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.

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

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.

...just adding to the records...

I've used this patch and all my drives are now accessible, and functioning properly - I have connected just the 160 with 6 partitions and Win98se on C: - it's been filled with no errors, as well as slaving the 160 to the 40(Win98se on the 40) - so far so good!


Screenshot 40+160GB


I hope I put the link in right, thanks for everything

I have a slight question here. I read this topic and he's talking about the IAA and drives larger than 127 GB. Well I have the IAA 2.3 on my system (intel 850E chipset) and I want to know what I need to run drives over 127 GB properly. I thought about a 250 GB drive and two partitions with 125 each (I know they will be smaller in the end, just to get the idea). I have like 5 120 GB drives and slowly but surely it annoys me.

Hi,

I bought myself a WD3200JB and before I'm going to install it and update my "ESDI_506.PDR" I have one important question: I have 2 other HDDs installed which have less than 128GB [IC35L060AVVA07 (system drive) & SP1203N (storage drive)] and I'd like to know if my data on these disks is really safe when using the updated ESDI driver?

I'm asking because the readme says compatibility is given "in most cases". In other words: Is there anybody who lost data on his smaller drives as a result of using LLXX's modified driver?

By the way: Of course, my mainboard is fully 48BitLBA compliant.

Thx a lot in advance!

the updated ESDI_506.PDR driver from the unofficial 48bitLBA patch should be safe to use, even on hard drives less than 128 gigs. i've installed the updated driver on an old 2Gb hard drive and found no problems.

btw, woodpusher, what version of Windows are u using?

Hi erpdude8,

I'm using German Windows 98 SE (4.10.2222A). The driver you are talking about is LLXX's version which can be found in this thread, right? My ESDI_506.PDR is 4.10.2222.

unfortunately, woodpusher, LLXX's 48bit LBA ESDI_506.PDR patches are for US English editions of Win98fe/98se/ME only and not available for other languages such as German. the creator had no time (and no commitment) of making them available for different languages, so "localization" of the 48bit LBA ESDI_506.PDR patches was completely out of the question.

if there are people out there who can translate LLXX's ESDI_506.PDR patches from English into other langauges, feel free to do so.

even Rudolph Loew's High Capacity Disk Patch software is only provided in English language and has not been localized as well. latest version [5.2] now supports Windows 95 OSR2.

My High Capacity Disk Patch instructions and support programs are only provided in English. The Patch itself works with all localized versions of ESDI_506.PDR versions 2186 and 2225. It should work will all others as well. If the Demo Version can patch the file, the Full Version will also.

I added support for the original Windows 95 (ESDI_506.PDR Version 1111) also but do not have a setup to test it. The patch also removes some bad code that may be causing the problems known to exist with that version above 32GB.

LLXX's driver also seems to be language independent. On Saturday, I installed my new HDD (it's connected to an IDE PCI controller card with IT8212 chipset) and replaced my old ESDI_506.PDR with the one from this thread.

Everything works fine and I've filled the WD3200JB over the critical 128/137 GB mark. All files on the smaller disks are still there and accessible.

I'm very happy

Good news for all German users of Win98 SE!

Looks like you're right, woodpusher. LLXX's ESDI_506.PDR drivers ARE language independent. why have you NOT applied the German Q243450 esdi_506.pdr patch before installing LLXX's esdi_506.pdr patch for Win98se? Get it here:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/win.../243450GER8.EXE
This updates ESDI_506.PDR to version 4.10.2225.

good thing LLXX's esdi_506.pdr patches backup the existing esdi_506.pdr before replacing the existing file with the 48bit LBA-enabled version.

Also, rloew, the latest version of the ESDI_506.PDR file for Windows 95 OSR2 is version 4.00.1119 which is mentioned in MS article 175629:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175629/en-us
The Q175629 hotfix for Win95 SR2 replaces REMIDEUP.EXE and also fixes the Large IDE Hard Disk MSDOS Compatibility mode problem. Hopefully your High Capacity Disk Patch software should still function properly with version 4.00.1119 of the ESDI_506.PDR file.

See if you can mention this info about Q175629 and version 4.00.1119 of the ESDI_506.PDR file on your page. I've obtained the Q175629 hotfix for Win95 OSR2 from MS more than a year ago and have applied the Q175629 fix on an old Win95 SR2 machine.

