1. Windows 98 (and DOS 7.1) will work with partitions of <128 GB. Where are you getting 32 GB from? I believe that was a limit of Windows 95. Actually, Windows 98 will recognize even larger partitions (>128 GB) but will not work correctly and corrupt data without patching.

2. Specifically what games are you worried about not working with the CD drive set to D:? If you don't have anything in mind, I wouldn't worry about it. It must be incredibly rare - I've never encountered it or heard of any specific cases (just encountered many people worried about it over the years...). I don't doubt that there's some game out there with that requirement, but I think it's better to deal with it as it arises rather than greatly inconvenience yourself by never using multiple partitions (!).

I encountered plenty of things that would get unhappy if the CD-ROM changed drive letters after the program was installed, but never anything that specifically required that it be drive D: and absolutely nothing else. You'd have to be pretty dense to write something needing that; many of the programmers likely had a second partition or second hard drive anyway.

jh80 wrote on Yesterday, 23:07:

1. Windows 98 (and DOS 7.1) will work with partitions of <128 GB. Where are you getting 32 GB from? I believe that was a limit of Windows 95. Actually, Windows 98 will recognize even larger partitions (>128 GB) but will not work correctly and corrupt data without patching.

2. Specifically what games are you worried about not working with the CD drive set to D:? If you don't have anything in mind, I wouldn't worry about it. It must be incredibly rare - I've never encountered it or heard of any specific cases (just encountered many people worried about it over the years...). I don't doubt that there's some game out there with that requirement, but I think it's better to deal with it as it arises rather than greatly inconvenience yourself by never using multiple partitions (!).

I know, and that's the weird thing. I used to have a PC with Win98 and a 120GB hard drive, and it worked perfectly. It wasn't like that, but it had an Intel CPU. Now, with this configuration, it's giving me the problem. I don't want the IDE/SATA adapter or the SSD to be causing the problem.

jakethompson1 wrote on Yesterday, 23:12:

I encountered plenty of things that would get unhappy if the CD-ROM changed drive letters after the program was installed, but never anything that specifically required that it be drive D: and absolutely nothing else. You'd have to be pretty dense to write something needing that; many of the programmers likely had a second partition or second hard drive anyway.

A game whose name I don't remember but which I happened to try not long ago, required the drive on d, however it is not a big problem, at most I will use a second system hard disk with an single partition.

And I'm talking about an original game that I own but I have too many to remember, when that happens I'll ask for help or do as I wrote before

5a796d wrote on Today, 05:15:

I know, and that's the weird thing. I used to have a PC with Win98 and a 120GB hard drive, and it worked perfectly. It wasn't like that, but it had an Intel CPU. Now, with this configuration, it's giving me the problem. I don't want the IDE/SATA adapter or the SSD to be causing the problem.

Describe how you're setting up Windows 98 and partitioning drives, and describe how Windows 98 fails to install if the partition is larger than 32 GB (that is, if you want to try and troubleshoot the problem). There might be something going wrong somewhere in there.

I've installed Windows 98 many times on different setups on 128 GB partitions via IDE-SATA adapter on an SSD and never had any problem, so it should work in theory. Not sure if your particular setup is strange in some way, though.

jh80 wrote on Today, 05:53:

5a796d wrote on Today, 05:15:

I know, and that's the weird thing. I used to have a PC with Win98 and a 120GB hard drive, and it worked perfectly. It wasn't like that, but it had an Intel CPU. Now, with this configuration, it's giving me the problem. I don't want the IDE/SATA adapter or the SSD to be causing the problem.

Describe how you're setting up Windows 98 and partitioning drives, and describe how Windows 98 fails to install if the partition is larger than 32 GB (that is, if you want to try and troubleshoot the problem). There might be something going wrong somewhere in there.

I've installed Windows 98 many times on different setups on 128 GB partitions via IDE-SATA adapter on an SSD and never had any problem, so it should work in theory. Not sure if your particular setup is strange in some way, though.

I created the system partition on a modern PC with partition master, if the 30GB crease the installation is successful without problems. If I create it larger than 32GB during the installation, the control of the disc starts and controls all sectors, at that point I turn off the machine because the control is very slow,
It would take me hours to install it and it is not said that it is successful.

With FISK on the Athlon XP machine, both with the Win98 version and WIN ME, it does not make me create unit larger than 22GB

5a796d wrote on Today, 06:01:

I created the system partition on a modern PC with partition master, if the 30GB crease the installation is successful without problems. If I create it larger than 32GB during the installation, the control of the disc starts and controls all sectors, at that point I turn off the machine because the control is very slow,
It would take me hours to install it and it is not said that it is successful.

With FISK on the Athlon XP machine, both with the Win98 version and WIN ME, it does not make me create unit larger than 22GB

A few things that might help: 1) Try to use the fdisk included with Windows 98 SE - NOT Windows ME or anything newer. I think after 98, MS started following the FAT32 limit of 32 GB partitions, so newer versions of Windows will not let you create larger partitions. I haven't tried to partition a drive for Windows 98 bigger than 32 GB in a long time, though, so I'm not sure of the limits of DOS 7.1 fdisk, but I think it should be more than 32 GB.

2) Not sure what you mean by "the control is very slow", I recall that it took a VERY long time to format a 128 GB SDD via the Windows 98 installer. Something like several hours. Instead, you can format the drive in advance of installing Win98 and use the /Q switch for quick format. So, ideally, use the Win98 fdisk to create the large partition, then format via the format command in DOS, then launch the Win98 installer.

jh80 wrote on Today, 06:36:

5a796d wrote on Today, 06:01:

I created the system partition on a modern PC with partition master, if the 30GB crease the installation is successful without problems. If I create it larger than 32GB during the installation, the control of the disc starts and controls all sectors, at that point I turn off the machine because the control is very slow,
It would take me hours to install it and it is not said that it is successful.

With FISK on the Athlon XP machine, both with the Win98 version and WIN ME, it does not make me create unit larger than 22GB

A few things that might help: 1) Try to use the fdisk included with Windows 98 SE - NOT Windows ME or anything newer. I think after 98, MS started following the FAT32 limit of 32 GB partitions, so newer versions of Windows will not let you create larger partitions. I haven't tried to partition a drive for Windows 98 bigger than 32 GB in a long time, though, so I'm not sure of the limits of DOS 7.1 fdisk, but I think it should be more than 32 GB.

2) Not sure what you mean by "the control is very slow", I recall that it took a VERY long time to format a 128 GB SDD via the Windows 98 installer. Something like several hours. Instead, you can format the drive in advance of installing Win98 and use the /Q switch for quick format. So, ideally, use the Win98 fdisk to create the large partition, then format via the format command in DOS, then launch the Win98 installer.

finally I solved by creating the partition with Windows 10 disk management and formatting it in Fat32 with an external utility. Now I have 125GB of space, However the SSD is 240GB but at least now I have an excellent space for data.
The problem was certainly partition master who formatted in Fat32 in an evidently wrong way

Thanks anyway for the help.

I have the problem of blocking the unit cd on D but now that I have a lot of space should not be a big problem