windows 9x only supports formatting up to 32gb drive spaces. Even if you can partition msdos format is short sighted.
what you can do is put your ssd into a windows 10 machine and use a 3rd party utility to format it beyond the 32gb barrier but not over 128gb
once that is done put it back into your 98 machine and run setup but if your system has more than 768mb ram it will say out of memory.
your pci SATA card doesn't need RAID for one SSD at all thats just for more than 1 SSD or disk drive to pool them together.
It is important to remember that SATA SSD has trim operation modern ones have a timer but older ones don't and windows 98 and etc do not know about trim at all.
theres a website you can get a dos based trim program you can run but I recommend you contact manufacturer to find out when it does trim automatically without OS filesystem call.
I use a 500gb PATA hard disk for my 98se box I used a PCI card in a windows 10 machine to acheive the full 1 x 500gb partition with fat32 format using a freeware application with 32k allocation units or clusters which i recommend for all fat32 disks but I put scandisk and defragmenter from windows me into 98se for work with massive disks without memory errors. My operating system has an anti filesystem corruption patch for disks over 128gb, and a memory patch for more than 768mb system ram support.

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-07-16, 16:55:

windows 9x only supports formatting up to 32gb drive spaces. what you can do is put your ssd into a windows 10 machine and use a […]
Show full quote

windows 9x only supports formatting up to 32gb drive spaces.
what you can do is put your ssd into a windows 10 machine and use a 3rd party utility to format it beyond the 32gb barrier but not over 128gb
once that is done put it back into your 98 machine and run setup but if your system has more than 768mb ram it will say out of memory.
your pci SATA card doesn't need RAID for one SSD at all thats just for more than 1 SSD or disk drive to pool them together.
It is important to remember that SATA SSD has trim operation modern ones have a timer but older ones don't and windows 98 and etc do not know about trim at all.
theres a website you can get a dos based trim program you can run but I recommend you contact manufacturer to find out when it does trim automatically without OS filesystem call.

That isn't true. Fdisk will format larger hard drives just fine, the only side effect is that it will incorrectly report the size of the hard drive within fdisk.

I suspect that issue is the PCI SATA adapter. What is your motherboard and what is the adapter?

like i said later in the post i stopped using the windows format tool and used super fdisk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5ivV5tyfRs this got around the size issue but windows 98 keeps getting corrupted after u reboot a few times.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-07-16, 16:57:

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-07-16, 16:55:

windows 9x only supports formatting up to 32gb drive spaces. what you can do is put your ssd into a windows 10 machine and use a […]
Show full quote

windows 9x only supports formatting up to 32gb drive spaces.
what you can do is put your ssd into a windows 10 machine and use a 3rd party utility to format it beyond the 32gb barrier but not over 128gb
once that is done put it back into your 98 machine and run setup but if your system has more than 768mb ram it will say out of memory.
your pci SATA card doesn't need RAID for one SSD at all thats just for more than 1 SSD or disk drive to pool them together.
It is important to remember that SATA SSD has trim operation modern ones have a timer but older ones don't and windows 98 and etc do not know about trim at all.
theres a website you can get a dos based trim program you can run but I recommend you contact manufacturer to find out when it does trim automatically without OS filesystem call.

That isn't true. Fdisk will format larger hard drives just fine, the only side effect is that it will incorrectly report the size of the hard drive within fdisk.

I suspect that issue is the PCI SATA adapter. What is your motherboard and what is the adapter?

board i an asus TUSL2-C updated with latest bios card is just a no name china one https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B083LQ2VKC/r … 0?ie=UTF8&psc=1 came with Raid bios from 2008 downgraded to a non raid bios from 2003

aaron158 wrote on 2021-07-16, 17:05:

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-07-16, 16:57:

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-07-16, 16:55:

windows 9x only supports formatting up to 32gb drive spaces. what you can do is put your ssd into a windows 10 machine and use a […]
Show full quote

windows 9x only supports formatting up to 32gb drive spaces.
what you can do is put your ssd into a windows 10 machine and use a 3rd party utility to format it beyond the 32gb barrier but not over 128gb
once that is done put it back into your 98 machine and run setup but if your system has more than 768mb ram it will say out of memory.
your pci SATA card doesn't need RAID for one SSD at all thats just for more than 1 SSD or disk drive to pool them together.
It is important to remember that SATA SSD has trim operation modern ones have a timer but older ones don't and windows 98 and etc do not know about trim at all.
theres a website you can get a dos based trim program you can run but I recommend you contact manufacturer to find out when it does trim automatically without OS filesystem call.

