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Install w98 on Large Drives (Above the 137Gb Barrier)


Fredledingue

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Actually to my surprise, when I used PM8 to expand the size of the partition while I was in Windows, it did not restart into dos to do it. I guess it only needs to do that on NTFS partitions.

This time I had used the PM floppy to initially partition and format 120GB, installed Windows and assorted updates and software including PartitionMagic. Then I expanded the size to the maximum PM allowed, about 200GB of my drive like I said before.

If I had used FDISK I could have use of that 15% that PM leaves as unpartitioned free space, but then I'd be afraid to use PartitionMagic utilities to work with the drive in the future. It keeps that free space for some reason so I just went along with it. I'll never fill it up anyway!

BootMagic works great as a boot loader for my Windows/Linux on the other hard drive dual boot.

You can FDISK the whole thing. Problem is going into SafeMode on first boot, and I did that once for a problem, has Windows continue the installation without the cd available! It does finish, but it was weird not having some of the stuff it copies over after that first boot.

Better to find some way of doing CommandPromptOnly. Maybe holding the ctrl key down? Or tapping F8 instead of holding it? Gotta be some way.

And the Via Sata controllers, with the driver installed on the very first Windows boot and NOT continuing in MS-DOS Compatibility Paging Mode, work fine (except on these 2 stupid Epox boards I have now). No corruption no matter how big. That ESDI.PDR driver isn't used. Installing the 48 bit patch is not needed, but I suppose can't hurt things since the driver it changes isn't being used.

Edited by Eck
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If I had used FDISK I could have use of that 15% that PM leaves as unpartitioned free space, but then I'd be afraid to use PartitionMagic utilities to work with the drive in the future. It keeps that free space for some reason so I just went along with it. I'll never fill it up anyway!

I must admit that having used various versions of PM over the past 6-7 yrs, I have never had one instance when PM held back unpartitioned free space that I could not use in the way that you have described.

The only stipulation that I understand exists is that PM requires partitions be <90% full.

Cheers

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Partition Magic allows to create another partition in the unused space, or divide the disk into 2 big partitions. What it can't do is format a whole 250 GB (decimal gigabyte) hard drive with a single FAT32 partition. So far I have not tried bigger than 250 GB drives.

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I'm going to try it on a 400 Gb HD.

I'll post the results here. (in one week or so, the time to manage/save the datas which are already on it, on a downsized partition.)

You can FDISK the whole thing. Problem is going into SafeMode on first boot, and I did that once for a problem, has Windows continue the installation without the cd available! It does finish, but it was weird not having some of the stuff it copies over after that first boot.

Better to find some way of doing CommandPromptOnly. Maybe holding the ctrl key down?

That was it! Many thanks! Actualy F8 let me choose the boot drive (floppy, HD, CD-rom etc). :thumbup

I still didn't make up my mind about the size and number of partitions.

Would be fun to have one single partition of 400 Gb, but for safety sake, I may do 3 x 135 Gb or 135 Gb + 265 Gb. Or a 5 Gb partition for Windows and program files, the rest, 395 Gb for documents. That way I could easily ghost it and roll it back by restoring the whole partition whenever I need without affecting the documents.

Edited by Fredledingue
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So this thread is about, how you cant install a internal HD later then 137GB on WIN98SE

I was thinking about buying a HD , 160GB, i cant use it?

Please read,... then write.

Edited by Sfor
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Maybe holding the ctrl key down?

That was it! Many thanks! Actualy F8 let me choose the boot drive (floppy, HD, CD-rom etc). :thumbup.

Then it's hardware managed, before the OS boots.

+booting DOS 6 in safe mode was achieved by the Ctrl key, maybe not for Win98.

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yep, it should work.

Just as soon as you install Win98SE install LLXX's 2225 patch or Gapes Unofficial Service Pack 3 beta 1

Personally I'd divide it into at least 2 partitions, each no partition bigger than 120GB (you still need the patches though)

Edited by galahs
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  • 3 months later...

Excellent tutorial on how to use FDISK:

http://fdisk.radified.com/

(if it's your first time, you definetely have to read it)

As I can see the catch is, finaly, to get a suitable bootable floppy with the updated files either by downloading the M$ Q311561 patch here before creating your boot floppy (then if you want, re-apply MDGx's BHDD30 update) or by downloading BOOT98SC.EXE from bootdisk.com and replace the files but the ME version should work, since updated files are from ME.

During the w98 installation, when the installer reboot, you have to press F8 (or Ctrl on some computers) and reboot in DOS. Then replace the files (both those from the 48BitLBA - Break 137Gb barrier - patch and from BHDD30.zip.) to avoid system crash or other problems.

You must also replace scandisk.exe from MDGx's package SCANFRAG (Thanks Dencorso for this info).

To facilitate this task I wrote a batch script. Instead of typing every command one by one, just type the location and name of the bat file containing htis code.

This script works if all the files are located in the same directory as that of the bat file. The source directory not being coded in. You must pick the files manualy from an updated system and copy them to the directory where you will place the batch script.

Before gathering all the files from theirs Windows locations you must have applied all these patches (already mentioned above):

Q311561

BHDD30

48BitLBA

SCANFRAG

It will aslo open system.ini to allow you the make the changes for more than 512Mb of memory.

