Tom's Hardware > Forum > Windows 95/98/ME > Windows 95/98/Me General Discussion > win98 not able to handle drives >32GB

win98 not able to handle drives >32GB

Forum Windows 95/98/ME : Windows 95/98/Me General Discussion - win98 not able to handle drives >32GB

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viper_1   05-11-2003 at 07:22:56 PM

Hi Folks,

Having trouble here transfering my win98SE system over to a larger hard drive. The primary DOS partition is 5GB and the Extended partition is 35GB, partitioned as 4GB, 10GB, 10GB, 6GB, 2GB and 2GB. Windows shows the Last 2 partitions, but cannot access these partitions. I ran the FDisk fix suggested on the Microsoft side. Also writing to the 6GB partition affects the primary dos partition, causing one of the FAT copies to be incosistent from the other. Fixing this then corrupts directories on the 6GB partition. Whatever the problem partitions under the 32GB mark seem to be unaffected. Not sure if this is due to upgrading from win95, the VIA Hard Disk controllers on my ageing K7M motherboard, (Had to flash the BIOS), or something else I haven't considered.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanx.

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Crashman   05-12-2003 at 05:29:12 AM
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Does the drive even show up full size in BIOS? Because this problem is normally related to BIOS, not Fdisk. For example, I sucessfully ran an 80GB drive on a Pentium 1 board after updating the BIOS for large drive support (over 32GB) and then using fdisk and format from a 98SE boot floppy.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

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4ryan6   05-12-2003 at 05:50:40 AM
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Yes I agree with Crashman, the latest BIOS flash should resolve the issue, but you'll probably be looking at a reinstallation of the OP/SYS.

<b><font color=purple>Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.</font color=purple></b>

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viper_1   05-12-2003 at 10:02:35 PM
- 0 +

Thanks Guys, I have eventually found the answer. It was the crumby Hard Drive Controllers from VIA. The latest upgrade for this didn't solve the problem, but they also had a new 4 in 1 driver patch that did the Job. I still wanted to keep my win98SE installation as a reference for the new XP machine I am building, which will in course take over the duties of this machine.

Thanks once again.

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