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Question About Using A SATA Drive With Windows 98SE


Monroe

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So, I'd say your safest bet would be to stick to a 120 GB PATA HDD. If that's not enough, then we'll have to tackle the issue of 48-bit LBA, which your BIOS (SXi-BIOS-v16 is the latest still offered by NEC) probably doesn't support. And, while the Intel Application Acellerator has you covered, you'd have to use special measures to be safe while on DOS (at least at boot time). I'd advise a third party BIOS upgrade or a DDO, but YMMV. So the ball is up on your court again... what do you wish to do, from this point?

A word of caution if you decide to use Intel Application Accelerator along with a DDO. Make sure you don't install a DDO developed by Ontrack, as doing so will render the OS unbootable. They're incompatible with each other. Ontrack's DDO is typically included with hard drive installation software such as Maxtor's MaxBlast, Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Tools, or Seagate's SeaTools.

RLoew's DDO (Bootman) will work with IAA.

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Welcome to MSFN, Foxbat! :hello:

Yes, I confess I had RLoew's DDO in mind, when I mentioned a DDO.

Likewise, I had e-Support in mind, when I wrote about a 3rd party BIOS.

However, I do find their current BIOS detection system annoying (an installable windows program), and I rather prefer using their old standalone DOS BIOS detection program (which they still offer for download, although they don't tell you so), which v. 0.80 is here. Also available is the later v.1.20 of the BIOS detect program, from this old page (thanks to the Wayback Machine). After running either in true DOS, I get the BIOS.TXT file it generates and send it together with my enquire about their actually having a BIOS update for the given machine by e-mail to support@esupport.com, and don't have to install any program in that given machine's Windows setup. :)

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So, I'd say your safest bet would be to stick to a 120 GB PATA HDD. If that's not enough, then we'll have to tackle the issue of 48-bit LBA, which your BIOS (SXi-BIOS-v16 is the latest still offered by NEC) probably doesn't support. And, while the Intel Application Acellerator has you covered, you'd have to use special measures to be safe while on DOS (at least at boot time). I'd advise a third party BIOS upgrade or a DDO, but YMMV. So the ball is up on your court again... what do you wish to do, from this point?

A word of caution if you decide to use Intel Application Accelerator along with a DDO. Make sure you don't install a DDO developed by Ontrack, as doing so will render the OS unbootable. They're incompatible with each other. Ontrack's DDO is typically included with hard drive installation software such as Maxtor's MaxBlast, Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Tools, or Seagate's SeaTools.

RLoew's DDO (Bootman) will work with IAA.

Some DDOs are very dangerous. They offset the Sectors on the Hard Drive. This makes the Drive totally unreadable in a system where the DDO is not active, even if the BIOS fully supports the Drive. If the DDO is damaged there is no easy recovery. This is why DDOs have such a bad reputation. Microsoft's ESDI_506.PDR Driver is designed to handle these DDOs, but other Drivers, including IAA apparently, generally do not.

My BOOTMAN DDOs are designed to be compatable with other Drivers and not to alter the Disk layout, so the Drives can be used in other computers without the DDO being active, except the Encrypting DDO of course.

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I'm still following this topic ... it's a bit more complicated than I had expected when I first asked my question. For people still using older computers, motherboards and such, the options have dropped dramatically through the years. I never heard of the term DDO and the discussion that has been going on ... I have googled DDO, Ontrack DDO, old standalone DOS BIOS detection program v0.80 and most of the other stuff in the last few posts. This is all very educational to me and maybe others as well.

I do want to add something that has me puzzled ... perhaps I was too hasty in "condemning" CPU-z in an earlier post since the chipset ID it gave me didn't seem to match what Everest Home Edition was telling me ... dencorso wanted the information to assist me ... however, yesterday I ran the Intel Chipset ID utility and it agrees with the information CPU-z was giving me.

