USB portable hard drives compatible with Win 98

[ivanbuto]

Hi all,

my older USB external hard disk is dying and I need to buy a new one to back up my data.

The drive that I have now uses the standard USB mass storage driver (geneuide.inf). I am using Windows 98 SE.

I am thinking about buying a 250GB or 320 GB drive, but all the major manufacturers (WD, Maxtor, Toshiba, etc.) don't list Windows 98 (SE) as a supported system.

My question is: Do you think that it will be possible to use for example the WD "My Passport" with Win 98? Will I need to install the Maximus Decim USB drivers? Or perhaps I could use the Wintricks generic USB driver?

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/...asp?DriveID=391

I have also found a manufacturer that does support Windows 98, however their drives on the internet are somewhat more expensive:

http://www.cavalrystorage.com/handheld.asp

Thanks for any advice.

[Chozo4]

It should work since it's just another mass storage device. However, although doubtful - you might end up with one formatted using NTFS which would mean a reformat into FAT32 but that could be the only real drawback.

As far as listed as win98/etc compatible, most usb thumbdrives nowdays for example list win2k/xp as minimum but work 100%. A few aren't even listing win2k anymore for that matter but still work fine. So, should be the same for USB hard-drives.

Only *cough*'real'*cough* requirement for an OS is due to the software that comes pre-loaded onto the drive which is often not used anyway. Such software may not be compatible such as the U3-Software on a [specific manufacturers] drive (junk anyway; loads on drive insert and takes forever to even load).

Why not consider getting a Hard-Drive enclosure instead? This way if the drive dies you can easily open it up and swap out the hard drive itself. Also versatile as you can also swap it out for 'adapted' laptop drives or cd drives. Which even further makes it usable to swap-in an HD from another PC for drive cloning/imaging or even recovery.

As for driver, your best bet would be Maximus-Decims USB drivers. From personal experience, they've yet to fail me. Your Mileage May Vary...

Edited May 29, 2008 by Chozo4

[niknak]

WD do appear to support this HDD in W98SE go here http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?...=18&swid=38 or if that is not the one try

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/ph...amp;p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb

3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MTcsMTcmcF9wcm9kcz0yMjgsMjA5LDIxMSZwX2NhdHM9MTIzJnBfcHY9My4yMTEmcF9jdj0xLjEyMyZwX

3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2VhcmNoX2ZubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PTk4U0U*&p_li=&p_topview=1

Sorry about the length of that link but it goes to their support page It appears there may also be a driver for W98 FE (Retail ver).

Driver can be found here http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?...=18&swid=38

HTH

Edited May 29, 2008 by niknak