SATA installation

[rloew]

My SATA Patch works with all Motherboards SATA Controllers I have tested and with most PCI-Express SATA Cards.

[Nomen]

I'm just saying that anyone running win-98 on motherboards with relatively complete (or fully complete) driver availability for all hardware components will find it easy (with no additional cost) to attach sata hard drives. Running win-98 natively on a motherboard with PCI-e slots is probably not going to be very satisfying for many people, hence having a solution for sata PCI-e cards is of questionable value.

Any motherboard with an AGP slot and on-board sata controller will have no problems attaching large (1 or 2 tb) sata drives to these systems running win-98. If you don't have on-board sata controller, then a 2-port SIL 3112 PCI card that you can buy for $10 will also work just fine.

[rloew]

I'm just saying that anyone running win-98 on motherboards with relatively complete (or fully complete) driver availability for all hardware components will find it easy (with no additional cost) to attach sata hard drives. Running win-98 natively on a motherboard with PCI-e slots is probably not going to be very satisfying for many people, hence having a solution for sata PCI-e cards is of questionable value.

Any motherboard with an AGP slot and on-board sata controller will have no problems attaching large (1 or 2 tb) sata drives to these systems running win-98.

That would limit you to a narrow range of Motherboards as older ones do not have SATA and newer ones use Chipset based SATA with no Windows 98 Drivers. The PCI-E solution is for people who want to add more Drives.

If you don't have on-board sata controller, then a 2-port SIL 3112 PCI card that you can buy for $10 will also work just fine.

Then you have paid roughly the same price, or more, for a solution that provides only two ports and ties up a PCI slot. Edited September 4, 2014 by rloew

[PROBLEMCHYLD]

"...there is no INF..." And I would be interested in this as well?

I just created an INF for the Win98 driver  http://reboot.pro/topic/2384-alter-group-universal-ata-driver-for-windows-nt351nt42000xp/

Not able to test it atm.

Edited October 22, 2015 by PROBLEMCHYLD

[cpucollector]

2 ports but I'm sure an excellent BIOS (as all of their cards I've used have).

 

Also, if you have modern hardware it would probably be easier just to run Win9x on DOSBOX.

 

Any SATA card/motherboard that has Win98SE drivers is going to be 150mb/s, and if you're looking for speed you won't see much over UltraATA 133.

Edited October 23, 2015 by cpucollector

[cov3rt]

what exactly is the max speed of sata drives when using ide legacy / compatibility mode in bios? is it 16 MB/s? also, if i were to use the intel d845pebt2 motherboard, does that motherboard have native windows 9x sata drivers so i would not need to use ide compatiblity / legacy mode and the operating system will just load with a working sata driver provided internally by the motherboard? i believe it uses sil 3112a sata controller, well at least for the raid portion, it mentions that, does that mean its also for sata? 

[cpucollector]

Yes, a raid controller can typically work in standard mode. As far as Windows 9x booting from a SATA hard drive connected to that motherboard, it really shouldn't matter. If it's detected in the BIOS and set as a boot device it should work. I remember when SATA first was starting to gain popularity, that part of why it was a slow start was because there wasn't much of a performance difference until 3.0gbs came out.

 

from wiki: The theoretical burst throughput of SATA 1.5 Gbit/s is similar to that of PATA/133, but newer SATA devices offer enhancements such as NCQ, which improve performance in a multitasking environment.

 

So I guess a newer SATA drive on a 150mb/s line should give you better performance. But not all early motherboards have support for NCQ. So if you've got the parts around, try it. If not, I wouldn't spend the money on a "might" be a little faster solution.

[Nomen]

> So if you've got the parts around, try it.

> If not, I wouldn't spend the money on a "might" be a little faster solution.

The point of exploring the use of SATA-1 (1.5 gb/sec) controllers with win-98 has nothing to do with disk-transfer performance.

The use of SATA-1 controllers allows win-98 systems to utilize cheap high-capacity hard drives in the range of 160 gb to 2TB that have been available starting 10 years ago. More importantly, SATA-1 controllers always have (in my experience) full 32-bit driver support for win-98, which eliminates the 137gb problem that applies to most situtations using IDE (PATA) drives.

No system in daily use, regardless what OS it's running, should be using 40 or 80 gb IDE drives because those drives were made many years ago (10 or more years ago in most cases) and the reliability of those drives today will be questionable. When upgrading existing systems or building new ones, IDE drives are no longer an option for most people anyways.

[LoneCrusader]

More importantly, SATA-1 controllers always have (in my experience) full 32-bit driver support for win-98, which eliminates the 137gb problem that applies to most situtations using IDE (PATA) drives.