Code Updated 8th July 2008

@echo off

echo Support for hard discs larger than 125Gb
move C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS\ESDI_506.PDR C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS\ESDI_506.OLD
copy ESDI_506.PDR C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS\ESDI_506.PDR

move C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\IOS.VXD C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\IOS.old
copy IOS.VXD C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\IOS.VXD

attrib -s -h -r IO.SYS
move C:\IO.SYS C:\IO.old
copy IO.SYS C:\IO.SYS
attrib +s +h +r IO.SYS

move C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\SCANDSKW.EXE C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\SCANDSKW.old
copy SCANDSKW.EXE C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\SCANDSKW.EXE
move C:\WINDOWS\SCANDSKW.EXE C:\WINDOWS\SCANDSKW.old
copy SCANDSKW.EXE C:\WINDOWS\SCANDSKW.EXE

move C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\DSKMAINT.DLL C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\DSKMAINT.old
copy DSKMAINT.DLL C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\DSKMAINT.DLL
move C:\WINDOWS\System\DSKMAINT.DLL C:\WINDOWS\System\DSKMAINT.old
copy DSKMAINT.DLL C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\DSKMAINT.DLL

move C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\DSKMAINT.DLL C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\DSKMAINT.old
copy DSKMAINT.DLL C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\DSKMAINT.DLL
move C:\WINDOWS\System\DSKMAINT.DLL C:\WINDOWS\System\DSKMAINT.old
copy DSKMAINT.DLL C:\WINDOWS\System\DSKMAINT.DLL

move C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\DEFRAG.EXE C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\DEFRAG.old
copy DEFRAG.EXE C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\DEFRAG.EXE
move C:\WINDOWS\DEFRAG.EXE C:\WINDOWS\DEFRAG.old
copy DEFRAG.EXE C:\WINDOWS\DEFRAG.EXE

move C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\CVTAPLOG.EXE C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\CVTAPLOG.old
copy CVTAPLOG.EXE C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS\CVTAPLOG.EXE
move C:\WINDOWS\CVTAPLOG.EXE C:\WINDOWS\CVTAPLOG.old
copy CVTAPLOG.EXE C:\WINDOWS\CVTAPLOG.EXE

move C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\FORMAT.COM C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\FORMAT.old
copy FORMAT.COM C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\FORMAT.COM

move C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EBD\FDISK.EXE C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EBD\FDISK.old
copy FDISK.EXE C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EBD\FDISK.EXE
move C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\fdisk.exe C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\fdisk.old
copy FDISK.EXE C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\fdisk.exe

move C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ADVPACK.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ADVPACK.old
copy ADVPACK.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ADVPACK.DLL

move C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\W95INF32.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\W95INF32.old
copy W95INF32.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\W95INF32.DLL

move C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SCANDISK.EXE C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SCANDISK.old
copy SCANDISK.EXE C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SCANDISK.EXE
move C:\WINDOWS\SCANDISK.EXE C:\WINDOWS\SCANDISK.old
copy SCANDISK.EXE C:\WINDOWS\SCANDISK.EXE

edit C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI

Any comment?

Edited by Fredledingue
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Any comment?

Yes. Two. I'm sure you know this already, but just for the sake of future readers of this topic:

(1) The IOS.VXD one should use is 4.10.2225 and is findable inside Gape's Unofficial Service Pack or inside Q239696.

(2) The LLXX's patched ESDI_506.PDR that one should use is 4.10.2225, unless one has an IBM Laptop.

And, BTW, great post: I'm sure it'll be of help for many users. You rock! :thumbup

PS: It's also a good idea to remind the reader that the IO.SYS from Q311561 (which you alreadey had given a pointer to) must be installed also to the HDD, not just to the floppy bootdisk. Of course it'll end there if the floppy is used to format/s the HDD. But perhaps your batch might install it to both the root dir and c:\windows\command\EBD, just in case. And since it is named winboot.98s inside Q311561, you'll need to rename it to IO.SYS, before doing the copies.

Edited by dencorso
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dencorso,

Q311561.exe is an installer, I can't etract individual files via batch script.

My IO.SYS on my root drive at the moment dates from dec 2001. Is it the latest updated version?

I had a quick look to:

311561usa8.exe

For the record, it appears to be a CAB self-extracting archive, with a stub of 67224 bytes.

Search in it with a hex editor, for "PMSCF" the "P" is the last byte of the stub, "MSCF" is the header of the CAB.

Once you remove the first 67224 (and possibly change the extension to CAB), it should be uncompressable with "normal" EXTRACT.EXE. (did not test personally)

Contents are these:

01/12/2001  11.06				1.368 1998UN.INF
01/12/2001 11.03 1.378 2222UN.INF
01/12/2001 10.55 765 311561UP.INF
01/12/2001 11.01 2.568 98G_chk.INF
03/12/2001 12.47 2.572 98SE_chk.INF
11/12/1997 05.33 80.864 ADVPACK.DLL
12/08/1998 20.32 16.896 csetup.exe
27/07/1998 14.48 36.864 qfecheck.exe
09/02/1996 17.28 8.042 qfecheck.hlp
04/12/1997 12.02 2.272 W95INF16.DLL
04/12/1997 12.02 4.608 W95INF32.DLL
30/11/2001 15.31 222.670 winboot.98g
01/12/2001 09.37 222.670 winboot.98s

The two winboot.98x should be IO.SYS renamed for Gold and SE.

jaclaz

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I'm not sure if I will include IO.SYS because it's supposed to be created during disk formating and also because I'm not sure it's possible to replace it even in DOS without error or that it's safe to do that.

Note: If you face the "Drive running in DOS compatibility mode" issue after applying LLXX's ESDI_506.PDR version 4.10.2225, then use version 4.10.2222.

Note: batch script updated! (Added: Fdisk.exe)

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