Howdy, hope someone can help.

I am aware (at least, I am now) of problems that 98SE has in accessing hard drives over 137 GB, due to 98's lack of support for 48 bit LBA. I know there is a helpful driver written by someone on these forums to overcome this on PATA hard drives.

After hours of scouring the net, I have come to the conclusion that most SATA chip makers supply a 98 driver that enables 48 bit. I have been unable to confirm whether this is true of the 98 driver for the ubiquitous SIL3112A SATA controller. Can anyone tell me if the latest driver for this chip enables 48 bit in 98SE?

Thanks in advance.

http://www.msfn.org/board/Enable48BitLBA-B...ier-t78592.html

might want to search next time

Hi, CC, thanks for the response.

Maybe I should have made clear in my post (thought I did) - I know about the ESDI_506.pdr driver on this site. It's great that someone took the time to do that, and I actually signed up for this forum to download it. However, that is an IDE controller driver. 98 sees an SIL3112A SATA controller as a SCSI device.

I have the latest, as far as I know, 98 drivers for this SATA controller. I have not been able to tell from the info at the Silicon Image site (they're a chip maker, they refer you to OEM) or the Abit site (board is an NF7-S r2) if the controller drivers enable 48 bit LBA. This is a very common SATA chip, it would seem to be of interest to this forum if it can enable large hard drives in 98.

well i ain't too good with SATA. new fangled stuff scares me so stick with good ol' IDE.

sorry i can't help

Hi fishindude,
The following product links indicate support for Windows 98SE and 48-bit LBA using the Silicon Image Sil3112A Serial ATA Controller:
http://www.strattoncomputer.com/scs-s1022-i.html
http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_info.p...roducts_id/1635
http://www.upgradeware.com/english/product/s1022i/s1022i.htm

Here's a review of the Sil3112A that likewise indicates that it supports Windows 98SE and 48-bit LBA:
http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/storag...112/index.shtml

So... Looks like it does indeed support both Windows 98SE and 48-bit LBA!

Hi, Retro, thanks for the links!

1) I know that the controller supports 48 bit LBA.

2) I know that Windows 98SE is supported with drivers.

What I don't know is whether the drivers enable 48 bit support under 98SE. It may seem like I'm splitting hairs here, but I've run into a lot of cases where there is driver support for an older OS but the actual functionality is limited.

I ask this because I tried to install a 200 GB Samsung SATA drive on it about a week ago. I started out with Samsung (Ontrack) Disk Manager and wanted 2 fat32 partitions. Part way through it occurred to me: this thing is going to plant a DDO on there. I don't need no stinkin' DDO!!! So I stopped and wound up completing the job with Gparted. 98 saw and wrote to both partitions just fine, but also created a 3rd partition with no access that was driving my Norton Utilities nuts on every boot because it couldn't index it. XP, on the other hand, appeared normal. I thought that I had wound up with a DDO anyway, and in trying to correct this the drive ummm, died.

I'll know (I hope) next week when the new drive arrives. I'll keep everyone posted.

Thanks again!

You don't need to enable this. W9x uses 32 bit sector addressing internally, and it's up to the driver to tranlate this to the disk. In case of the default IDE driver, only 28 bits can be translated to the disk (which equals 128 GiB), because this driver only supports LBA28 addressing (and the older and even more limited CHS addressing). This is because LBA48 addressing was not yet invented in '98. Thus this limit is only for the default IDE driver.

Thanks, Mijzelf. The 48 bit thing may not be my problem at all, as I'll try to explain.

The new drive arrived today, a Samsung SP2004C, 200 GB. I installed it on SATA channel 1 with an new version of Disk Manager, told Disk Manager I was using XP w/sp1 (I lied) and created and formatted 2 fat 32 partitions. 98SE now sees 4 hard drive partitions in explorer - C: (60 GB Seagate IDE with a SATA adapter on SATA channel 0 - this is my OS drive, with 98, XP, and Linux partitions); D: (93 GB partition on new drive); E: - DOES NOT EXIST; and F: (93 GB partition on new drive).

It's the E: that's got me baffled. As I said, it does not exist. At boot, it drives my Norton Utilities nuts - Norton flashes a red warning box at me and says it can't scan the drive E:, that it's not configured correctly. Norton Disk Doctor also refuses to scan D: or F:, with the same message.

None of this stuff happens when I boot into XP - everything is just fine. I don't use Norton on XP, but XP utilities work on the new drive. I can read and write to the D: & F: partitions in 98, but I'm terrified of data corruption if 98 isn't reading the drive info correctly.

