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48 bit LBA on 98SE with SIL3112A

fishindude

By fishindude
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fishindude

fishindude

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Howdy, hope someone can help.

I am aware (at least, I am now) of problems that 98SE has in accessing hard drives over 137 GB, due to 98's lack of support for 48 bit LBA. I know there is a helpful driver written by someone on these forums to overcome this on PATA hard drives.

After hours of scouring the net, I have come to the conclusion that most SATA chip makers supply a 98 driver that enables 48 bit. I have been unable to confirm whether this is true of the 98 driver for the ubiquitous SIL3112A SATA controller. Can anyone tell me if the latest driver for this chip enables 48 bit in 98SE?

Thanks in advance.

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fishindude

fishindude

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Hi, CC, thanks for the response.

Maybe I should have made clear in my post (thought I did) - I know about the ESDI_506.pdr driver on this site. It's great that someone took the time to do that, and I actually signed up for this forum to download it. However, that is an IDE controller driver. 98 sees an SIL3112A SATA controller as a SCSI device.

I have the latest, as far as I know, 98 drivers for this SATA controller. I have not been able to tell from the info at the Silicon Image site (they're a chip maker, they refer you to OEM) or the Abit site (board is an NF7-S r2) if the controller drivers enable 48 bit LBA. This is a very common SATA chip, it would seem to be of interest to this forum if it can enable large hard drives in 98.

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RetroOS

RetroOS

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Hi fishindude,

The following product links indicate support for Windows 98SE and 48-bit LBA using the Silicon Image Sil3112A Serial ATA Controller:

http://www.strattoncomputer.com/scs-s1022-i.html

http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_info.p...roducts_id/1635

http://www.upgradeware.com/english/product/s1022i/s1022i.htm

Here's a review of the Sil3112A that likewise indicates that it supports Windows 98SE and 48-bit LBA:

http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/storag...112/index.shtml

So... Looks like it does indeed support both Windows 98SE and 48-bit LBA!

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fishindude

fishindude

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Hi, Retro, thanks for the links!

1) I know that the controller supports 48 bit LBA.

2) I know that Windows 98SE is supported with drivers.

What I don't know is whether the drivers enable 48 bit support under 98SE. It may seem like I'm splitting hairs here, but I've run into a lot of cases where there is driver support for an older OS but the actual functionality is limited.

I ask this because I tried to install a 200 GB Samsung SATA drive on it about a week ago. I started out with Samsung (Ontrack) Disk Manager and wanted 2 fat32 partitions. Part way through it occurred to me: this thing is going to plant a DDO on there. I don't need no stinkin' DDO!!! So I stopped and wound up completing the job with Gparted. 98 saw and wrote to both partitions just fine, but also created a 3rd partition with no access that was driving my Norton Utilities nuts on every boot because it couldn't index it. XP, on the other hand, appeared normal. I thought that I had wound up with a DDO anyway, and in trying to correct this the drive ummm, died.

I'll know (I hope) next week when the new drive arrives. I'll keep everyone posted.

Thanks again!

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Mijzelf

Mijzelf

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1) I know that the controller supports 48 bit LBA.

2) I know that Windows 98SE is supported with drivers.

What I don't know is whether the drivers enable 48 bit support under 98SE.

You don't need to enable this. W9x uses 32 bit sector addressing internally, and it's up to the driver to tranlate this to the disk. In case of the default IDE driver, only 28 bits can be translated to the disk (which equals 128 GiB), because this driver only supports LBA28 addressing (and the older and even more limited CHS addressing). This is because LBA48 addressing was not yet invented in '98. Thus this limit is only for the default IDE driver.

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fishindude

fishindude

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Thanks, Mijzelf. The 48 bit thing may not be my problem at all, as I'll try to explain.

The new drive arrived today, a Samsung SP2004C, 200 GB. I installed it on SATA channel 1 with an new version of Disk Manager, told Disk Manager I was using XP w/sp1 (I lied) and created and formatted 2 fat 32 partitions. 98SE now sees 4 hard drive partitions in explorer - C: (60 GB Seagate IDE with a SATA adapter on SATA channel 0 - this is my OS drive, with 98, XP, and Linux partitions); D: (93 GB partition on new drive); E: - DOES NOT EXIST; and F: (93 GB partition on new drive).

It's the E: that's got me baffled. As I said, it does not exist. At boot, it drives my Norton Utilities nuts - Norton flashes a red warning box at me and says it can't scan the drive E:, that it's not configured correctly. Norton Disk Doctor also refuses to scan D: or F:, with the same message.

