I can only answer Q1, but NUSB worked on a Win98SE tower at my mother's house. I used version 36e, and the ports were labeled as hi-speed, so I think it's USB 2.0.

Harry Potter wrote on 2025-10-25, 14:28:

I can only answer Q1, but NUSB worked on a Win98SE tower at my mother's house. I used version 36e, and the ports were labeled as hi-speed, so I think it's USB 2.0.

Onboard controller yes??? If so, that's great to know!

Seems like onboard controller, as the ports are internal.

About Q3: I don't think it's possible to partition a 130GB hard drive under DOS, but you might consider emulating DOS. I use DOSBox and DOSBox-X to play DOS games and applications on two Win64 laptops. You can find DOSBox-X at https://dosbox-x.com/.

Harry Potter wrote on 2025-10-25, 20:33:

About Q3: I don't think it's possible to partition a 130GB hard drive under DOS, but you might consider emulating DOS. I use DOSBox and DOSBox-X to play DOS games and applications on two Win64 laptops. You can find DOSBox-X at https://dosbox-x.com/.

Itsa 120Gb SSD... I think under 128GB I am ok??

AFAIK, DOS can only handle up to 2GB. 120GB should be good for FAT32 Win98, though, as I had such at my mother's house--until she went homeless. 🙁

Use Win98SE / DOS 7.1 to partition and format. It will work fine up to 120GB as long as your BIOS can detect the full capacity.

If your BIOS doesn't detect the full amount you may want to boot/setup the drive using OnTrack drive overlay software to bypass the drive limit.

You don't need to use Windows to use the version of DOS comes with. The Win98SE boot floppy is essentially a DOS 7.1 installer.

You have a few options for your hard drive layout.

Windows built in multiple OS support. You just need to install from oldest to newest.
If you install Dos and Win98, Windows 98 shutdown will have an additional "previous version of DOS" entry
Win98 and above will have their own entry at the boot screen.

Hard drive would need to be partitioned accordingly.
C:\ Primary partition, max 2GB due to DOS
All the other OS's can be installed on an extended partition/logical drives. However dos/Win9x wont be able to see any NTFS drives and dos any Fat32 drives.
What I do is have 1 final "common" FAT32 partition where I can dump files that all OS's can access (dos can't but 2GB is useless and will just use another OS on dos' behalf)

I like the built in option its clean and easy but does have drawbacks. main is all OS's are linked so no easy way to reinstall just one OS. Especially the way it handles dos/Win98.
I would argue you don't really need this many OS's. The dos that sits under Win98 is more then enough for gaming, Likewise 2k doesn't really offer anything XP can't do.
In which case you just need to install Win98, XP, Win10 much more manageable.

But I get the idea you want to play around with the OS's themselves rather then just build a gaming PC? In which case I would probably go with a 3rd party boot loader like grub.
This has the benefit of unlinking the OS's, but would still recommend the "common" partition.