CPUz info: Intel ... i440BX/ZX Rev 1 ... no Southbridge info listed

Everest info: Intel 82443BX/ZX ... South Bridge: Intel 82371EB PIIX4E

Intel Chipset ID Utility: i440BX/ZX Rev 1

.... so what is a good program to have? .... all three I guess but at least Everest gave me Southbridge information.

jaclaz ... I already had SIW 2009 installed on my computer ... I had missed the newer version (2010) that you listed.

rloew ... when you say : My BOOTMAN DDOs are designed to be compatable with other Drivers and not to alter the Disk layout, so the Drives can be used in other computers without the DDO being active, except the Encrypting DDO of course. .... is this something for my older 2001 NEC computer? Just curious what it would actually do for an older computer ... I've been checking out the term "3rd party BIOS updates". I will probably just search around for an older type hard drive(s) that will be compatible with my computers, probably the easiest way to go. ... thanks

Edited by duffy98
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rloew ... when you say : My BOOTMAN DDOs are designed to be compatable with other Drivers and not to alter the Disk layout, so the Drives can be used in other computers without the DDO being active, except the Encrypting DDO of course. .... is this something for my older 2001 NEC computer? Just curious what it would actually do for an older computer ... I've been checking out the term "3rd party BIOS updates". I will probably just search around for an older type hard drive(s) that will be compatible with my computers, probably the easiest way to go. ... thanks

Yes.

It is designed for Computers with BIOSes that do not support 48-Bit LBA. This is generally the case with Computers older than 2002. You can use the 48BITLBA.EXE Program in my Demo Package from True DOS to test your Computer. You will need a Hard Drive larger than 137GB to run the test. You will still need to Patch Windows to support 48-Bit LBA.

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:blink: Why did you actually Google "old standalone DOS BIOS detection program", when I provided links for the download of both v. 0.80 and 1.20? You didn't overlook the fact that all underlined things in my posts are actually links, did you? :)

And, BTW, Everest is being more specific, the other two programs gave just a generic info, but all three mean the same, in that the chips that Everest detected are one of the various i440 chipsets produced. But Everest's report was the best, because it allowed me to pinpoint the exact capabilities of your particular southbridge. But the others are not wrong, they're being just more generic. Also BTW, here's the link to RLoew's Software Homepage, in case you get interested in the DDO.

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No ... No, I used your link for the download ! ... I wasn't sure exactly what the program did so I wanted more information. Had never heard of it. I usually need lots of information to understand something dealing with DOS, the BIOS, etc. The link for the v1.20 didn't work for me this morning but I got the 0.80 version. I am on a faster connection now so I will try the 1.20 link again. .... thanks

Thanks for explaining about the chipset ID programs ... I have all three on my notebooks anyway, including Astra32. I usually just go to CPU-z first since it opens so fast. I will visit RLoew's home page. Tried the link again for the 1.20 version ... it comes up dead for me: 404 Not Found. I will do a search on Google.

Edited by duffy98
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CPUz info: Intel ... i440BX/ZX Rev 1 ... no Southbridge info listed

Everest info: Intel 82443BX/ZX ... South Bridge: Intel 82371EB PIIX4E

Intel Chipset ID Utility: i440BX/ZX Rev 1

OK, an explanation is in order...

#1 and #3 are giving the ChipSet.

#2 is giving the Chips for the ChipSet (Northbridge/Southbridge Chips) - if you look at them on the MoBo that's what you physically see.

HTH

Edited by submix8c
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I'm still following this topic ... it's a bit more complicated than I had expected when I first asked my question. For people still using older computers, motherboards and such, the options have dropped dramatically through the years. I never heard of the term DDO and the discussion that has been going on ... I have googled DDO, Ontrack DDO, old standalone DOS BIOS detection program v0.80 and most of the other stuff in the last few posts. This is all very educational to me and maybe others as well.

It does seem like we're laying new information on top of new information...

To summarize a few things here:

If your BIOS does not support 48-bit LBA, then in order to overcome the 137 GB (128 GiB) limitation, you will need:

to update your BIOS (if available) to support 48-bit LBA, OR install a DDO (such as rloew's BOOTMAN).

To overcome Windows 98 SE's 137 GB (128 GiB) limitation, you will need:

IAA (supported Intel chipsets only), OR Maximus-Decim's BHDD31.ZIP, OR rloew's High Capacity Disk Patch.

These are necessary only IF you decide to get a larger IDE (PATA) hard drive that is greater than 137 GB and you want to use the full capacity. With smaller hard drives, you may not have to worry about some of the software mentioned here. Note: older BIOSs (relatively speaking in Win98 terms) may have lower capacity limits, some as little as 32 GB, so an update or DDO may still be required if using a hard drive that exceed this limit.

