Max Size Of Hard Drive That 98SE Can Handle

[rloew]

Recently I've encountered a problem with 250GB primary partition. The amount of data stored there was growing. When it reached about 200GB the system failed to boot one day. It looked like the system registry became corrupted. Restoration of the saved registry files did not helped. The boot failed in exactly the same way.

I had a copy of Windows and Program Files folders stored at the same partition. So, I was able to get the system working in an instant. However, further experiment revealed interesting behavior. I tried to add another copy of the system folders on the primary partition, but trying to boot from the new copy was always ending with a blue screen and system registry corruption. Since the same file set was working perfectly at the same time, the only logical explanation was the system files were placed at different parts of the partition. The newest copy was placed at the end, while the older somewhere at the beginning.

Finally I freed enough space and reduced the primary partition size below 128GB. I was able to add the third working copy of the system files, then.

Before the failure of the main system folder set, everything was working perfectly with two SATA hard drives. The first one 500GB is connected through an SATA to ATA adaptor to Intel 845 motherboard with Intel Application Accelerator installed. The second one 1TB is connected to PCI SATA SiI 3512 controller. Both hard drives were fully accessible from Windows and DOS. So, 32bit mode drivers and BIOS were working correctly. No file system corruption happened, so far.

It appears, there is some weak point during the kernel boot, when the system can crash if the primary partition size is greater than 128GB. If some system files are placed too high on the large partition it can cause the boot failure and registry corruption on otherwise fully functional system.

Your motherboard BIOS may not support more than 128GiB (137GB). Run the 48BITLBA.EXE Program in my High Capacity Disk Patch Demo in DOS, not a DOS Box, to find out.

[Sfor]

It is not the BIOS limitation problem, I believe. It would not be possible to see the whole drive in DOS,

48-Bit LBA Support Test  Version 5.1

Copyright (C) 2004-2006 by
Rudolph R. Loew
All Rights Reserved

Drive 1:  500GB =  976773168 Sectors  48-Bit LBA Disk - 48-Bit Support Verified
Drive 2: 1000GB = 1953525168 Sectors  48-Bit LBA Disk - 48-Bit Support Verified
Drive 3:    0MB =          0 Sectors  Not 48-Bit Disk

Edited January 13, 2011 by Sfor

[rloew]

It is not the BIOS limitation problem, I believe. It would not be possible to see the whole drive in DOS,

48-Bit LBA Support Test  Version 5.1

Copyright (C) 2004-2006 by
Rudolph R. Loew
All Rights Reserved

Drive 1:  500GB =  976773168 Sectors  48-Bit LBA Disk - 48-Bit Support Verified
Drive 2: 1000GB = 1953525168 Sectors  48-Bit LBA Disk - 48-Bit Support Verified
Drive 3:    0MB =          0 Sectors  Not 48-Bit Disk

Run the 48BITLBA.EXE Program from a DOS Box under Windows to verify the Drivers.

[Sfor]

As a matter of fact I did just that. The only difference in the plain DOS is the drive 3. As it is not available without GUI running.

[dencorso]

Does Drive 3 really exist? And, if so, which maker and model is it?

I'm getting confused... Please do identify your motherboard and the SATA card in more detail, too. You may be facing a problem with the BIOS (firmware) of the SATA card.

[rloew]

As a matter of fact I did just that. The only difference in the plain DOS is the drive 3. As it is not available without GUI running.

I assume drive 3 is an USB Drive.

Do you use any Diskeeper products?

[Sfor]

I can not tell which particular drive is the third one. I just have too many of them. Besides, the problem is not related to the drive 3, I believe.

In any case the hardware is:

IBM NetVista series motherboard with Intel 845 chipset.

- primary motherboard IDE port - 500GB SATA drive connected through SATA to ATA adapter (the problem happend on this particular drive)

- secondary motherboard IDE port - DVD-RW and CD-RW drives.

- Unitek PCI SiI 3114 SATA controller - 1000 GB SATA drive

- Tekram DC-390 PCI SCSI controller - Removable drives - SyQuest 270MB drive and 640MB Fujitsu MO drive

- USB flash reader.

And, No, I'm not using any Diskeeper software.

Edited January 31, 2011 by Sfor