There is an R. Loew high capacity disk patch which apparently allows storage above 128 GB.

You can get the patches from Phil's Computer lab here: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/rudolph-r-loew-patches.html

The patch you want is the included HCDP patch. Note that I have not tried this patch myself.

My understanding is that it goes something like this:

1) Make sure your BIOS supports LBA48. If your motherboard doesn't support LBA48, you would want to use a third party IDE controller with ATA-133 or Sata support or add XTide Universal Bios as an option rom, or put v10.x of OnTrack on your hard drive. https://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2056
2) Install windows 98 in an active boot partition that is located in the first 128GB of the drive
3) Install this driver https://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=635 to access the rest of your drive

Please correct me if I made any mistakes here--

Edit - We also have Rloew's driver here: https://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1814

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-12-30, 19:48:

There is an R. Loew high capacity disk patch which apparently allows storage above 128 GB.

You can get the patches from Phil's Computer lab here: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/rudolph-r-loew-patches.html

The patch you want is the included HCDP patch. Note that I have not tried this patch myself.

Oh cool. Thanks. So it really is as simple as installing a patch...?

douglar wrote on 2025-12-30, 19:52:

My understanding is that it goes something like this: […]
Show full quote

My understanding is that it goes something like this:

1) Make sure your BIOS supports LBA48. If your motherboard doesn't support LBA48, you would want to use a third party IDE controller with ATA-133 or Sata support or add XTide Universal Bios as an option rom, or put v10.x of OnTrack on your hard drive. https://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2056
2) Install windows 98 in an active boot partition that is located in the first 128GB of the drive
3) Install this driver https://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=635 to access the rest of your drive

Please correct me if I made any mistakes here--

Edit - We also have Rloew's driver here: https://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1814

Okay. Is there a way of finding out if my BIOS supports LBA48? But I'll give the links a read-over. I take it there's no way of not installing 98 on an active boot partition...? Though I suppose it could just be deleted afterward.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-30, 20:02:

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-12-30, 19:48:

There is an R. Loew high capacity disk patch which apparently allows storage above 128 GB.

You can get the patches from Phil's Computer lab here: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/rudolph-r-loew-patches.html

The patch you want is the included HCDP patch. Note that I have not tried this patch myself.

Oh cool. Thanks. So it really is as simple as installing a patch...?

Like I said, I've never tried this patch so I can't tell you how simple or complicated it may end up being.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-30, 20:05:

Okay. Is there a way of finding out if my BIOS supports LBA48? But I'll give the links a read-over. I take it there's no way of not installing 98 on an active boot partition...? Though I suppose it could just be deleted afterward.

If your BIOS is newer than Feb 2001, you probably have LBA48 support.

If it is older than Jan 2001, you probably don't.

You can install Win98 on another partition as long as the boot sector msdos.sys, & IO.sys are on the primary partition, but that's not recommended here.

You can always just use two drives.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-12-30, 20:12:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-30, 20:02:

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-12-30, 19:48:

There is an R. Loew high capacity disk patch which apparently allows storage above 128 GB.

You can get the patches from Phil's Computer lab here: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/rudolph-r-loew-patches.html

The patch you want is the included HCDP patch. Note that I have not tried this patch myself.

Oh cool. Thanks. So it really is as simple as installing a patch...?

Like I said, I've never tried this patch so I can't tell you how simple or complicated it may end up being.

You did. Fair enough. ^^; I guess I'll take the risk and give it a go. 😀

douglar wrote on 2025-12-30, 20:34:

If your BIOS is newer than Feb 2001, you probably have LBA48 support. […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-30, 20:05:

Okay. Is there a way of finding out if my BIOS supports LBA48? But I'll give the links a read-over. I take it there's no way of not installing 98 on an active boot partition...? Though I suppose it could just be deleted afterward.

If your BIOS is newer than Feb 2001, you probably have LBA48 support.

If it is older than Jan 2001, you probably don't.

You can install Win98 on another partition as long as the boot sector msdos.sys, & IO.sys are on the primary partition, but that's not recommended here.

I'm not 100% sure on its release date - the motherboard and the BIOS - but I think it did come out around 2001. It has been updated to the latest, but I think it's early 2001.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-12-30, 21:08:

You can always just use two drives.

If you mean the HDD I currently have and a new one, I can't sadly. I only have enough space for three HDDs in total. One for Windows, one for games, and then one for CD images. 😀

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-12-30, 19:48:

There is an R. Loew high capacity disk patch which apparently allows storage above 128 GB.

You can get the patches from Phil's Computer lab here: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/rudolph-r-loew-patches.html

The patch you want is the included HCDP patch. Note that I have not tried this patch myself.

I'm about to try this patch now, so will report if it installs okay or not.

Well, the patch has installed, but I don't think it's going to work. Running the checker, which is 48bitlba, it says all three HDDs are not 48-bit, which I didn't think would be. The readme lists having a BIOS with 48-bit as a requirement, too.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-31, 18:11:

Well, the patch has installed, but I don't think it's going to work. Running the checker, which is 48bitlba, it says all three HDDs are not 48-bit, which I didn't think would be. The readme lists having a BIOS with 48-bit as a requirement, too.