Edited by Foxbat
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AFAIK, i440BX/ZX has a BIOS limitation for HDD size well below 137gb. Google "rainbow i440bx" - there's sometimes a "patch" to allow up to the designated limit . Get your full BIOS-id and check it out here. I've used these patched BIOS' on a number of older PC's and they've worked fine.

Edited by submix8c
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Well, the DETECT programs are meant to retrieve the Full BIOS-ID in a simple way. I've just checked, and both versions I provided links to do run correctly in a DOS box, even under Win XP SP3 (which usually prevents most such programs from running). So you don't need to run them in True DOS, after all, you may run them in a DOS box, under Win 9x/ME perfectly, then capture the output text and post it here for us. You just have to type DETECT at the prompt and hit <Enter>, provided your DOS box current directory is the one you put DETECT.COM (or DETECT.EXE) in. There are no command line switches, and all it does is to read some info in from the BIOS and disply it as text, in the DOS box. The link I gave you for v. 1.20 is working for me, but you can try this page, instead. The DETECT it offers is v. 1.20 (it is in the lower half of the page). It also contains many other goodies which are not relevant for us just now, but others following this thread may like them. And, BTW, Foxbat did a great job of organizing the info discussed here, in post #24. Way to go, Foxbat! :thumbup

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  • 3 weeks later...

I thought I would post an update to my earlier hard drive question. I bought two IDE hard drives ... a 60 GB and 160 GB, both new. The 60 GB drive is a 7200 RPM, which from what I am reading, are hard to find these days ... got it from an Amazon seller who had 8 left. The 160 GB is 5400 RPM and that speed hard drive seems to be more available in 2011. It was also from an Amazon seller. The 160 GB hard drive is fully recognized on my Thinkpad T42 Pentium M with Windows 98SE but wasn't fully recognized on my Dell Latitude, showing up to the 98SE limit . That's OK, I got it for the Thinkpad anyway ... funny it's supposed to be 160 GB but only shows 149 GB when I right click on the C drive. The actual bytes are 159,999,655,936 (149 GB) ... so there's my 160 GB drive, I guess. I learned years ago how the hard drive manufacturers do the GB figures thing.

.... Don't know if I can do this, in case anyone would be interested in checking out these hard drives. There may have been a better deal somewhere else but I didn't find it ... I found an IDE 40 GB at an outrageous price, compared to that, the 60 GB drive was a good price .... both HDs sell for around $60 with shipping. I think I got a decent deal but maybe there are better deals someplace else ... these are new and not refurbished drives ... IDE drives are getting hard to find at a decent price ... I should have bought some a few years back I guess. Just posted the information to check out. I decided that getting a newer SATA drive to work on an older computer was a little complicated (for me anyway) and when I was able to still find some IDE drives at a reasonable price, I just went that route.

Update ... when I posted this yesterday the price of the 60 GB 7200 drive was $58 + shipping, which is what I paid last week ... just checked now and it has increased to $62 + shipping. Prices change all the time at Amazon so maybe there are better deals somewhere else. The 160 GB drive is still the same price.

60 GB 7200 Drive ... santechusa (seller)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002M0DBFW

160 GB 5400 Drive ... goHardDrive (seller) had the lowest price with shipping $59.98

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012451UC

...

Edited by duffy98
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Well, if your machines have SATA connectors, the intel Application Accelerator driver should have you covered, since you have intel chipsets in both of them.

Sorry to butt in, but now you have me confused. I have a P4C800e and a P4P800e, both with ICH5R as well as integrated Promise SATA/RAID. It was my understanding that to use 98SE on either a single SATA drive or in SATA RAID0, it would have to be on the board's Promise port(s). Am I misinformed, or is there a way to make the ICH5R ports recognize 98SE?

I am mostly interested in dual booting 98SE with XP and would really like to put them both (on separate partitions hidden from each other) on the ICH5R in RAID0.

Thanks,

bob

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As I said, the Intel Application Accelerator should be all you need. But I'm far from being the best member to advise you about it, since I've never used it myself, because I'm a faithful AMD user, and so I've never needed it... until this year, when I began working on a netbook based on the ICH6. However, I'm just starting with it, so it's too soon for me to tell you anything about the IAA from personal experience. Other members here have far more experience with the IAA than myself, and are invited to kindly chime in.

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