Can I install a 250 gb hard drive under Windows 98? 6

[medfab]

Hi all!

I have a pc that is on a network. This pc has a 15 gb hard with win 98 installed as the master drive. I want to add a secondary hard drive in the same pc to be used as storage space only, no operating system installed. This hard drive is 250 gb. If I set the secondary drive as slave, will win 98 see it? would I be able to format thru the control panel or do I have to go thru the boot floppy to format it? would the second hard drive been seen on the network? how would i accomplish that? Thanks..

 

[ski]

Windows 98 uses the FAT 32 file system which can theoretically recognize up to a 2TB(terabyte) HD, so it should be able to see a 250GB unit.

However, there are other questions:
-Will your BIOS recognize it?
-Will your ATA controller get maxed out below 250GB?
-Do you intend to use just a single partition?

If your BIOS does not recognize the full size(or does not recognize it at all), then you may be able to fix this with software normally supplied with the HD.
If there's no supplied software, then you may be able to fix things with a BIOS update.
If no luck with either, then install a PCI IDE controller card.

ATA/33, ATA/66, and ATA/100 controllers(your system probably uses ATA/33) can handle up to 137GB HD's.
A PCI IDE controller card with an ATA higher than 100 may be able to recognize the full 250GB size.

Using a single 250GB partition will force the FAT32 file system to use a 32KB minimum cluster size, which wastes a lot of HD space(can run as high as 40% wasted space). In fact, this cluster size starts at a 32GB partition size.
16GB partitions are more efficient as they use 16KB clusters, but then there are a lot more partitions.

Recommend that you run fdisk from a Win 98 boot floppy to partition and format the HD.

 

[medfab]

I intend to use it as a single partition, but partition size would you recommend so I can get the maximum space used?

 

[ski]

I was incorrect when I said that the inefficient 32KB cluster size is used on FAT 32 partitions that are 32GB and larger. It's actually used on FAT 32 partitions that are larger than 32GB.
So you would make more efficient use of the HD's space if you used partitions that are no larger than 32GB, or a minimum of 8 partitions.

However, if you plan to use a single 250GB partition, then there can be a lot of wasted space. But there's also a lot of available space to waste with 250GB.

 

[oldkatz]

you should also be able to go to the hard drive manufacture web site and download a hard drive overlay then you should be able to install the overlay and use the hard drive as one large drive

 

[Blujacket]

I'd certainly read this:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q263044

 

[cdogg]

Blujacket,
There's one important note at the link you supplied:

"[blue]NOTE: This hotfix is not designed for 48-bit logical block addressing (LBA) hard disks, and it is not supported on hard disks larger than 137 GB[/blue]"

Good info to know though.


medfab,
If you give us the approximate age of your system (preferably the motherboard make/model), we'll be able to give you a better estimate on whether the drive will work out of the box.

These are common problems on older systems:

1) BIOS limitation - Common barriers associated with outdated BIOS's are 2GB, 8GB, and 32GB. The older the BIOS, the smaller the barrier is likely to be.

2) 24-bit LBA IDE controllers - almost every IDE controller made before the year 2000 supports only 24-bit which is restricted to 137GB. Therefore, you'll have to pray that a BIOS update will work around the problem. More than likely, however, you'll probably need to purchase a PCI IDE controller card that uses 48-bit LBA addressing which sometimes comes with large hard drives.

3) Slow IDE controllers - Unless your system can at least operate at ATA/66, you're probably going to feel a performance loss. If you do end up getting a PCI controller card as mentioned above, then that should give you access to ATA/100 or ATA/133 which is what your drive needs.

4) FAT32 vs. NTFS - The truth is that FAT32 is not the best choice for very large partitions. That's one reason why XP's fdisk does not allow parititions greater than 32GB (although you can format it with another tool instead). If it's an option, consider upgrading the OS to Windows 2000 or XP if the PC is fast enough to support it. That way, you can use the NTFS file system and have just one partition without any worries.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[wolluf]

I was under the impression that maximum fat32 partition size is 128GB (137,000,000,000 bytes) -

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63

 

[medfab]

I have an PCI Ultra ATA controller card that came with the hard drive. It supports up to 100 mb/s data transfer rate using Ultra ATA/100. So, then I should cross my fingers and hope it it can use just one partition for the entire drive? The machine is P4.

I will know tomorrow how it will pan out. Thanks to all that helped me- you guys are the best!

 

[cdogg]

medfab,
Excellent!

That PCI controller card will solve several of your problems including 1), 2), and 3) in my previous post. Just remember that the drive may still seem slow if you have a lot of PCI devices in your system, or if there are other severe bottlenecks like slow memory and CPU. If worst comes to worst, you can always split the drive up in say 3 or 4 partitions with very little effort. Is there a reason why you need one huge partition?


wolluf,
That link addressed the 137GB barrier in the year 2001, before a whole lot was known about the 24-bit and 48-bit LBA issue. It should be possible to have a larger FAT32 partition as long as you have a 48-bit controller. That PCI card controller medfab has should do the trick. Just my assumption, though, since I've never actually used a FAT32 partition greater than 80GB.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[medfab]

Thanks for your advice cdogg....will post tomorrow and tell you how it went...thanks so much..

 

[wolluf]

cdogg - yes you're right - I've not created a fat32 partition of anything like this size either, and have seen several bits of info (apart from link I supplied) giving 128GB as limit on fat32 partition size (so had got it in my head.... just ignoring the 2 terabyte disk support also mentioned! Be interesting to see what happens - though that link I supplied also gives detailed reason why 98's scandisk can't service a partition larger than 128GB (as its a 16 bit app) - doesn't mention ME's scandisk.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Medfab;

Also note;
You cannot create a file larger than 4GB or (2^32)-1 bytes (this is one byte less than 4 GB) on a FAT32 partition.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314463

So if large video files are to be used...forget FAT32 and use NTFS or Linux


TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.