If you can't find a bios upgrade, and you are not brave enough to mod your bios DIY Bios Modding guide Jan Steunebrink k6-2+/3+ 128gb , and you don't have an ISA card with an option rom socket for XUB, you can always do ontrack 10.46. https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ontrack-disk-manager.html

douglar wrote on 2025-12-31, 19:05:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-31, 18:11:

Well, the patch has installed, but I don't think it's going to work. Running the checker, which is 48bitlba, it says all three HDDs are not 48-bit, which I didn't think would be. The readme lists having a BIOS with 48-bit as a requirement, too.

If you can't find a bios upgrade, and you are not brave enough to mod your bios DIY Bios Modding guide Jan Steunebrink k6-2+/3+ 128gb , and you don't have an ISA card with an option rom socket for XUB, you can always do ontrack 10.46. https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ontrack-disk-manager.html

Yeah, I don't think I want to risk modding the BIOS. ^^; Funnily enough, I did download Ontrack a little while ago, but I've no idea why 🤣. As a disk manager I figured it would come in useful. Looks like I was right. But how would that help exactly? Especially if my BIOS doesn't support 48-bit LBA?

Looking at the readme though, it sounds as though I need to install a larger HDD first and then run the utility to check.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-31, 19:16:

Yeah, I don't think I want to risk modding the BIOS. ^^; Funnily enough, I did download Ontrack a little while ago, but I've no idea why 🤣. As a disk manager I figured it would come in useful. Looks like I was right. But how would that help exactly? Especially if my BIOS doesn't support 48-bit LBA?

Looking at the readme though, it sounds as though I need to install a larger HDD first and then run the utility to check.

OK, so most of the BIOS storage limitations involve any or all of these things:

• the BIOS setup program that you go into before booting can't handle values over a certain size
• the BIOS drive table which stores your fixed disk info can't handle values over a certain size
• the INT13H BIOS function call that runs the fixed storage for DOS can't handle values over a certain size

What OnTrack will do is hide some code on your hard drive that exists outside your normal partition and runs when the mast boot record (MBR) is loaded:

1. Runs before DOS boots
2. Replaces the BIOS drive table with a new one that has the correct values
3. Redirects the INT13H BIOS function to a new device driver that it stuffs in conventional memory that handles things correctly
4. Starts booting from your DOS Win9x partition

Normally I recomend EZdrive over OnTrack, but if you need LBA48, OnTrack is the only game in town.

douglar wrote on 2025-12-31, 20:04:

OK, so most of the BIOS storage limitations involve any or all of these things: […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-31, 19:16:

Yeah, I don't think I want to risk modding the BIOS. ^^; Funnily enough, I did download Ontrack a little while ago, but I've no idea why 🤣. As a disk manager I figured it would come in useful. Looks like I was right. But how would that help exactly? Especially if my BIOS doesn't support 48-bit LBA?

Looking at the readme though, it sounds as though I need to install a larger HDD first and then run the utility to check.

OK, so most of the BIOS storage limitations involve any or all of these things:

• the BIOS setup program that you go into before booting can't handle values over a certain size
• the BIOS drive table which stores your fixed disk info can't handle values over a certain size
• the INT13H BIOS function call that runs the fixed storage for DOS can't handle values over a certain size

What OnTrack will do is hide some code on your hard drive that exists outside your normal partition and runs when the mast boot record (MBR) is loaded:

1. Runs before DOS boots
2. Replaces the BIOS drive table with a new one that has the correct values
3. Redirects the INT13H BIOS function to a new device driver that it stuffs in conventional memory that handles things correctly
4. Starts booting from your DOS Win9x partition

Normally I recomend EZdrive over OnTrack, but if you need LBA48, OnTrack is the only game in town.

Ahh, I see. Interesting. Learning new stuff all the time. 😀 Just so glad that HDDs are cheap to get, so will look at ordering one very soon and try this out.

Is this a tool that would need booting each time or is it something that only needs to be run the once?

If you have a spare PCI slot you can go down the hardware support route. Something like an older Silicon Image ATA133 controller E.G. SIL0680 non-raid that has the option boot ROM with it's own LBA48 support, or a similar Promise card.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-31, 21:40:

Ahh, I see. Interesting. Learning new stuff all the time. 😀 Just so glad that HDDs are cheap to get, so will look at ordering one very soon and try this out.

Is this a tool that would need booting each time or is it something that only needs to be run the once?

This type of tool is called a “Dynamic Drive Overlay”. A drive overlay gets installed into a tiny space outside of your normal partitions, runs at bootup before your operating system.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/glossary/what-is-ddo/index.html

https://www.tek-tips.com/threads/ontrack-dyna … overlay.841791/

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-12-30, 21:43:

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-12-30, 21:08:

You can always just use two drives.

If you mean the HDD I currently have and a new one, I can't sadly. I only have enough space for three HDDs in total. One for Windows, one for games, and then one for CD images. 😀

If all else fails, you can also split that 256GB drive into two partitions, one 128GB and one with the remaining space. This is what I did in my Win95 system, but split into 32GB partitions.