I have an extremely old Hewlett Packard PC that has Windows 98 on it. I want to wipe the HDD clean and install DOS 6.22 on it and then install Windows 3.1. I want to play the abundance of old games i have. But i can't seem to install 3.1. I did install but it just boots to 98. I do have a separate computer with a clean 250GB HDD but when i try to install 3.1 i get a "Windows cannot create a directory" when choosing the Windows Directory. I NEED HELP
Format HDD to FAT16 for Windows 3.1
- Thread starter AJ Crouch
- Start date
Use an old Windows 95 boot disk to first clear the HDD, with FDISK command, partition it, and then format it to FAT 16. Then load the DOS 6.22 disks in first. When this is loaded, use the Win 3.1.
Win95 boot disk here: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
and how to FDISK and partition here: http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/step-20-prepare-the-hard-drives/
Hope this helps.
Win95 boot disk here: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
and how to FDISK and partition here: http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/step-20-prepare-the-hard-drives/
Hope this helps.
Sorry, not quite sure what you mean by storage capacity or CPU clock speeds. For the latter, do you mean overclocking the CPU, or just whether Win 3.1 will make good use of the CPU in the HP PC? Remember that when Win 3.1 came out , CPUs were not as powerful or interactive as they are now. It may be that 3.1 will not recognise a lot of the hardware (drivers etc.) as though old the machine may be still too 'new' for 3.1. The last time I used 3.1 was on an old Pentium 1 machine.
First point to check is the mobo and its BIOS, and how they deal with HDD's. The really old system involved setting the BIOS to specific values for CHS - Cylinders, Heads and Sectors - values per the label on the HDD. If the system (and your HDD) is that old, the limits will be smaller than what follows by quite a bit. But since at least the early to mid-90's the system has been "support for LBA", or "support for large hard drives". In systems of that age, that meant the first version of LBA, known now as "28-bit LBA support", which limited the HDD to 128 GB as Windows counts it (137 GB according to the HDD makers). So the age of your hardware probably limits you that way.
Now to DOS 6.22 and the FAT16 Format system. The limit there becomes the fixed limit on the number of Allocation Units on the HDD (65,535) and the max number of Sectors in one Allocation Unit (64 under FAT16) - aka the max Cluster Size of 32,768. Thus the limit becomes a hair over 2.0 GB for one Partition. Then there's the max size of one volume (one HDD unit) of 4 GB. See this summary from Seagate:
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/187603en
When you use FDISK to clean off any old Partition on a HDD and create a new Partition, it should adjust the Cluster Size according to the size of your Partition you are creating, up to the max listed above. You should really be using an old version of FDISK, such as that provided with DOS 6.22 or Win 95 as EonW suggested, because newer ones may be confusing with features applicable only to more modern hardware. And don't forget that the first step on an older HDD would be to Delete any and all Partitions already there. Of course, that means NOT saving any of its data. So if the games, etc you are trying to use are on that HDD, DON'T do this. Clean off another small HDD that has nothing you want on it, and Partition it to install DOS 6.22 etc.
Now to DOS 6.22 and the FAT16 Format system. The limit there becomes the fixed limit on the number of Allocation Units on the HDD (65,535) and the max number of Sectors in one Allocation Unit (64 under FAT16) - aka the max Cluster Size of 32,768. Thus the limit becomes a hair over 2.0 GB for one Partition. Then there's the max size of one volume (one HDD unit) of 4 GB. See this summary from Seagate:
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/187603en
When you use FDISK to clean off any old Partition on a HDD and create a new Partition, it should adjust the Cluster Size according to the size of your Partition you are creating, up to the max listed above. You should really be using an old version of FDISK, such as that provided with DOS 6.22 or Win 95 as EonW suggested, because newer ones may be confusing with features applicable only to more modern hardware. And don't forget that the first step on an older HDD would be to Delete any and all Partitions already there. Of course, that means NOT saving any of its data. So if the games, etc you are trying to use are on that HDD, DON'T do this. Clean off another small HDD that has nothing you want on it, and Partition it to install DOS 6.22 etc.