Dear erpdude8,

I am aware that the latest version for Windows 95 OSR2 is 1119. I have successfully patched all of the OSR2 versions. I added support for version 1111 for users of the original Windows 95.

I have not gotten involved with recommending upgrades as that information is available from Microsoft. I support all of the readily available versions with my HDCP. Sometimes an upgrade can have unintended consequences. Only my new >2TB Patch requires an upgrade from the original versions. I only recently mapped out the actual differences between the 2222, 2225 and 2226 versions. So only now can I properly support 98SE users with respect to which version to use.

Wouldn't is be more elegant to increase the sectorsize, instead of splitting the drive? AFAIK the sectorsize doesn't need to be 512 bytes, and since FAT32 creates clusters of at least 4kB, sectors could get this size without any penalty.

More elegant maybe, but it would require a major redesign. A new partition table format would be required making it incompatable with all existing operationg systems.
Splitting the drive using a DDO and a Patched ESDI_506.PDR file remains compatable with existing DOS and Windowx 98/SE/ME systems. Unsupported systems will still see the first 2TB.

Great work. I haven't seen any mention of this on either of the two break the 137GB threads so I thought I would mention it.....

Instead of testing by filling the drive, surely simply installing Win98SE on a partition which STARTS above the 137GB barrier? Without the patch, you won't get it to restart on installation without forcing compatibility/real mode disk access and then you have to enable the CD/DVD drives in DOS mode (using autoexec.bat and config.sys).

Of course, I can't think how to send you the images you asked for because unless I show you my partition table, you won't know that Win98SE is booting from a partition starting over the 137GB limit, but it is. And of course I checked the property tables and it's still using the LLXX version of the ESDI_506.PDR.

And the CD/DVD burners are now showing up in device manager instead of simply showing in Explorer.

So all's well. Probably the ultimate test isn't it? Win98SE simply won't START if you install it on a partition above the 137GB limit. Very good going!

Now a few quick questions/points:

Q1. Buried in this thread is an installer (which backs up the original). What is the latest version of this and which version of the patched driver does it install?

Q2. Should I be matching the version of the patched driver against the version of the Win98SE (showing on my desktop) - for example, if I show 2222, should I revert to the 2222 patched driver or continue using 2226 which is what I downloaded thinking it was the latest?

Q3. I want to slip the driver into the CAB on my Win98SE installation CD. But I read somewhere on this thread that I am supposed to install the driver and get a "1 later than the latest MS version number". Does that matter or can I simply replace (overwrite) the existing driver in the CAB? (Yeah, I know how and I have the backed up original.)

Q4. If you use the patched driver and then check the file details, you will find that the provider is Microsoft. I think I have a question or a point about this, but I'll let you consider your own and answer them to yourselves! .

Again, thanks for the driver. It is nice not being stuck being able to have a DOS partition on the tail end of a 200GB disk, but having to put my Win98SE on the second disk.

I bought a Seagate 300 gig IDE drive, but my HP Vectra VLi 8's BIOS does NOT support 48-bit LBA, so does that mean i can't use ANY part of the disk or just the part after the first 137 gigs? 48bitlba.com's FAQ#1 addresses this question and says that 'data corruption' will ONLY occur if you access data beyond the 137 GB limit. Also, according to the drive's manual, i can use ONLY the first 137 gigs of the disk. However, my problem is this: I do NOT want to make ONE 137 gig partition to install 98SE on. My main question is this: can i make one 20 gig partition to install 98SE on, and make another partition as large as 117 gigs? In other words, can i make partitions of different sizes, granted they are NOT, in total, larger than the 137 GB amount limit? I sure hope so, since even XP was slow for me, when i installed it on a large > 64 gig partition.


In the event i decide i want to "break the 137 Gb barrier" Then, unless somebody knows how i can update my BIOS, i'll have to resort to a Dynamic Drive Overlay (DDO), according to my drive's manual. Or, could i use Enable48BitLBA withOUT BIOS support for it? I never understood why everyone is against a DDO (i remember using it, way back on my Packard Bell 486 to overcome it's 400 mb HD size limit so i could access my new drive's 850 megs). I don't recall having any issues with it. This page describes the shortcomings or it. The only major problem is dual or multi-booting OS'es. Since i can keep 98SE, i'll probably never need another OS anyway.