That isn't true. Fdisk will format larger hard drives just fine, the only side effect is that it will incorrectly report the size of the hard drive within fdisk.

I suspect that issue is the PCI SATA adapter. What is your motherboard and what is the adapter?

board i an asus TUSL2-C updated with latest bios card is just a no name china one https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B083LQ2VKC/r … 0?ie=UTF8&psc=1 came with Raid bios from 2008 downgraded to a non raid bios from 2003

btw fdisk and super fdisk is for magnetic disks, its safer, faster and smarter using windows 7 to 10 to partition and format SSD especially because quick format support doesnt need full format to quick format from; saving SSD lifespan.

If you want to use a PCI SATA card then you can try the promise cards. The Promise 150, promise 300 TX2 and TX4 cards are all known to work well with windows 98, although I have heard stories about people having issues with them.

You're motherboard should support 128gb drive natively. The only advantage of a PCI SATA card over a IDE -> SATA adapter is you will get better performance with a PCI card. The method that has always worked for me is to partition with fdisk, format using the FORMAT command in the windows 98 installation folder (even though it's really slow) and then install by transferring the contents of the windows 98 installation files form the CD to the hard drive and running setup from the hard drive. That certainly isn't the only way to do it but that is what has worked best for me.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-07-16, 17:09:

If you want to use a PCI SATA card then you can try the promise cards. The Promise 150, promise 300 TX2 and TX4 cards are all known to work well with windows 98, although I have heard stories about people having issues with them.

You're motherboard should support 128gb drive natively. The only advantage of a PCI SATA card over a IDE -> SATA adapter is you will get better performance with a PCI card. The method that has always worked for me is to partition with fdisk, format using the FORMAT command in the windows 98 installation folder (even though it's really slow) and then install by transferring the contents of the windows 98 installation files form the CD to the hard drive and running setup from the hard drive. That certainly isn't the only way to do it but that is what has worked best for me.

that was how i did it the first time and no dice windows boots up fine the first time but stuff starts to go missing after 1-2 reboots then it just stops booting.

i ordered one of these sata to ide startech adapters off amazon to try https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00310MFPY?p … &ref_=pd_gw_unk should be here tomorrow then i can rule out if its the sata card or not.

i looked on ebay looks like the promise 150 or 300 are both around 25 shipped to canada from china

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/174057962272?hash=ite … GoAAOSwEU1c64wA
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/263553216313?hash=ite … zUAAOSwmHBd9F7d

is one better then the other wouldn't sata 300 over pci be useless since the pci bus can push that fast.

here is a link to a simple fat32 tool good for windows 7 to 10 for storages up to 2 terabytes
https://pendriveapps.com/format-fat32-larger-than-32gb/

The SATA 300 cards will perform about the same as SATA 150 cards. I have seen SATA 300 speeds in windows 98 before, but only on particular socket 775 chipsets.

I use a similar IDE -> SATA adapters for all of my SSDs. I have had issues with some SSD drives so the controller might play a part. I use this drive in all of my retro builds:

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-120GB-Solid-S … 26456669&sr=8-1

EDIT: This is the exact adapter I use

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Drive-Opt … E%20motherboard.

ok so the ide to sata adapter came today. i plug the drive in my windows 10 machine ran disk part clean to wipe the drive. then use the format tool zap provided 2 post up. made the win98 folder and copied the cab files over. then used the cd to boot into dos. the bios shows that the ide controller picks up a 120 gig drive but when u try to go to c: it cant access it. so put it back in the windows 10 machine disk part cleaned it again. tired the windows 98 disk again then fdisk it says it can't access the drive so tired super fdisk it says it can't access it either.

aaron158 wrote on 2021-07-17, 18:38:

ok so the ide to sata adapter came today. i plug the drive in my windows 10 machine ran disk part clean to wipe the drive. then use the format tool zap provided 2 post up. made the win98 folder and copied the cab files over. then used the cd to boot into dos. the bios shows that the ide controller picks up a 120 gig drive but when u try to go to c: it cant access it. so put it back in the windows 10 machine disk part cleaned it again. tired the windows 98 disk again then fdisk it says it can't access the drive so tired super fdisk it says it can't access it either.

I had this happen to me once and I gave up on the SSD. I couldn't get it formatted and partitioned no matter what I did after that.

I have had more success portioning the drive using fdisk and formatting with the FORMAT command included on the disk. I then transfer the drive to a modern PC to realign the partition (which improves performance) using the mini partition tool . Again not the only way to do it but it worked for me so I stuck with it.