First point to check is the mobo and its BIOS, and how they deal with HDD's. The really old system involved setting the BIOS to specific values for CHS - Cylinders, Heads and Sectors - values per the label on the HDD. If the system (and your HDD) is that old, the limits will be smaller than what follows by quite a bit. But since at least the early to mid-90's the system has been "support for LBA", or "support for large hard drives". In systems of that age, that meant the first version of LBA, known now as "28-bit LBA support", which limited the HDD to 128 GB as Windows counts it (137 GB according to the HDD makers). So the age of your hardware probably limits you that way.
Now to DOS 6.22 and the FAT16 Format system. The limit there becomes the fixed limit on the number of Allocation Units on the HDD (65,535) and the max number of Sectors in one Allocation Unit (64 under FAT16) - aka the max Cluster Size of 32,768 bytes. Thus the limit becomes a hair over 2.0 GB for one Partition. Then there's the max size of one volume (one HDD unit) of 4 GB. See this summary from Seagate:
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/187603en
When you use FDISK to clean off any old Partition on a HDD and create a new Partition, it should adjust the Cluster Size according to the size of your Partition you are creating, up to the max listed above. You should really be using an old version of FDISK, such as that provided with DOS 6.22 or Win 95 as EonW suggested, because newer ones may be confusing with features applicable only to more modern hardware. And don't forget that the first step on an older HDD would be to Delete any and all Partitions already there. Of course, that means NOT saving any of its data. So if the games, etc you are trying to use are on that HDD, DON'T do this. Clean off another small HDD that has nothing you want on it, and Partition it to install DOS 6.22 etc.
Now to DOS 6.22 and the FAT16 Format system. The limit there becomes the fixed limit on the number of Allocation Units on the HDD (65,535) and the max number of Sectors in one Allocation Unit (64 under FAT16) - aka the max Cluster Size of 32,768 bytes. Thus the limit becomes a hair over 2.0 GB for one Partition. Then there's the max size of one volume (one HDD unit) of 4 GB. See this summary from Seagate:
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/187603en
When you use FDISK to clean off any old Partition on a HDD and create a new Partition, it should adjust the Cluster Size according to the size of your Partition you are creating, up to the max listed above. You should really be using an old version of FDISK, such as that provided with DOS 6.22 or Win 95 as EonW suggested, because newer ones may be confusing with features applicable only to more modern hardware. And don't forget that the first step on an older HDD would be to Delete any and all Partitions already there. Of course, that means NOT saving any of its data. So if the games, etc you are trying to use are on that HDD, DON'T do this. Clean off another small HDD that has nothing you want on it, and Partition it to install DOS 6.22 etc.
Hawkeye22
Glorious
- Feb 10, 2006
- 11,442
- 2
- 49,065
Paperdoc is right about checking the BIOS for setting the HDD parameters - often it will tell you on the HDD itself what the CHS values are. Thanks Paperdoc, you are right about deleting, I should have been clear about deleting the old partition first.
This may explain about the size of partitions under an older BIOS : (copied off web at www.bootdisk.com a useful site).
YOUR COMPUTER'S BIOS DATE PROBLEMS YOU WILL LIKELY HAVE
-------------------------------------------------------------
Leading up to August 1994. You may not be able to properly access hard
drives larger than 528 MB in size.
Leading up to February 1996. You may not be able to properly access hard
drives larger than 2.1 GB.
Leading up to January 1998. You may not be able to properly access hard
drives larger than 8.4 GB.
YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM LIMITATIONS
-------------------------------------------------------------
Windows 95 or 95A Your system will be unable to access disk
(v 4.00.950 or 4.00.950a) partitions larger than 2.1 GB. You can divide
larger hard drives into multiple partitions,
each 2.1 GB or smaller. If you have an older
BIOS, you may also be limited as to the
maximum size of your hard drive.
******************************************************
Bootdisk.Com Note:
For Windows 95 original and Version 95A, your primary partition is limited
to 2.1 gigs. Extended partitions can be made to whatever size the bios
allows. Logical drives are limited to 2.1 gig. So, while the extended
partition may be 8 gig, you can only create 2.1 gig logical drives within
it. In other words, if you have a 10 gig drive, your C: [primary] partition
is limited to 2.1 gigs, you can then make a 8 gig extended partition, but
then you will have to create 4 additional logical drives. You will have no
choice but to format 5 drives letters c: d: e: f: g:
Also this is an interesting article for installing 3.1
http://www.winbookcorp.com/_technote/WBTA01030628.htm
and some of the older drivers can be downloaded.