No BIOS update available for that? Otherwise, change the BIOS chip?

Yes. You can partition in as many different sized partitions as you like PROVIDED you are sure that not one part of any of them is above the 137GB limit. Get something that will show you exactly where the partitions are when you set them (I use Ranish Partition Manager which works from DOS or I use Gnome Parted on a Live CD or USB stick - either of these allow you to decide exactly where the partitions start and end as do many other programs, but those are both free).

WARNING! Read the HP blurb below about the BIOS limit of 65GB.

Without the BIOS supporting it, Enable48BitLBA won't work because it can't.


I'm not against it - I know nothing about it!

You might want to try this link for HP info about your PC and large HDD:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechS...jectID=tis09141

which says:

Model:
HP Vectra VLi8 PC

Test: Boot with a large HDD
Boots with a IDE 137 GB HDD but...

Comments - Limitations:
PC will boot with a large HDD (up to 137 GB), but BIOS setup limits HDD maximum capacity to 65 GB.

Bios Update Planed? (yes, that is how hp spell planned lol)
NO

There is also a forum about your computer at hp.com

HP lack of support and their own confusion about what they sell you was the reason I started building my own computers years ago and I'll never buy another box except to get something inside it cheaper than buying the component. Have you thought of upgrading to a more modern motherboard but not so modern it costs more than $30 or $40? I think one of mine cost $17 and runs HDD larger than 137GB!

Hope some of this helps.

.

Nope. The lastest BIOS update dated (1/17/01) does NOT address it. How can i change the BIOS chip?



That's good to know. On another note, i had a Western Digital 120 GB, but it died on me via S.M.A.R.T failure, could it have been caused by the BIOS limitation of 65 GB HD?




Shucks. That's what i thought.



I may not need a DDO, because the drive's manual says i can insert a "capacity-limiting jumper" on it. Hopefully, this will reduce the drive's max size to 137 GB. I recall the Western Digital was working OK, until the S.M.A.R.T failure, and it's full size was detected in 98SE, even though the BIOS Setup reported it as being 65 GB.



Thanks for this. It confirms that i can use a HD up to 137 GB, however can i fill it pass 65 GBs? I never had a chance to try this with the Western Digital drive, because of it's S.M.A.R.T errors and eventually failure. When i get around to trying the "capacity-limiting jumper" on the Seagate 300 GB, if it limits the drive to 137 GB, then i'll see if i can use MORE than 65 gigs of the disk. Thankfully, i did NOT buy this Vectra VLi 8, but found it. I also found another mobo, called Napoli 2/2a, but, i believe it also has a 65 GB BIOS HD limitation.

Sorry, seskanda, I slipped up. When I wrote the first answers, I hadn't yet visited the HP tech support site so my answers further down answered some of my own questions (BIOS update not "planed" included lol).

Well, to change a BIOS chip, you buy a new one, pull the old one (using chip extractor) and insert the new one. To be honest, you would do better to find a replacement mobo and it's probably a lot cheaper!


Once again, I should have edited my first answer once I realised that HP were limiting to 65GB. If I read their limit correctly, it makes no sense "You can have whatever size hard disk you like, provided you only use 65GB of it"!!!! So I assume that the partitions have to stay within THAT limit which means that you are STRONGLY advised to dump that mobo!

To answer your question, no, S.M.A.R.T. doesn't work like that. Without checking on your particular HD manufacturer's blurb, S.M.A.R.T. primarily predicts failures by having feedback within the drive regarding the mechanical wear. The manufacturers' tests tell them what wears at what rate under normal use and they then fit the hardware with monitors which feed back the state and sometimes the rate of change of the wear. On top of that, I understand that some manufacturers include some data checking. But unless they changed the way they do things, they aren't interested in partitions etc because S.M.A.R.T. is looking at the disk itself.


But HP are saying you can't use it past 65GB.


