Enable48BitLBA | Break the 137Gb barrier!

[nomatrix]

Is it possible to combine my two 300 GB HDD's to get a single drive with 600 GB capacity under Windows 98 SE without special hardware? Is it possible to modify esdi_506.pdr to get some type of Software-RAID? Is there already some kind of software who works like this?

Drive D (300GB ) and E (300 GB) will be virtual drive F (600 GB) and should have read/write access. If there is no more space on drive D it will automatically write to E without user action and the other way round.

It's possible in my mind but is it possible in real. It should some kind of SUBST.

XSUBST <virtual drive> <space delimited list of real drives>

Edited January 7, 2007 by nomatrix

[oscardog]

Is it possible to combine my two 300 GB HDD's to get a single drive with 600 GB capacity under Windows 98 SE without special hardware? Is it possible to modify esdi_506.pdr to get some type of Software-RAID? Is there already some kind of software who works like this?

Drive D (300GB ) and E (300 GB) will be virtual drive F (600 GB) and should have read/write access. If there is no more space on drive D it will automatically write to E without user action and the other way round.

It's possible in my mind but is it possible in real. It should some kind of SUBST.

XSUBST <virtual drive> <space delimited list of real drives>

software can easily check available free space and move any overflow to the next desired drive without needing SUBST and without user interaction, I must admit I have never tried this out on such large hard drives but I can see no reason why it would fail. Free available ram might also be handy

[LLXX]

If you want to mod esdi_506.pdr yourself or write your own disk access driver, go ahead.

I'm definitely not going to do it, for several reasons:

- Hardware RAID is much safer and already available on many mobos.

- Modifying the driver to do it would be extremely difficult.

- Disk access from DOS would be impossible.

Edit: Those 4 500Gb disks and the RAID controller are coming. Soon, I hope.

Edited January 7, 2007 by LLXX

[rloew]

Is it possible to combine my two 300 GB HDD's to get a single drive with 600 GB capacity under Windows 98 SE without special hardware? Is it possible to modify esdi_506.pdr to get some type of Software-RAID? Is there already some kind of software who works like this?

Drive D (300GB ) and E (300 GB) will be virtual drive F (600 GB) and should have read/write access. If there is no more space on drive D it will automatically write to E without user action and the other way round.

It's possible in my mind but is it possible in real. It should some kind of SUBST.

XSUBST <virtual drive> <space delimited list of real drives>

It would not be hard to modify ESDI_506.PDR to combine a Master and Slave Drive into a single drive. I have already done the reverse (split one large hard drive into smaller drives) in the experimental versions of my High Capacity Disk Patch for Hard Drives larger than 2200GB. The D and E drives would have to be inaccessible, or at least not mount any parititions, as they would conflict with the partition on the virtual F drive. A matching DOS DDO, similar to my BOOTMAN packages, will be required for DOS support and to pass the protected mode validation precedure in the IOS.VXD and ESDI_506.PDR code.

[LLXX]

larger than 2200GB

Do you... have one of these?

[rloew]

larger than 2200GB

Not yet. Should be available before the end of the decade. But I have an ESDI_506.PDR Patch for it. Most of the new code has already been tested using a smaller hard drive.

It will be one of a number of Patches I am working on for the future, building upon my original High Capacity Disk Patch and an Encrypting Disk Patch I released recently.

[cowboyy2087]

Can some tell me how check the version of my existing ESDI_506.PDR and how replace it with the exact same fixed version which can be downloaded from this website. I'm a noob here so be easy on me thanks in advance for your help. Oh i forgot to mention i'm using Windows ME for my operating system. Thanks

[Eck]

Right click the file, choose Properties, and it's either right on the first page or on a tab labeled Version.

[MDGx]

Can some tell me how check the version of my existing ESDI_506.PDR and how replace it with the exact same fixed version which can be downloaded from this website. I'm a noob here so be easy on me thanks in advance for your help. Oh i forgot to mention i'm using Windows ME for my operating system. Thanks

Windows ME has only 1 version of ESDI_506.PDR and that is 4.90.3000 . The original one [unpatched] can be extracted from the Windows ME Setup CD-ROM or CABs by using this DOS command from any DOS prompt box/session/window:

EXTRACT /Y WIN_19.CAB /L %windir%\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS ESDI_506.PDR

%windir% = usually C:\WINDOWS .

This driver must exist into the %windir%\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS subfolder.