This may explain about the size of partitions under an older BIOS : (copied off web at www.bootdisk.com a useful site).
YOUR COMPUTER'S BIOS DATE PROBLEMS YOU WILL LIKELY HAVE
-------------------------------------------------------------
Leading up to August 1994. You may not be able to properly access hard
drives larger than 528 MB in size.
Leading up to February 1996. You may not be able to properly access hard
drives larger than 2.1 GB.
Leading up to January 1998. You may not be able to properly access hard
drives larger than 8.4 GB.
YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM LIMITATIONS
-------------------------------------------------------------
Windows 95 or 95A Your system will be unable to access disk
(v 4.00.950 or 4.00.950a) partitions larger than 2.1 GB. You can divide
larger hard drives into multiple partitions,
each 2.1 GB or smaller. If you have an older
BIOS, you may also be limited as to the
maximum size of your hard drive.
******************************************************
Bootdisk.Com Note:
For Windows 95 original and Version 95A, your primary partition is limited
to 2.1 gigs. Extended partitions can be made to whatever size the bios
allows. Logical drives are limited to 2.1 gig. So, while the extended
partition may be 8 gig, you can only create 2.1 gig logical drives within
it. In other words, if you have a 10 gig drive, your C: [primary] partition
is limited to 2.1 gigs, you can then make a 8 gig extended partition, but
then you will have to create 4 additional logical drives. You will have no
choice but to format 5 drives letters c: d: e: f: g:
Also this is an interesting article for installing 3.1
http://www.winbookcorp.com/_technote/WBTA01030628.htm
and some of the older drivers can be downloaded.
Boy, memories! We opened a retail store in summer of '93 and bought 2 computers - one for the store Point of Sale, and one for the office. The store one used a 80486 CPU at 33 MHz, 1 MB RAM and a 230 MB HDD to run DOS 6.2 and a DOS POS app we bought. Later we changed it up to DOS 6.22 with Win 3.1 on top, and the POS software running in a DOS window. This allowed us to run Norton pcAnywhere from the home office to dial up the store via 14.4 Kbps modem and compress the active files using PKZip, then upload them to the Office computer for backup. The Office computer had a 80486 DX2 66 MHz CPU, 2 MB of RAM and a 320 MB HDD. Later I switched that to using on-line compression so it behaved like it had over 500 MB of space - whoopie!
Some years later the Office machine got a new mobo with an AMD K6 III+ CPU overclocked to 550 MHz. The BIOS supported original 28-bit LBA so the HDD got to be 2 GB at first, later up to 20 GB. That machine still functions, with a 160 GB Seagate HDD in it limited to using only the 128 GB capacity of 28-bit LBA. The store machine, after about 15 years of continuous operation, finally failed and got completely new innards and the Win XP OS. The drive system now is a pair of 160 GB SATA 3 Gb/s HDD's in RAID1 and that's enough, because the only major app is compact and so are its files - the C: drive is only about 25% full.
By the way, sorry about the double post above. the website was glitchy at the time and I did not realize it had been done twice.
Some years later the Office machine got a new mobo with an AMD K6 III+ CPU overclocked to 550 MHz. The BIOS supported original 28-bit LBA so the HDD got to be 2 GB at first, later up to 20 GB. That machine still functions, with a 160 GB Seagate HDD in it limited to using only the 128 GB capacity of 28-bit LBA. The store machine, after about 15 years of continuous operation, finally failed and got completely new innards and the Win XP OS. The drive system now is a pair of 160 GB SATA 3 Gb/s HDD's in RAID1 and that's enough, because the only major app is compact and so are its files - the C: drive is only about 25% full.
By the way, sorry about the double post above. the website was glitchy at the time and I did not realize it had been done twice.
Memories indeed! I remember those new fangled 486s, thought they were really something after the 386. The Pentium 1 I had was 75MHz, 16MB of RAM and 500MB HDD. Ran 3.1 first, then Win95 - and it seemed to fly! Having said that, I had also had the old BBC B computer, with games on cassette disks!
Used to have a lot of those old machines about and loved tinkering with them, but had to get rid of them (space) - but wish I had kept at least two! Still have DOS 6.22 , Win 3.1 / 3.11 and original Win95 on floppy disk. Ah well.
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