Windows 98SE Max Hard Disk/Partition Limit?

[lolwut767]

Oh hello.

I bought a new (well old but new for me) computer, a Compaq Evo D510 (SFF, not USFF) and I intend to run XP and 98 side by side. 😍

I intend to use 98 for old games, XP just so it has a stable OS that I can download things with without it failing on me. Also flash. And antiviruses. And.. you get the picture.

I do not have it yet, but it is on its way.

The seller claims that it has a 20GB hard drive (can be upgraded to 500GB), and I don't think this will be enough.

On my (untidy) desk I have a Seagate 160GB hard drive that I ripped from an old Sky+ box, all formatted to NTFS and the like.

I do know that the drive would have to be reformatted to FAT32 for 98 to recognise it. However, I have heard 98SE (the copy that I have) only supports 137GB.

Is there a way for me to use this new drive, say, make two 80GB FAT32 partitions and go from there?

Oh, and um, sorry if this is like the 345,435,785th time you've seen this. Most of the old info has old/broken/unhelpful links.

Thanks everyone, I can't wait for this since my old 2000 Tecra 8100 died on me a few weeks ago.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=windows+98+maximum+volume+size

 

[das_stig]

Yep, 20GB as standard, Pentium 4 1.8-2.8ghz and 128MB of ram. Will be fine for Win98.

If your hard disk is an old ATA model then, use FDisk to create two partitions.
Format the first one to FAT32 and install Win98.
Then install XP and format the second as NTFS, Xp will create a boot menu in the FAT32 partition.

Full specs for you @ http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11349_div/11349_div.html

 

[lolwut767]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=windows+98+maximum+volume+size

Thanks, I had not seen that Technet link before!

Yep, 20GB as standard, Pentium 4 1.8-2.8ghz and 128MB of ram. Will be fine for Win98.

If your hard disk is an old ATA model then, use FDisk to create two partitions.
Format the first one to FAT32 and install Win98.
Then install XP and format the second as NTFS, Xp will create a boot menu in the FAT32 partition.

Full specs for you @ http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11349_div/11349_div.html

Yea, I had been looking at that spec sheet. The Seagate is an old PATA disk.
I have messed around with dualbooting before, my old system (that is now dead unfortunately) had 98SE Plus! and Win2K SP4. It was really easy, but getting all of that, a word processor, games, documents, music, and updates on a 12GB drive was more than a pain.

I just can't wait!
The most ironic thing that happened to me with old systems was that I had VPC with 98 on it, it was OK, but it only had 8MB of VRAM. So, I bought the Tecra, for £35, to find out the card was 8MB as well. I didn't care though 😛

So, back to the question. If I was to add the Seagate disk, should I partition it to 80GB each on a different PC (since FDISK has a major problem with HDDs that big) or leave it as it is and get an enclosure for the disk? I have a perfectly capable, easy to add HDDs to, Ubuntu+XP setup on an Acer to format hard drives on.

 

[das_stig]

I would just create and format the Win98 partition to as big as you think you may need, 20-30GB. Then let XP setup the reamaining space during its install, less to muck around with.

 

[torbendalum]

If you want to know the max partition size, then, as far as I can remember, it is 60 GB with the fdisk tool in win98, but win98 support bigger partitions so if you partition your disk with something else, like gparted eg. then you can make bigger partitions.