hard drive sizes

[chewie1012]

I have read in a couple of places on this forum that win98 won't work with drives over 30 gigabytes. Is this true? I have a sixty gig drive and I was going to build a gaming system for my kids. I want use win 98 SE. Will this work?

 

[buckaroo]

Yes I have WIN 98 and installed a 60GB drive, although I recall at the time there being something about a 64 GB limit, but I'm not sure now.

The real limitation would be your system's BIOS and whether that allows greater than 32GB. A general rule is somewhere during 1999 the mobs's and BIOS's will recognize over 32 GB. Even if it's an older BIOS, if you have or are able to do a BIOS upgrade (flash), it may bring it up to snuff.

Even if your BIOS is limited, the software that comes with the HD, or you can download, can install a BIOS overlay to fool your system that the HD isn't larger than 32GB, yet you get full use of your 60GB drive.

 

[chewie1012]

Thanks Buckaroo.

 

[~Candy~]

I have a 60 running 98 as well. Didn't want to mess with a bios update, so I just used the software overlay program that should come with the drive so that Windows will recognize the entire drive.

 

[kramnnim]

FAT32 is limited to 32GB, I believe, so you'd have to partition the drive...

EDIT: I'm wrong yet again, looks like the limit is over 120GB.

 

[~Candy~]

Here is some reading material that was pointed out to me in another thread.......



http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm

 

[chewie1012]

Thanks Candy and friends.

 

[buckaroo]

Kraminnim, that's okay, it can be a little confusing. FAT 32 is limited to 32 GB in WIN XP and 2000, so under those OS's you need to convert to NTFS for larger drives.