The patched one can be installed by running the executable called ME48BLBA.EXE [see link below]:

* Unofficial Windows ME 48-bit LBA (Logical Block Addressing) > 137 GB (E)IDE/ATAPI Hard Disk Driver ESDI_506.PDR 4.90.3000 Fix:

http://www.msfn.org/board/?showtopic=78592

Direct download [143 KB, English]:

http://www.mdgx.com/files/ME48BLBA.EXE

Patched driver listed here:

http://www.mdgx.com/web.htm#MEU

One way to check a Windows file version [only if the version function is built into the file] is to download and use getver.exe [free GPL], a DOS box [Windows console] command line tool:

http://lbrisar.htmlplanet.com/e_cmd32.html#getver

HTH

[glocK_94]

WTF? I read LLXX is banned?

What's going on here?

[whatever420]

WTF? I read LLXX is banned? What's going on here?

I was wondering the same thing...

[gamehead200]

WTF? I read LLXX is banned? What's going on here?

I was wondering the same thing...

There will be no discussion of LLXX's banning here.

On behalf of the MSFN team, I would like to inform you all that LLXX's behaviour was not appreciated on MSFN. She was given several warnings about the forum rules, but refused to cooperate. She left us no choice but to ban her.

Any discussion of the ban in this thread will not be tolerated and will be dealt with on an individual basis.

Thank you for your understanding.

[lameboyadvance]

Sorry if this has already been covered, I tried searching this thread for information but its just too long.

I noticed its been mentioned that programs such as FDISK, SCANDISK and DEFRAG won't work on 48-bit LBA drives. Does anyone know any replacement apps for these that will?

If possible I'd like to keep functionality such as 98SE starting the (new) SCANDISK when it needs do before booting Windows, and being able to access SCANDISK/DEFRAG through the drive's Tools tab in its Explorer properties, but these aren't really necessary as long as it works properly.

What I'm really looking for are DOS replacements for FDISK and SCANDISK and Windows replacements for SCANDISK and DEFRAG that all support LBA48.

[oscardog]

Sorry if this has already been covered, I tried searching this thread for information but its just too long.

I noticed its been mentioned that programs such as FDISK, SCANDISK and DEFRAG won't work on 48-bit LBA drives. Does anyone know any replacement apps for these that will?

If possible I'd like to keep functionality such as 98SE starting the (new) SCANDISK when it needs do before booting Windows, and being able to access SCANDISK/DEFRAG through the drive's Tools tab in its Explorer properties, but these aren't really necessary as long as it works properly.

What I'm really looking for are DOS replacements for FDISK and SCANDISK and Windows replacements for SCANDISK and DEFRAG that all support LBA48.

On second thoughts it seems you may need to partition your drive to be able to use these, unfortunately the creator has been banned by some 17 year old, who might have been able to help you more

Edited February 9, 2007 by oscardog

[Eck]

Okay, maybe I can help with something simple like this.

Fdisk will work, especially the fixed version that is installed by one of the Windows Updates. The Windows Update puts it into the Windows, I think the Windows\Command folder too, but it doesn't put it into the Command\EBD folder. So any Startup floppy made from add/remove programs will still include the old one. I just copy the fixed one from the Windows folder onto the Startup floppy, overwriting the one there.

You'll still get a cosmetic bug, as you do with format, but it works fine on large drives. By cosmetic I mean you'll see the size of the partitions reported incorrectly but if you type in what you want then that is what you will get. And if you tell it to partition the entire drive it will, regardless of the size it reports. Same with format. When Windows is installed you'll see the correct amount.

For ScanDisk and Disk Defragmenter, when I used a large drive I installed Norton Utilities 2002 and chose to let it replace ScanDisk with its own DiskDoctor. So I used DiskDoctor instead of ScanDisk and Norton SpeedDisk instead of Disk Defragmenter. Norton has no problem with 48bit LBA so you can safely do a surface scan with Disk Doctor and use SpeedDisk to defrag.

There are other commercial and perhaps free defragmenting programs as well. At least the commercial ones should be easy enough for you to find.

I think you can get away with using Scandisk as long as you only scan for errors in folders and files. Just don't let it do a surface scan. So you'd only need to get a 3rd party defragmenter. DON'T use Windows Disk Defragmenter on large drives!

Do make sure you're using the Windows Me version of ScanDisk as it is essentially Norton SpeedDisk without the GUI, and is much faster than the 98SE version which, although it was also made by Norton, had 16 bit access and was therefore slower.