Apparently you've never had a system with an Intel ICH5 or later chipset. While they may be available for some third-party SATA controller chips, drivers are NOT available for most chipset-integrated SATA controllers. This is why rloew's patch is the best available solution, because it handles all possibilities without the need to purchase extra hardware.

 

No system in daily use, regardless what OS it's running, should be using 40 or 80 gb IDE drives because those drives were made many years ago (10 or more years ago in most cases) and the reliability of those drives today will be questionable. When upgrading existing systems or building new ones, IDE drives are no longer an option for most people anyways.

I depend on them every day. Have for the past 10 years. No signs of any trouble, and no plans to change either.

[PROBLEMCHYLD]

Also, if you have modern hardware it would probably be easier just to run Win9x on DOSBOX.

Thanks, I had no knowledge of this. What are the advantages of DosBox compared to other Virtual software?

[Nomen]

> Apparently you've never had a system with an Intel ICH5

> or later chipset. While they may be available for some

> third-party SATA controller chips, drivers are NOT

> available for most chipset-integrated SATA controllers.

I do believe that most motherboards made with Intel 800-series chipsets (at least 84x, 86x and 87x) have ICH5 chipsets (sometimes ICH5r) and have full win-9x/me driver support.

For example, this board:

i865PEa-7ILFR

http://global.aopen.com/products_detail.aspx?auno=943

claims ICH5r, and points to Intel chipset driver v5.1.1.1002.

ftp://asftp.aopen.com.tw/pub/driver/mb/intel/inf/intel_chipset_v5.1.1.1002.zip

Unpacking that and it does contain 9x/me files (various ICH5 cat files). Besides, I seem to recall that ICH5/ICH5r implimentation of SATA controller was buggy or faulty in some way. Also there are many socket 478 and 775 motherboards with Via chipsets with onboard sata controllers with full 9x/me driver support.

> > No system in daily use, regardless what OS it's running,

> > should be using 40 or 80 gb IDE drives

>

> I depend on them every day. Have for the past 10 years.

> No signs of any trouble, and no plans to change either.

I have a few win-98 systems that have 80 gb drives and are in daily use. And I know the drives are at or have exceed their MTBF and could fail at any time. I still stand by my advice I would give to anyone in a similar situation - that yes, the 40 and 80 (particularly 80 gb WD) drives are very reliable, but they will not last forever and the only way to know their true health is to look at their SMART data every once in a while. And I certainly wouldn't build a new win-98 system or rebuild an existing one using an IDE drive today. I'd rapidly run out of storage space if I did, and I imagine so would most people.

[LoneCrusader]

Also, if you have modern hardware it would probably be easier just to run Win9x on DOSBOX.

While "possible" I highly doubt that DOSBOX would be a "desirable" method of running Windows 9x. It's good for DOS programs as intended, but probably VirtualPC or VMware either one would be better choices for virtualizing the whole 9x OS.

 

What are the advantages of DosBox compared to other Virtual software?

DOSBOX actually runs under Windows 9x for one, while others are 2K/XP and up only.

I haven't used it extensively yet but it does appear to be useful for running older DOS games on newer systems where the CPU is too fast and renders the game unplayable.

Best of both worlds? A newer, fast system to run 9x and Windows applications, while having DOSBOX installed to run older DOS programs that don't like the faster hardware.

 

I do believe that most motherboards made with Intel 800-series chipsets (at least 84x, 86x and 87x) have ICH5 chipsets (sometimes ICH5r) and have full win-9x/me driver support.

For example, this board:

i865PEa-7ILFR

http://global.aopen.com/products_detail.aspx?auno=943

claims ICH5r, and points to Intel chipset driver v5.1.1.1002.

ftp://asftp.aopen.com.tw/pub/driver/mb/intel/inf/intel_chipset_v5.1.1.1002.zip

Unpacking that and it does contain 9x/me files (various ICH5 cat files). Besides, I seem to recall that ICH5/ICH5r implimentation of SATA controller was buggy or faulty in some way. Also there are many socket 478 and 775 motherboards with Via chipsets with onboard sata controllers with full 9x/me driver support.

Intel does not provide any SATA controller drivers for Windows 9x. The boards you mentioned are perfectly compatible with Windows 9x so long as you set all SATA devices to Legacy/PATA compatibility mode. The Intel chipset driver packages are actually just text INF's that specifically identify common onboard devices. These are technically not even necessary and a system can run without them. No .VXD, .PDR, .SYS, or any other actual "driver" files are provided.

Other chipset manufacturers such as VIA may well provide drivers. I am not as familiar with them as I am with Intel-based systems.