Well, the S.M.A.R.T. "failure" may not be a failure. It depends on what kind of "failure" it was. S.M.A.R.T. predicts failure and if the wear or the errors S.M.A.R.T. is picking up allow, S.M.A.R.T. will stop you using the disk. Before you junk the "failed" HD, make sure of two things: (1) The S.M.A.R.T. report should tell you what you have - maybe you have data which you can recover without paying some expensive data recovery outfit! (2) If you put the HD in another PC which CAN take that size of HD and then, before booting that PC any other way, boot into a WD diagnostic program diskette/CD (is that Lifeguard? I can't remember) and check your HD out!


Past 65GB? According to that HP support site, no. If the BIOS limits you to 65GB, then presumably that means you can't actually get past that point meaning that everything you do will show that drive as having only 65GB in which case you don't need to jumper it do you?

I am not really clear why you have a 300GB HDD, but you don't throw together a PC to use it! Not being critical, but at random I just hit a barebones system which would take the drive - $129 plus s&h. Why bother with the old mobos? Buy or build a new box - you have an OS or you wouldn't be on a Win98SE site! You have a case/power supply (the HP site doesn't say what form factor - if it isn't full-size ATX I would recommend you get a box with some space but they come cheap) etc etc

The 137GB limit we are talking about on this forum is something Windows 98SE has in the OS itself. Unless you do the Enable48bitLBA mod, if you don't force Windows to run disk access in real/compatibility mode, either Windows won't actually boot (my case when I installed the Win98SE partition starting above the 137GB limit) or you get wraparound errors when the OS attempts to write above the 137GB limit (which is a disaster because the user will never know until the data has been trashed with totally unpredictable results). Before the ESDI_506.PDR file was modded (Enable48bitLBA and Loew versions), you could still use the >137GB HDD provided you set Real Mode (using MSCONFIG from Safe Mode being the easy way).

If you are going to use that 300GB as a 65GB drive, can I swap a 80GB drive for it? lol Just kidding. Hope you get it solved.

You may try to search (or ask) in Wim's BIOS forums about a solution to your BIOS problem, but I agree the best solution would be to dump the mobo (together with the case, as I know HP likes proprietary formats as much as other OEMs do) and get yourself some cheap and 48bit LBA-compatible mobo plus a new case.

My old HP Pavilion 4430 is like that. If I put any hard drive in there that's over 65GB the bios will only report 65GB as the size. FDISK and format will format to larger sizes and Windows will recognize and use it. However performance is sluggish and file moving operations will slowdown, freeze, fail, etc.

I once used a 60GB Maxtor drive in there with no problems. Note that even if I put a single partition smaller than 60GB in, let's say, an 80GB drive, the system had the same problems. Only a hard drive smaller than 60GB did not have these problems.

I think it's both a hardware and bios problem. This is a SiS5598 board used with an AMD K6-2/366 processor. It came with the 300MHz variety but I upgraded to the 366 and set the jumpers correctly. Note also that putting the maximum 256MB of memory (2 sticks of 128MB 66MHz Crucial SDRAM unbuffered) did not help as far as solving the big hard drive problem, so it's not a memory thing either.

This system also did not function well with more than one cdrom drive. And DVD playback was full of hesitation and unsynched video/audio. The optimum is just one CD/RW drive and one hard drive less than 60GB. Just forget about DVD as I tried it with both a Voodoo 3000 PCI and a GeForce 2 MX400 PCI. Same sluggish playback. So I just used a CDRW drive instead and lived without DVD. VCD's played perfectly though!

When used with a 3dfx Voodoo 3000 PCI replacing the on board SiS5598 Video and noting the above limits, it was pretty nice! The HP/Riptide Audio/Modem HCF card gave me awesome 2 channel sound, dos game play, pretty good Windows game play, and dialup modem. I did need to force ACPI by running setup /p j in order to avoid losing USB detection if adding a videocard. Only with ACPI enabled did the USB detect attached devices once a videocard was added. HP had Windows setup with ACPI using Windows 98 Gold, even though using a normal Windows cd without that /p j switch would only install Standard PC. I actually had a tech replace the motherboard before figuring this out but the new board exhibited the same USB problem unless Windows was forced to use ACPI. The ports showed as working properly but no device would be detected.

This motherboard was useless for using a real SB16 card as the ISA ports would not output sound, although an ISA modemblaster provided good modem use when I replaced the Riptide with a SoundBlaster Live PCI soundcard. So the choice at the time was either the Riptide PCI dos game solution or the SoundBlaster Live version of the PCI emulation but a real ISA SoundBlaster would not work.