Does anyone have any ideas?

A bit more info:

The non-existent E drive is using compatibility mode.

Fdisk (from a 98 DOS window) sees and lists both D & F partitions correctly, but lists the non-existent E as a logical drive.

Update:

1) Used fdisk in a DOS window to delete all partitions, and created a primary and an extended DOS partition, each equal size. Fdisk demanded that I create a logical drive in the extended partition, so I did. Fdisk appeared to see both partitions correctly (93 GB). Rebooted. No phantom drive, no Norton errors! Formatted first partition from Windows - yeehah! No problem! Second partition WOULD NOT FORMAT. Bummer. Norton Disk Doctor still refusing to run.

2) Gave up on the multiple partition attempt, went to fdisk from DOS window and made the whole drive one large primary DOS partition. Rebooted. Formatted drive from Windows - no errors. Windows also sees the drive as 186 GB (same as BIOS reports), so apparently the driver IS translating 48 bit LBA. Not so, Norton. It refused to run until I added a NOLBACHECK dword value to the registry. Runs fine now.

It looks like 48 bit LBA is working in Windows 98SE, but Norton Disk Doctor 2001 doesn't support it.

So, I have 2 remaining questions:

A) Is it safe??? Before I transfer years worth of business data slumbering safely on an 80 GB IDE drive, I'd like to be a little more assured that I'm not really just flushing it.

Will running Norton Disk Doctor on it damage it?

Thanks to all who posted. In case you're wondering "why is this fool going through all this", I have to blame my loving spouse. She gets me a new tech toy every Christmas. This year's was a USB turntable to digitize our substantial collection of wax. Yes, that's right, we're old farts. Anyway, I should be able to fit it into 120 GB.

Sounds weird. Are you sure windows is using the sata drivers, and not just the standard (LBA28) ide driver?

Old? Over 30?

Go into Device Manager under System in Control Panel.
Change the view to Device by connection.
Expand the tree and check where each drive connects to.
You may have to expand a number of lines to find the drives.
You will find a controller listed, then a channel, then the drive.
On the controller that each drive connects to, select Properties and check the driver.
Post controller name, driver name and date, and connected drive names if you can.

Yeah, I know it sounds weird, that's why I'm worried. I've partitioned hundreds of drives and never seen this behavior. But I'm a 98SE diehard (we old farts are set in our ways, dontcha know), and the thought of having to use XP all the time makes me physically ill. Thank God you guys are around, 'cause there's precious little 98 hardware info anywhere else these days.

30? Was I ever 30? I must have been sometime, I, I, can't really remember...

OK, here goes - the connection tree is as follows:

1) PCI standard PCI to PCI Bridge (standard MS driver - "no driver files are required for this device...")

2) Silicon Image Sil 3112 SATARaid Controller
General tab - device type = scsi controllers;
driver tab = Provider - Silicon Image; Date - 5/14/2004
drivers = C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SI3112R.MPD (SI 2001)
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32\IOS.VXD (MS 1999)
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SILSUPP.CPL (SI 2003)
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS\SIISUPP.VXD (SI 2003)
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS\SI3112R.MPD (SI 2004)
There is also a settings tab for command line parameters for an SCSI device.

3) Samsung SP2004C (200 GB Samsung HD, SATA, driver = standard MS - "no driver files....")
4) ST360020A (Seagate 60 GB IDE HD, on SATA adapter, driver = standard MS - "no driver files....")


The SI driver on the Abit site has a release date of 5/28/05, but the version and file dates on the extracted files appear to be what I've reported. I don't have (don't think I could) a RAID set.

Thanks again, for trying to help, and thanks in advance for any ideas you may have.

You need at least the Norton Disk Doctor 2003, which comes with Norton System Works 2003.
It also contains Norton Disk Doctor 2002 ..10E for DOS.
I bought mine (2003 Professional Edition) used really cheap on eBay...

As for your questions:
A) Probably. But testing your partitions along the lines described by LLXX wouldn't hurt. See the theads on 48bit LBA (one started by LLXX, the other by Petr) here on MSFN.

v. 2001 maybe. v. 2002 for DOS or 2003 for Win should be safe.

Well... It's definitely running the Silicon Image drivers...
You could try using soporific's Auto-Patcher 98 to update all the system files:
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=80800
It's a fairly big download though... Got DSL/Cable?