[cov3rt]

 

Also, if you have modern hardware it would probably be easier just to run Win9x on DOSBOX.

While "possible" I highly doubt that DOSBOX would be a "desirable" method of running Windows 9x. It's good for DOS programs as intended, but probably VirtualPC or VMware either one would be better choices for virtualizing the whole 9x OS.

 

What are the advantages of DosBox compared to other Virtual software?

DOSBOX actually runs under Windows 9x for one, while others are 2K/XP and up only.

I haven't used it extensively yet but it does appear to be useful for running older DOS games on newer systems where the CPU is too fast and renders the game unplayable.

Best of both worlds? A newer, fast system to run 9x and Windows applications, while having DOSBOX installed to run older DOS programs that don't like the faster hardware.

 

I do believe that most motherboards made with Intel 800-series chipsets (at least 84x, 86x and 87x) have ICH5 chipsets (sometimes ICH5r) and have full win-9x/me driver support.

For example, this board:

i865PEa-7ILFR

http://global.aopen.com/products_detail.aspx?auno=943

claims ICH5r, and points to Intel chipset driver v5.1.1.1002.

ftp://asftp.aopen.com.tw/pub/driver/mb/intel/inf/intel_chipset_v5.1.1.1002.zip

Unpacking that and it does contain 9x/me files (various ICH5 cat files). Besides, I seem to recall that ICH5/ICH5r implimentation of SATA controller was buggy or faulty in some way. Also there are many socket 478 and 775 motherboards with Via chipsets with onboard sata controllers with full 9x/me driver support.

Intel does not provide any SATA controller drivers for Windows 9x. The boards you mentioned are perfectly compatible with Windows 9x so long as you set all SATA devices to Legacy/PATA compatibility mode. The Intel chipset driver packages are actually just text INF's that specifically identify common onboard devices. These are technically not even necessary and a system can run without them. No .VXD, .PDR, .SYS, or any other actual "driver" files are provided.

Other chipset manufacturers such as VIA may well provide drivers. I am not as familiar with them as I am with Intel-based systems.

 

when you say other manufacturers may provide the drivers, is that mean integrated where the operating system loads the sata driver without needing ide legacy / compatibility mode or is it something that you would have to install later for sata devices to be properly configured or some other way that isn't automatically done with the motherboard? also with the sata add on cards that have 9x drivers, does that also have to be configured some different way or do the drivers automatically appear and load with the os install?

[LoneCrusader]

Other chipset manufacturers such as VIA may well provide drivers. I am not as familiar with them as I am with Intel-based systems.

when you say other manufacturers may provide the drivers, is that mean integrated where the operating system loads the sata driver without needing ide legacy / compatibility mode or is it something that you would have to install later for sata devices to be properly configured or some other way that isn't automatically done with the motherboard? also with the sata add on cards that have 9x drivers, does that also have to be configured some different way or do the drivers automatically appear and load with the os install?

If a SATA chip/chipset manufacturer provides a driver for 9x, then yes, it can be used to install 9x without the need for Legacy IDE PATA mode but you must know how to integrate the driver into the SETUP process.

I don't know if it is possible to set up 9x without either legacy mode or pre-integrating the driver (or using rloew's patch as I do), I have never tried. rloew or others may know more about this.

No drivers will "automatically appear" and automatically load with the OS install, unless they were already included in the original 9x CABs. Ideally you need the drivers in place beforehand, whether installing from scratch or adding a new card. Another point in favor of rloew's patch, as it patches and uses the already existing 9x IDE driver.

[cov3rt]

 

 

Other chipset manufacturers such as VIA may well provide drivers. I am not as familiar with them as I am with Intel-based systems.

when you say other manufacturers may provide the drivers, is that mean integrated where the operating system loads the sata driver without needing ide legacy / compatibility mode or is it something that you would have to install later for sata devices to be properly configured or some other way that isn't automatically done with the motherboard? also with the sata add on cards that have 9x drivers, does that also have to be configured some different way or do the drivers automatically appear and load with the os install?

If a SATA chip/chipset manufacturer provides a driver for 9x, then yes, it can be used to install 9x without the need for Legacy IDE PATA mode but you must know how to integrate the driver into the SETUP process.

I don't know if it is possible to set up 9x without either legacy mode or pre-integrating the driver (or using rloew's patch as I do), I have never tried. rloew or others may know more about this.

No drivers will "automatically appear" and automatically load with the OS install, unless they were already included in the original 9x CABs. Ideally you need the drivers in place beforehand, whether installing from scratch or adding a new card. Another point in favor of rloew's patch, as it patches and uses the already existing 9x IDE driver.

 

ok thanks, that seemed to clear up some confusion.