I've used four of these motherboards and the ISA ports would not produce audio even though players, the device manager, etc all thought everything was working fine. Just no sound is sent to speakers. The same ISA cards worked on other motherboards so the problem was the ISA ports on this motherboard and not in the drivers. Windows thought everything was working great and WMP, games, audio software would think the sound was playing. Just couldn't hear anything! PCI audio worked perfectly and so was the only way to go.

So, is it worth it to use this type of board today? No way. It's from just after the Dos heyday (around 1999) but is useless for real ISA dos gaming. Other boards from that period are nice to setup for old gaming like this. But even that is questionable as Dosbox has advanced to the point where it does dos gaming better than MS-DOS ever did.

So why bother? Just use a modern computer with all its advantages and setup things on it to play your old software.

Please note that if you have a standard Windows98SE installation and it is not on an IBM laptop you should not use the 2226 version of the file but use the 2225 version instead.

You should ONLY use the 2226 version if the ESDI_506.PDR file installed with Windows actually has the version number ending 2226.

(Answering my own question here lol)

well said briton and Eck. any word from the creator of Enable48BitLBA, lately?

Thanks LLXX and everyone who contributed. The version 4.10.2225F works fine on my Win 98SE box.

My PC's mobo is a Soltek SL-75FRN2L with an AMD 2000XP + nVidia nForce 2 Ultra 400 chipset. It's using LLXX's ESDI_506.pdf in c:\windows\system\iosubsys on both IDE channels.

I've got a Seagate 7200.10 Barracuda 320G as the second disk drive, fdisked into 3 100GB partitions.
First I filled up the partition 1, ran SFV32 v0.3a - (SimpleFileValidate) to make the CRC of the files,
filled up the 2nd partition, ran SFV32 on those files, then filled up the 3rd partition and then CRC'ed those files.

Then I reran SFV32 on all the partitions and compared the CRCs generated now and before and they all matched up fine - indicating no data corruption.

I have turned off scandskw and scandisk.exe to prevent self-corruption and then use a 3rd party disk checker such as norton dd and the partitions checked out fine.

Previously whenever copy files past the 137GB mark, my first partition would get all corrupted. But luckily the data on that drive is re-creatable :-( until I found out about 48bit LBA and this wonderful thread.

Thanks...LLXX again and everyone...

Oh has anyone found out or is it my imagination that version 2225F looks a bit slower than the original 98SE 2222 (no-mod)?

hello everybody,

i want to run a seagate 320gb in full capacity on my win98se (4.10.2222A),
so i did first of all the German Q243450 esdi_506.pdr patch
(win98se still stays .2222A, only the esdi_506.pdr goes .2225, is that right?),

but now i´m not sure what´s next..
to go in dos and overwrite this file with LLXX's esdi_506.pdr patch ? (which one of LLXX´s patches exactly ?)

will this enable 48bit lba on my board (asus p3b-f, rev 1004) and also show the possibility of full capacity in the bios,
altough the board originally doesn´t support 48bit lba, and even a bios-update wouldn´t allow this ?

sorry for being a little bit analog,
but im curious to solve this action,
let me know if you can help me!

If your BIOS does not support LBA48 now, it still won't with the LLXX patch.

Yes. Not on the board - on the Operating System. Do not attempt anything above 128GB before you replace the esdi file. The capacity of the BIOS is something else again - unless your BIOS can identify the disk correctly, you are in trouble. Get a BIOS update or else get another board.

The easiest way to get Win98SE working is rather easier than all this - use the excellent Aut-Patcher at AutoPatcher which includes the 48butLBA patch. The only reason you wouldn't be able to use that would be either (a) you are installing the Win98SE OS onto a partition which starts near or over the limit or ( you need to access that part of the disk before you finish installing and auto-patching.

If you don't want to use the Auto-Patch for some reason (although I don't know why not as it gives you complete choice on what you let it do and allows undoing anything), just manually replace the ESDI file in DOS and carry on.

But without BIOS ability to identify your disk, you are spinning your wheels. Sorry

I have written a set of Programs that add to or replace the BIOS Hard Disk Drivers, providing 48-Bit LBA Support. If your BIOS does not support 48-Bit LBA and a BIOS update is not available, one of these programs will provide the necessary support. Although designed to work with my High Capacity Disk Patch, they will work with the LLXX files.