Well, this has been an interesting day, in the Chinese sense.

"A) Probably. But testing your partitions along the lines described by LLXX wouldn't hurt. See the theads on 48bit LBA (one started by LLXX, the other by Petr) here on MSFN."

I went back and read these again (oh no, Hex Hornets!), and tried to test as LLXX recommended. I filled the 200 GB drive (I already had some stuff on it) by copying the contents of my boot drive to it, then re-copying those contents to new folders repeatedly. This took a loooooooong time, and I did get 1 file copy error for an invalid file name. When I got it up to 180 GB, I checked my original files. According to LLXX, these are the ones that should be trashed when those 0's and 1's start wrapping around. They appeared to be OK - no gibberish, I opened a few documents, played a couple mp3's, everything seemed just dandy. Then I tried to run a scandisk. No dice. It stopped dead in it's tracks with a "you don't have enough memory" slap. I have 512, and a 1024 swap file.

Sooo...

"You could try using soporific's Auto-Patcher 98 to update all the system files:
http://www.msfn.org/board/Auto-Patcher-Win...ish-t80800.html
It's a fairly big download though... Got DSL/Cable?"

Yes, I do, and I did. Autopatcher is a cool program - the BUT will come momentarily. Anyway, it identified 147 patches for my system. I told it to install everything except IE6 and WMP, because the only MS software I use is the OS and a few things that come with it. About 35 minutes and a ton of re-boots later, it told me I was now clean and could take my place among decent folk. I got the cute little XP networking applet winking at me from the tray (useful) and something called Power Menu that will be leaving soon. Scandisk, however, still mocked me. So I went back to soporific's site and discovered a couple things. One was the suggestion that I should run Autopatcher again because, apparently, there are patches for the patches that it can't patch on the first run because I didn't have enough patches. So, I did run it again, and it again identified 147 patches for my system - the same ones that it said it had already patched. This goes against one of my Basic Rules for Not Screwing Up Your Computer (right behind "if it ain't broke don't fix it") which is "if you're gonna re-install, make sure you uninstall first". So, I didn't do it.

Another bit of info on his site was a recent post from a guy saying that the latest version of Autopatcher did not enable the ME scandisk and defrag updates. AHA!!! So, I went to the projects area, found MDGX's scanfrag (scary name, that) which is supposed to do the same thing. AND....NADA. Scandisk says no. Defrag, however, works. ?????????

My system, if it will help matters, is:
Abit NF7-S r2 board - nForce 2 ultra chipset, Soundstorm audio, SIL 3112 SATARaid controller
Mobile Barton Athlon XP 2400+ (OC'd to 2.4 GHZ, 400 FSB). Yes, it's very stable.
512 MB dual channel DDR, 400 mhz
Radeon X800 256 MB AGP card
2 DVD drives, each master of their own IDE
Floppy drive
60 GB Seagate, 200 GB Samsung hard drives on the SATA controller. Seagate has 98/XP/Linux partitions.
18" LCD, a couple printers on a print server, pretty good Altec 2/1 stereo speakers.

I'm going to try a scan from XP and see what that does.

Thanks again in advance for any and all ideas.

XP scan was OK.

So I'm thinking my best move is an updated version of Norton Utilities to manage this drive.

Thanks again.

Hey there Fishindude, sorry to hear you've been having issues, but we'll get to the bottom of this quick smart.

First, can you summarize what exactly it is that's wrong? It seems to be that scandisk doesn't work as intended with your drive that is larger than 137 GB, correct?

Secondly, you say that "it again identified 147 patches for my system - the same ones that it said it had already patched" --- Now, i find this hard to believe. One or two maybe but what you are saying is that AP installed 147 updates and now thinks it needs to do them ALL again. Simply not possible. My guess is that you aren't reading your logs and reports properly (my deepest apologies if i'm wrong about this). New logs and reports are APPENDED to the end of the text file, so you must remember to scroll down to the LAST report in order to be reading it correctly. There are warnings regarding this so i have tried to help you avoid making this mistake ... Sorry if i'm being patronising but this is the only thing i can think of that explains whats happening with regard to 147 updates mysteriously not installing.

Also, if you post me your log (and/or report) files then i can also help you see what's going on.

Sop.

ps - cheers to Dencorso who pointed this thread out to me.

Hi, Sop.

My sincere apologies. Thank you for not telling me to RTFM, although I richly deserve it. Your program is fine, and a great timesaver. As usual, operator error. My greatest coding achievement was the flying bird on a C64, so I have profound respect for those who know how to do it.