I've installed Win98 to 120 gigabyte SSD drives in the following computers: Asus TXP4, PCChips M930LMR, and an Epox MVP3G-M. I used Super FDISK and an OEM (bootable) ISO of Win98 that I copied to the hard drive. I used SATA to IDE adapters, and/or SATA PCI controllers. You may be dealing with some underlying hardware issue with the motherboard or the memory.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-07-17, 20:31:

I've installed Win98 to 120 gigabyte SSD drives in the following computers: Asus TXP4, PCChips M930LMR, and an Epox MVP3G-M. I used Super FDISK and an OEM (bootable) ISO of Win98 that I copied to the hard drive. I used SATA to IDE adapters, and/or SATA PCI controllers. You may be dealing with some underlying hardware issue with the motherboard or the memory.

could be. i did run memtest86 and the ram checked out. its only 256mb so its not over the 512mb cap for windows 98. when using the sata pci card everything installs perfectly fine but once u do a shut down then windows screws it self up and its corrupted. i do notice that the windows installs that sata card as a standard 2 port ide controller not sata. i did get a driver cd with the card but it has no 98 driver for the 3112 card it only 32bit drivers but i suspect there windows 2k or xp drivers windows says the drivers don't apply to the device if i try to manually install them. there is some windows 98 drivers on the card for a 3114 version of the card but it won't let me install those either.

the ide to sata don't even get that far even though the drive seems to be picked up nothing can access it for some reason the adapter i got only has 2 switches on it for setting master slave or cable select its set to master.

i have an ide drive on order from ebay but will be 2 weeks before that gets there.

does anyone know of a step by step guide to installing windows 98 on an ssd maybe i'm just missing something here i means its been 15 since i've done windows 98 installs and never to an ssd.

The Silicon Image PCI SATA cards I've tried have only worked on Intel chipsets - the one I use successfully with my Asus TXP4 has errors when I try to use it with Via chipsets. The Promise IDE cards have worked on everything I've tried them on, and the IDE 100 cards are inexpensive enough that they are still cheaper than the SATA ones even when you add in the cost of a SATA to IDE adapter.

Here is a good Win98 installation guide, I use Super FDISK and then this:

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win98/install … dexfullpage.htm

I like these adapters, and this one works with the SIS645 chipset on my 930LMR to deliver pretty good drive speed with a SATA SSD and Win98.

the motherboard is an asus TUSL2-C witch uses an Intel 815EP chipset. bios is updated to BIOS 1014.001 the last one.

with the sata card i've tried doing it every witch way. using normal fdisk and formatting using super fdisk using a windows 10 machine to do the format in fat32 no matter how i swing it windows craps the bed and becomes corrupted after a a shut down i had to down grade to a much older bios on the sata card to even get it to let me be able to do the install. the sata to ide adapter is even worst since nothing seems to be able to access the drive with it plugged in though that.

do i need to install a driver for the sata card once windows is installed windows seems to see the sata card as just an ide controller i can't seem to find any windows 98 drivers though for a silicon image 3112 though

IMO you should focus on finding out why the SATA to IDE adapter isn't working. The 815 is ATA 100, so it should offer as good if not better hard drive speed than the 3112 card.

ya i sent an email over to startech support asking if they had any ideas. https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/pata2sata3 the adapter i bought has some pretty bad reviews on there site alot saying it didn't work for them guess i should have checked there first but on amazon it had overall pretty good reviews but then again amazon lumps it in with several other products so some of the good reviews are for those. if they can't suggest any fixes ill see if they will swap it for the other model that mothergoose729 suggested that he said works for him lucky startech head office for Canada is in my town so should hopefully be an easy swap if they agree.

I've had several of those that have worked fine for me, but I read a review on Amazon where someone said that theirs caught on fire!

I've also had a number of these over the years that have worked well for me, but I know that others have had issues.

I've have nothing but major issues with the SIL based SATA cards. I won't use them anymore. I kinda don't relish the though of even trying to resell them and then the next person having problems with them as well.

They were super buggy and trashy back in the day when they came on motherboards as well.

The Promise SATA 1 150 cards always work and have Windows 9x drivers to boot. The Promise SATA 2 150 and 300 cards do not have Windows 9x drivers.

There are also a few other brands I have found and bought that also have Windows 9x drivers but I haven't done any testing with them yet.

For SATA to IDE adapters, I've been using the cheap Chinese ones off of eBay and they seem to work fine. You will just be limited by what the motherboard BIOS supports.