Rudolph Loew
rloew@hotmail.com

Nice to see you are still modifying vxds etc, I notice on your web page your ram limitation patch can you tell me what is the maximum size ram you have been able to use via it.
All the best

Earlier this year there was an exchange between Briton and Seskanda about limits to HDD size, including those imposed by the BIOS. [Around about post #273 on page 14]

It is of course the case that one only reads information like this, and is alerted to the problem AFTER a major data loss! My story is that one of the boxes that I run is a Compaq Deskpro EN 733 SFF. When I hurriedly fitted a 160MB Seagate drive into it plenty of months ago, it ended up requiring the use of the translation feature on the CD that came with the drive, and put the OnTrack address translation routine in place. Windows 98 duly limited the use of the drive to the bottom 137GB and all was well.

On learning that Autopatcher for Windows 98SE had installed the 48BitLBA patch, I thought I would have a try. Promptly put a new primary partition in the free space at the top of the disk, and filled it up with copies of files, on the principle that if I lost this new partition, I would have nothing to cry over. Initially it seemed to be OK, but a reboot later and I had lost the entire contents of the new partition, the entire contents of the extended partition, and the initial primary partition was corrupted beyond repair. Oh dear! All 120 GB on that disk are now in bit heaven.

Having learned the hard way, could I plead for a bigger warning that this patch does not play nice with any other form of disk address translation program? And possibly for Autopatcher 98SE to ask for positive confirmation before it installs it?

I know now, but it would be nice if I were the last to find out unexpectedly!

Thanks

Well, not for everyone because many Win98SE users (and probably MOST users who use Win98SE as their primary OS) are aware that they need to read a lot! I do admit that I only found out because I couldn't actually install Win98SE after I installed the first larger drive because I tried to install Win98SE in a partition which STARTED above the 137GB limit so I didn't lose anything - the reboot during installation simply failed. Point taken anyway.


Three points @ 2 cents each:

1. If there IS to be a warning, someone needs to edit the sticky post where the downloads are listed. If there IS to be a warning, someone needs to edit the sticky post where the downloads are listed. (Who has access to that sticky since the patch author is no longer with us?)
2. Therefore, while they are there, it would help to list the different versions against the reason WHY each version exists as the number of downloads recorded suggests many people are downloading the WRONG version (are there THAT many IBM laptops out there?).
3. If a warning is included there, it needs to be included with the AutoPatcher.
4. Finally, I do have one point. If in many decades of computer use I have ever used a "disk address translation program", it was totally invidible to me. I am wondering if it is common. There are MANY things you might be using that would suggest that you need to use this patch with caution but in most if not all cases you would be expected to realise that they were messing around with disk access in which case using an old Operating System should cause anyone using them to be as careful as you obviously were (testing with copies of files).

Anyway, I agree a warning about disk management software might be put in bold print in the download sticky and I'll post a link to your post there so that soporific can consider including a similar warning with the Autopatcher download.

I ran some experiments on OnTrack and was unable to get it properly support 48-Bit LBA. As you found out the hard way, it is not safe to test 48-Bit LBA support on a Hard Drive by writing test files above the 137GB Limit while having important files below the limit. BIOS issues, bad DDOs and Windows XP RTM, and to a lesser extent Windows 9X, will write data intended to go above the 137GB limit to other locations below the limit destroying the data you thought was safe. The new files are probably mostly still OK. You would have to read them with the same bad driver and get around the probably corrupted partition table. You will need the help of the CIA to get back any of your old data.

I wrote my BOOTMAN Package to provide the necessary support that older BIOSes, and some buggy newer BIOSes, lack. It is compatable with LLXX's files and should work with the Autopatcher.



I have no problem with new threads for these subjects. Links to them would of course be appreciated.

It was a recent posting about my BOOTMAN Package that appears to have triggered these discussions when people saw my new RAM Limitation Patch on my website.

