just fine and I shouldn't need LBA on a 16GB disk, right? I still haven't tried updating it to ME though.

Jo22 wrote on Yesterday, 02:14:

Hi, once you've figured out what model of motherboard it is exactly, you could try a BIOS update (patched).

That website isn't working for me, but I have a gateway machine, I think the BIOS is specific to those and cannot be updated.

Um, how about using a DDO (Dynamic Drive Overlay)?
I remember that 486 users used it back in the day and that some were (are) Windows 95 compatible.

kikendo wrote on Yesterday, 14:59:

It was just how it was set by default, I didn't change it. What I did do was preparethe card on another machine, so if that machine set up the drive with LBA on, then the problem you mentioned probably arose.

As I said I have this drive running just fine and I shouldn't need LBA on a 16GB disk, right? I still haven't tried updating it to ME though.

The drive was running on a system using LBA. If you haven't tried setting LBA on the 440BX system, you should.

https://aeb.win.tue.nl/linux/Large-Disk-4.html

Hard drives over 8.4 GB are supposed to report their geometry as 16383/16/63. This in effect means that the `geometry' is obsolete, and the total disk size can no longer be computed from the geometry, but is found in the LBA capacity field returned by the IDENTIFY command. Hard drives over 137.4 GB are supposed to report an LBA capacity of 0xfffffff = 268435455 sectors (137438952960 bytes). Now the actual disk size is found in the new 48-capacity field.

If you are in CHS mode per the BIOS setting, it's very unlikely DOS will recognize the drive size through the BIOS calls, until LBA support is enabled in BIOS. Other OS will need to bypass the BIOS and talk to the drive directly. The limit will be 504MB (CHS/Normal) or 8.4GB (Large? CHS translation... not sure on Phoenix BIOS). DOS 7.1+ should be able to support LBA, same with Windows, because it had already been around for years to be able to deal with very large hard drives. (mind you there were a few fixes to fdisk over those years, but WinME should be fine for this disk size)

BIOS bugs are possible. See this note also referenced from the Linux Large disk howto:
https://aeb.win.tue.nl/linux/bios/over3gb.txt
This is written about Phoenix BIOS in 1998. Mind you, in those days, we were only just breaking through the 3GB hard disk level, as a home user, that was pretty common at that point. 8GB was a little later, like a year or two, so these limits weren't really seen by normal computer users until well into the P3 era. So it's totally possible the Phoenix BIOS is doing something stupid defaulting to CHS, simply because it's old enough to be ignorant and almost nobody noticed...