I wrote my last post at the end of a long and frustrating day of fighting with my computer. I'm used to fighting with other people's computers; me and my machine are actually on very good terms. I figured that as long as someone was taking the time to read this long sob story with my benefit in mind, I would at least try to be entertaining. It didn't occur to me then (it does now) that I might be demeaning to something that obviously took a lot of effort on your part. I also hadn't had the time to see some of the other stuff it installed. The universal USB driver is the bomb!!! Any of you out there running 98, you MUST have this! No more disconnect crashes - true hot swapping with an XP like manager applet. And that flash drive that would only work under XP before is no problem now. I also got one of my critical programs working, the one that''s really kept me tied to Windows. It only worked with XP before, I could never get it to work in 98. So, again, my apologies.

So, yes, my problem is that scandisk gives a "not enough memory" error as soon as I try to run it. The partition is 186 GB, FAT32. Defrag runs OK on it, at least it says it does. I'm not seeing any data corruption. The time stamp on scandisk.exe says created 2/11, which is when I installed it. I'm currently trying out other disk utilities.

Hey, no worries, thanks for clearing up what was happening...

... with regard to your probs with scandisk, one way to check out what's going on is to try to fill up the space. Get yourself a 700 MB avi movie of some sort, and make a bunch of directories and fill them up with copies of the file ... save some time by making a number of copies of the file with different file names ... at various points while doing this, run the last avi file you copied to make sure you can see it work for a few seconds, and then continue. Once the disk is full, see if the total data size is what you would expect and also make sure you can view the last file you copied. This sounds laborious but its done with only a few commands and it means you don't have to reply on a 3rd party program to tell you, you can tell yourself if your data is doing the right thing.

Hi, Sop, and thanks.

Yes, I get that, and I've done something similar. I packed the drive with 180 GB of data. After a lot of rooting around, I didn't see any evidence of corruption. Every file, of various types, that I tried to open did without fault.

But what about ongoing maintenance? I'd like an easier way of verifying that the drive is operating correctly. With that in mind, I tried a lot of stuff in the last few days and I'm going to relate it here for the benefit of any other poor slob who finds himself on my path.

For a lot of reasons, I don't like to be in XP. So I wanted a solution that would run from 98. Unfortunately, I didn't find one that was really great.

First, the obvious. I downloaded MDGx's Diskminder version. This did not work. It looks like older software, and I don't think it's set up for larger drives. It identified virtually every file as corrupt.

So I went Googling, with the depressing but expected result that there just ain't much out there that will run on 98 anymore. I avoided obvious spyware, at least Spybot says I did, and tried out a bunch of stuff.

1) DiskChecker - a shareware prog. Says it runs on 98. Would not run in direct access mode (says disk is too large for FAT checking), only file access mode. Reported no errors in file access mode.

2) Tune Up Utilites. These are interesting, but only 2007 or below run in 98. The "Disk Doctor" and defragmenter don't even show up when installed in 98, although they did under XP. Strange. Extremely annoying, too - nothing is said on their site about this. 2 emails went unanswered. More later.

3) Iolo System Mechanic. Said 2006 would run on 98, but I had to install IE6 first. Grrr. Went back to your 98 Autopatcher and installed IE6 and all patches. I hate IE6! Installed System Mechanic, fired it up, and... it crashed. Undaunted, started it again, told it to scan the drive and not do anything, just report to me. and waited. And waited. Finally fell asleep waiting for scan to finish. Woke up, no HD activity light, touched mouse, system crash. Re-started. DANGER, DANGER!!! All icons show as shared web, icons evaporate on mouse over! Quick, add/remove. IT'S NOT EVEN THERE!!! I had to use System Mechanic to uninstall System Mechanic. Somehow, this worked, thankfully. Nothing else in this program did.

4) Emsa Disk Checker. This actually worked but was painfully slow - 6 hours for 200 GB drive.

So, I'm looking at Norton Systemworks, to the tune of 70 bucks with no trial. No, I can't do it, Norton is just too bloated and intrusive to pay that kind of money and not even know if it will work.

Disk checking in XP reports no errors. Of course, it doesn't report anything, which is not gonna make me happy. Installed Tune Up Utilities on XP, ran the "Disk Doctor", it reported no errors.

So, I guess I'm gonna go with it. If I have to check it from XP, well, that's the breaks.