Re: Safety of 48bitLBA patch

Do I understand correctly that the 48bitLBA patch for 98SE is safe to use, provided you also have a 48bitLBA enabled BIOS, no partitions over 128GB, AND have NOT installed a third party manager like OnTrack? No manufacturer sells drives with OnTrack pre-installed, right? They might furnish a CD containing OnTrack, but if you have the BIOS support, no partition over 128GB, install ONLY the 48bitLBA patch, and NEVER install the OnTrack manager, then your data is safe, right? That is, the problem exists ONLY when using OnTrack and 48bitLBA patch together, and is due more to a failure in OnTrack than in the 48bitLBA patch?

I've always been wary of using products like OnTrack. Based on this info, it appears my instincts were correct.

I don't currently have any hard disks over 120GB, but someday I might, so this is good info to know in advance.

IMHO this thread should remain as is, as a testament to the lady llxx along with petr, who`s efforts was an inspiration to us all. Along with rloew`s contribution (the guy has got to earn a living) and should stay "as is" to remind us all of what could have been before the politics began

Hi, oscardog! I do appreciate your point: loosing llxx was really bad. No argument here.
But splitting the thread will allow for easier and more convenient discussion of the two sub-topics in question, whitout resulting in the end of this thread per se. So I insist it ought to be done.

Look I hate to mention this, but some of you are treading rather close to the line regarding Terms and Conditions of this site - to quote "Forum moderation is not up for public debate". Whether or not I agree with any of you, if someone breaks certain rules, they are instantly banned and that is moderation which is not up for debate. I only mention this because I don't want to see anyone here inadvertantly falling foul of that rule and getting banned!

Now, regarding splitting this thread. Again, I think some of you are missing the point. Noone is suggesting that this thread should die! It goes quiet for a while, but it always comes back up when someone new comes across the problem/solution or when there is a new wrinkle.

However, this is a thread about DISK SIZE. Unless I am very much mistaken, although it was the obvious place to start discussing MEMORY SIZE, that discussion has now grown more important and much larger and more complicated. It is therefore not only OFF TOPIC, but is now swamping the thread to the point that new users may well find the whole business of DISK SIZE way to difficult to pick out. Hence the suggestion to split the thread and move the exisint MEMORY SIZE posts to a new thread with a title that covers that (Overcoming memory size limitations or whatever).

If a moderator should see this, please take some action to strip out the off topic stuff, interesting and useful though it is, into it's own new thread. Thanks.

1. If your BIOS can't handle disk space above 137GB, you can't expect the Win98SE operating system to handle it because it doesn't know it is there (or worse). Meaning that this patch is no use if the OS can't see the disk space. (Basically, if you don't patch and have a larger disk, if/when Win98 gets above the barrier, it kind of thinks it is starting over with often disastrous results. (128GB is not relevant.)

2. With the patch, you can use partitions over the 137GB barrier or even starting below it and running through the barrier (been there, done both). If I remember the reports correctly, some users seemed to have trouble running through the barrier so they simply kept partitions either above or below but not through 137GB - dunno cos I never had a problem either way.

3. The "patch" is actually a replacement for one of the files in the Win98SE operating system. By changing an OS file, the parameters which Microsoft provide about the OS for software designers to comply with may no longer be valid. For most software, this is not going to be an issue as it will rely on the OS to work out where on disk to write/read etc data. However, with disk management software (and, I believe, some backup/restore software), the software design becomes more involved in the disk access activity which is why breaking the OS parameters in an unsupported way may well cause problems. (Again, I haven't used it, but if I read correctly, rloew's solution to the 137GB barrier doesn't have this effect as it is not "breaking and rebuilding" a Microsoft file - I am sure he can clarify that point!)

So yes, you can use the patch (make sure you get the right file for your system - the sticky where they are listed is not that clear unless you read it all - many people seem to be downloading the IBM brand laptop version because it is the latest even though it is not the one for other laptops and all PCs). You can then use partitions above 137GB in Win98SE. Without the patch, if later Windows versions/Linux distros use larger disks, simply ensure that your Win98SE OS can't SEE those higher partitions (hide them when that OS boots).

With the patch, some disk management and similar software may not work correctly - or works correctly but is dealing with the OS parameters not being what it was designed for.


...Win98SE installed... So when you install Win98SE on a partition, it is your responsibility to ensure that relevant patches are installed. I advise installing the correct 48bitLBA patch before the Win98SE installation reboots (stop the boot, go into DOS and switch the files) then reboot and let the installation continue - and THEN use AutoPatcher (see other thread) to do the other tweaks you need.

