Which version of WIn95 are you installing as earlier versions didn't have Fat32 support.
OSR2 aka Win95B or later should be ok, should. However tools like scandisk had problems with larger drives, I cant remember the details though.
IMHO, your much better going with a smaller primary partition, like 2-4GB and put the rest in a extended partition, much less chance of Windows corrupting itself.
(not to mention quicker scandisk scan time if the computer isn't shutdown properly)

There’s a lot of limits you might need to work around--

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Storage# … age_Limitations

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Storage# … age_Limitations

chinny22 wrote on 2025-11-25, 05:21:

Which version of WIn95 are you installing as earlier versions didn't have Fat32 support. OSR2 aka Win95B or later should be ok, […]
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Which version of WIn95 are you installing as earlier versions didn't have Fat32 support.
OSR2 aka Win95B or later should be ok, should. However tools like scandisk had problems with larger drives, I cant remember the details though.
IMHO, your much better going with a smaller primary partition, like 2-4GB and put the rest in a extended partition, much less chance of Windows corrupting itself.
(not to mention quicker scandisk scan time if the computer isn't shutdown properly)

It's Win95 OSR2 with Fat32. Using boot floppy for fdisk and format.

tiim wrote on 2025-11-24, 21:47:

Hi everyone, I'm sure this topic has been been debated for decades now. […]
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Hi everyone, I'm sure this topic has been been debated for decades now.

I have two systems. One is a Gateway PIII with the Intel 440BX chipset, the other is custom with an Elitegroup P6LX-A (not B or Plus version) motherboard, PII-233 MMX and the Intel 440LX chipset.

I have tried a number of drive types and sizes to get these machines working. I am not using an XT-IDE BIOS nor a Promise or other 3rd party PCI HDD controller. I aim to use what the motherboard has.

The newer BX Gateway really hasn't been a problem. Every drive under 128GB be it an SSD, CF or spindizzy, works when installing Win95 OSR-2 or 98SE or 2000.

The older system, well, it's been frustrating.

Initially, I was using a 32GB CF... for a day. What fun is 32GB, right?

Enter the rabbit hole...

I (re)learned so much over the next two weeks. Apparently Award BIOS of the 1997/1998 era were flawed, and though they supported "large" (>32GB) disk geometries, they had bugs at 32 or 64 GB levels.
I flashed a patched BIOS with "120GB" support. I am still unclear why it is not labeled "128GB"
My 128GB SSD is recognized as such in BIOS. I set it to AUTO/LBA, however no amount of fdisk /mbr lets Win9x (FAT32) boot. I tried a 64GB MicroSD inside a SD to CF adapter, that was a "WRITE-PROTECTED" nightmare, though the slide switch is unlocked. My 32GB and 8GB CF cards work fine.

Frustrated, I used SeaTools to make it a 117GB drive, no luck. Safe thing. Fdisk and format would complete but it wouldn't see drive C after reboot.

Thinking the BIOS/HDD pair was the culprit the whole time...

Exhausted, I formatted the active partition to 500MB for grins and what do you know, the darn thing booted Win95.

I understand MS-DOS 6 has an 2GB limit boot partition (and subsequent extended) limit, does Win9x using Fat32 have a similar active partition limit? If so, what is it? Why does it lets me go through the right steps only to fail?

OK, that was fun. I am guessing I can use this 120GB SSD but make the boot (C) partition under 32GB and let the rest of the drive be an extended large partition.

Format in windows using HPUSBDisk and select create startup disk. use win98 boot disk, is better than win95, thats all. If bios really recognize correctly 128GB you will not have any problems

douglar wrote on 2025-11-25, 23:31:

There’s a lot of limits you might need to work around--

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Storage# … age_Limitations

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Storage# … age_Limitations

Thanks @douglar for the information, reading up on it now.