None of this stuff happens when I boot into XP - everything is just fine. I don't use Norton on XP, but XP utilities work on the new drive. I can read and write to the D: & F: partitions in 98, but I'm terrified of data corruption if 98 isn't reading the drive info correctly.

Does anyone have any ideas?

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fishindude

fishindude

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Update:

1) Used fdisk in a DOS window to delete all partitions, and created a primary and an extended DOS partition, each equal size. Fdisk demanded that I create a logical drive in the extended partition, so I did. Fdisk appeared to see both partitions correctly (93 GB). Rebooted. No phantom drive, no Norton errors! Formatted first partition from Windows - yeehah! No problem! Second partition WOULD NOT FORMAT. Bummer. Norton Disk Doctor still refusing to run.

2) Gave up on the multiple partition attempt, went to fdisk from DOS window and made the whole drive one large primary DOS partition. Rebooted. Formatted drive from Windows - no errors. Windows also sees the drive as 186 GB (same as BIOS reports), so apparently the driver IS translating 48 bit LBA. Not so, Norton. It refused to run until I added a NOLBACHECK dword value to the registry. Runs fine now.

It looks like 48 bit LBA is working in Windows 98SE, but Norton Disk Doctor 2001 doesn't support it.

So, I have 2 remaining questions:

A) Is it safe??? Before I transfer years worth of business data slumbering safely on an 80 GB IDE drive, I'd like to be a little more assured that I'm not really just flushing it.

B) Will running Norton Disk Doctor on it damage it?

Thanks to all who posted. In case you're wondering "why is this fool going through all this", I have to blame my loving spouse. She gets me a new tech toy every Christmas. This year's was a USB turntable to digitize our substantial collection of wax. Yes, that's right, we're old farts. Anyway, I should be able to fit it into 120 GB.

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RetroOS

RetroOS

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..Yes, that's right, we're old farts...

Old? Over 30?

Go into Device Manager under System in Control Panel.

Change the view to Device by connection.

Expand the tree and check where each drive connects to.

You may have to expand a number of lines to find the drives.

You will find a controller listed, then a channel, then the drive.

On the controller that each drive connects to, select Properties and check the driver.

Post controller name, driver name and date, and connected drive names if you can.

Edited by RetroOS
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fishindude

fishindude

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Yeah, I know it sounds weird, that's why I'm worried. I've partitioned hundreds of drives and never seen this behavior. But I'm a 98SE diehard (we old farts are set in our ways, dontcha know), and the thought of having to use XP all the time makes me physically ill. Thank God you guys are around, 'cause there's precious little 98 hardware info anywhere else these days.

30? Was I ever 30? I must have been sometime, I, I, can't really remember... :rolleyes:

OK, here goes - the connection tree is as follows:

1) PCI standard PCI to PCI Bridge (standard MS driver - "no driver files are required for this device...")

2) Silicon Image Sil 3112 SATARaid Controller

General tab - device type = scsi controllers;

driver tab = Provider - Silicon Image; Date - 5/14/2004

drivers = C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SI3112R.MPD (SI 2001)

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\IOS.VXD (MS 1999)

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SILSUPP.CPL (SI 2003)

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS\SIISUPP.VXD (SI 2003)

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS\SI3112R.MPD (SI 2004)

There is also a settings tab for command line parameters for an SCSI device.

3) Samsung SP2004C (200 GB Samsung HD, SATA, driver = standard MS - "no driver files....")

4) ST360020A (Seagate 60 GB IDE HD, on SATA adapter, driver = standard MS - "no driver files....")

The SI driver on the Abit site has a release date of 5/28/05, but the version and file dates on the extracted files appear to be what I've reported. I don't have (don't think I could) a RAID set.

Thanks again, for trying to help, and thanks in advance for any ideas you may have.

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dencorso

dencorso

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It looks like 48 bit LBA is working in Windows 98SE, but Norton Disk Doctor 2001 doesn't support it.

So, I have 2 remaining questions:

A) Is it safe??? Before I transfer years worth of business data slumbering safely on an 80 GB IDE drive, I'd like to be a little more assured that I'm not really just flushing it.

B) Will running Norton Disk Doctor on it damage it?

You need at least the Norton Disk Doctor 2003, which comes with Norton System Works 2003.

It also contains Norton Disk Doctor 2002 ..10E for DOS.

I bought mine (2003 Professional Edition) used really cheap on eBay...

As for your questions:

A) Probably. But testing your partitions along the lines described by LLXX wouldn't hurt. See the theads on 48bit LBA (one started by LLXX, the other by Petr) here on MSFN.

B) v. 2001 maybe. v. 2002 for DOS or 2003 for Win should be safe.

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