And yes, if you never install disk management software etc in Win98SE partition, you should be safe, but the caveat is that there is always firmware which can render that statement incorrect - there seem to be some strange BIOS utilities around!



Most people using Win98SE as their primary OS seem to want to be in control of the intricacies of their machines and hence don't like that kind of software. Many of us with Win98SE in a multi-boot scenario, tend to want to know what is where and which OS can see it! In either of those cases, your instincts are precisely correct!

The problem is not in Windows, when it is Patched, it has no problem even when the BIOS does not support 48 Bit-LBA. The problem occurs in the early boot phase when Windows loads itself, runs SCANDISK or does Real Mode tasks such as WININIT. Safe Mode or running in Compatability Mode will also fail since it uses the BIOS code. Programs run in Real Mode, such as DOS, FDISK and the Windows Install CD will also fail.



Most Disk Management tools use System Calls to access Hard Drives. They do not know anything about 48-Bit LBA mode, so they should work. Some may simply overflow from working with drives larger than they were tested with. Partition oriented tools such as SCANDISK and DEFRAG are affected by Partition size rather than Physical Hard Drive size.

My Patch works in a similar manner to LLXX's. The difference is that I do not provide the Drivers but Patch whatever is there. This avoids any issue of Microsoft Copyright problems.



Ontrack does not appear to support 48-Bit LBA properly and may disable BIOS support, if present. As mentioned above, BIOS or DDO support is required for safe operation with large Hard Drives. Ontrack does not appear to do sector shifting as some older DDOs did. These older DDOs caused serious problems since the Drives became unreadable if moved or if the DDO was removed or damaged.



Being unable to get any of the Hard Disk Vendor DDOs to work and wanting to work with my own Multi-Boot Manager, I wrote my own DDO called BOOTMAN. It only provides 48-Bit LBA support, without a lot of bells and whistles, and comes in different versions for different needs. One version is loaded from a Floppy Disk so it can work with any Boot Manager since nothing is changed on the Hard Drive.

Hi all.
I run Windows 98SE with no patching and, after having mistankenly broke the 137GB barrier, some of the old files on the HD gone corrupted (the files are still visible but cannot be accessed by Windows, read or copied). These are OLD files, written within the 137GB limit and were, prior to the problem, perfectly readable and working.
There is a way to recover the data or it is forever gone?

There is no way to recover those files I'm afraid as they'd been overwritten after the writing beyond 137gb rolled over to the start of the disk and wrote over any existing files.

Thanks!

If I want to create a dual boot system Win98SE / WinXP


and I have a 300GB hard disk


If I make 2 partitions using the Windows XP boot CD.


C: 32GB using FAT32 for Windows 98SE
D: 168GB using NTFS for Windows XP SP2


WITHOUT using any patches, would I have any problems with Windows 98?

As Win98SE cannot recognise NTFS file system, will it basically just ignore the NTFS partition which happens to be located beyond the 137GB barrier?


Can anyone confirm this?

Should be fine but if I'm correct - winxp had the same 137gb problem till Service Pack 2, no?

...or was that RTM only?

There's always an "if" If your Win98SE OS runs and can't see the rest of the drive, you should be fine. So to be on the safe side, when we set up multi-boot, many of us hide the other partitions on Win98SE bootup.

Then there are the other "ifs". If later on, you want to repartition the disk to have a shared data partition for instance, would you remember that you need to patch BEFORE you allowed Win98SE access? You probably would if you had to change that "hidden" setting before Win98SE got to it.

What if you install another "large" drive? (Your drive is amazingly small for 2007 and it's nearly 2008!) Will you remember that Win98SE must not see that one either even if it has visible partitions?

What if you install a means of accessing NTFS from DOS and then use it in Win98SE? Or install the same utility to read NTFS partitions from Win98SE because you want to be able to read things when XP won't boot?

It seems you are reluctant to patch. I would suggest that, if you have a Win98SE partition, you get Auto-patcher from this site anyway (see Autopatcher thread). Then you will have a safer, better Win98SE and the 48bitLBA will be there waiting for you to install if you need it. And you are less likely to forget you need it if/when you do!

Better safe than sorry?