using an old OS (specifically, Windows 98) on XP

[98 Guy]

I know this is about XP and I have XP x64 Pro edition. I would like
to create a small partition to install win98se onto for fun and
nostalgia :)

If you're going to ask questions about win-98, then why be a bone-head
and not cross-post to microsoft.public.win-98.gen_discussion?

XP install should let you use either FAT or NTFS as long as the
partition is 32GB or smaller if I recall correctly. Any larger and
it will only install using NTFS. There are utilities that will
convert from NTFS to FAT32 anyway, so no big deal. And if you install
Windows 98SE first, dualboot should work just fine.

Yes, win-9x/me needs to be installed first on a multi-OS drive, unless
you're willing to mess around with a boot manager.

And yes, XP was intentionally handicapped by Macro$haft so it can't
create FAT32 volumes larger than 32 gb. Booting a system with a DOS
floppy with format and fdisk on it is the easiest way to format or
partition a hard drive to include a large FAT32 volume.

Humm. I have one partiion about 200GB. Maybe that's it then. And does
this 32G or less partition have to be at the beginning on the drive?
Or can it be the 2nd or 3rd primary partition?

The 32-bit IDE driver for win-98 (ESDI_506.PDR) has a design flaw that
prevents it from handling hard drives larger than 137 gb. This is the
same flaw that the first release of XP had back in 2001. The flaw was
fixed in SP-1 for XP, but Macro$haft never released a fix for 98.

As has been mentioned already, win-98 enthusiasts have create a patch
for this a long time ago.

But also note that Intel has a patch for a long time as well (for
certain chipsets of the 800-series).

Also note that if you use a SATA hard drive (in SATA mode, not
IDE-emulation mode) then win-98 will be using the sata driver, not
ESDI_506.PDR to access the drive, meaning that win-98 is compatible with
drives up to 2 tb in size.

Is FAT32 "efficient" on a 2TB partition ? Not really.

Actually, it probably is.

Micro$haft designed their FAT-32 format programs to scale up the
cluster-size along with hard-drive size in order to keep the total
number of allocation units to 2 million or less.

Format.com has a /Z command-line switch that allows you to specify an
alternate cluster size - but it doesn't work.

Having large clusters (either 32 or 64 kb) is not necessarily wasteful
on a volume where you primarily store large files (media files, for
example).

I've used hard-drive formatting tools supplied by drive makers (like
Seagate, WD, etc) to format FAT32 volumes using custom cluster-sizes in
order to get around the intentional custer-size strategy that Micro$oft
designed into format.com.

For example, I've installed win-98se on a 500 gb sata hard drive that
was formatted as a single volume with 4kb cluster size (same as any
NT-based OS would do). This resulted in about 125 million allocation
units (far beyond what Macro$haft claimed was possible for either DOS or
Win-98 to handle).

Windows 98SE is stuck with only using the first 128GB of the drive.

That's true only if:

1) the drive is IDE and you choose not to use the above-mentioned
community-developed patch, or

2) the drive is IDE and you have a specified motherboard and choose
not to use the 32-bit replacement IDE driver from the Intel
application accelerator package, or

3) the drive is SATA and you choose to not use the drive in native
SATA mode with a compatible win-98 SATA driver

One of my win-98 systems has, for example, a 1.5 tb and 750 gb sata hard
drive (each formatted as a single FAT32 volume) connected along with a
smaller 80 gb IDE drive.

Enable48BitLBA - Break the 137Gb barrier! - Windows 9x Member Projects
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/78592-enable48bitlba-break-the-137gb-barrier/

Yes, that is the community-developed replacement for the original
ESDI_506.PDR file.

Making sure that no partition gets near the 137GB mark

The point with the 137 gb problem is that you can't solve it by simply
keeping all volumes smaller than 137 gb. On a single physical drive,
win-9x/me will simply not be able to correctly access any sector beyond
the 137 gb point, no matter how the drive is partitioned or how the
volumes are sized.

Again, that only applies if win-98 is using the default 32-bit IDE
driver (ESDI_506.PDR) to access the drive.

[Paul]

Post by 98 Guy

Is FAT32 "efficient" on a 2TB partition ? Not really.

Actually, it probably is.
Micro$haft designed their FAT-32 format programs to scale up the
cluster-size along with hard-drive size in order to keep the total
number of allocation units to 2 million or less.
Format.com has a /Z command-line switch that allows you to specify an
alternate cluster size - but it doesn't work.
Having large clusters (either 32 or 64 kb) is not necessarily wasteful
on a volume where you primarily store large files (media files, for
example).
I've used hard-drive formatting tools supplied by drive makers (like
Seagate, WD, etc) to format FAT32 volumes using custom cluster-sizes in
order to get around the intentional custer-size strategy that Micro$oft
designed into format.com.
For example, I've installed win-98se on a 500 gb sata hard drive that
was formatted as a single volume with 4kb cluster size (same as any
NT-based OS would do). This resulted in about 125 million allocation
units (far beyond what Macro$haft claimed was possible for either DOS or
Win-98 to handle).

I would expect the size of the FAT is a bit of an issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_the_FAT_file_system#File_Allocation_Table

"Because each FAT32 entry occupies 32 bits (4 bytes) the
maximal number of clusters (268435444) requires..."

1073741776 bytes or a gigabyte of RAM to hold the whole FAT.

How many of those could you have sloshing around, without
needing to re-read the FAT ? That's got to have some impact.

Win98 has some funny address space limitations I don't
understand, so a FAT that big might even cause problems
with the dimensions of some of the addressing.

I've not tested this, mainly because I wouldn't
recommend it as a configuration to anyone. It would
be fun to test, but I don't have a spare disk that
size which is completely empty.

Paul

[Bill Cunningham]

Post by Paul

Post by 98 Guy

Is FAT32 "efficient" on a 2TB partition ? Not really.

Actually, it probably is.
Micro$haft designed their FAT-32 format programs to scale up the
cluster-size along with hard-drive size in order to keep the total
number of allocation units to 2 million or less.
Format.com has a /Z command-line switch that allows you to specify an
alternate cluster size - but it doesn't work.
Having large clusters (either 32 or 64 kb) is not necessarily wasteful
on a volume where you primarily store large files (media files, for
example).
I've used hard-drive formatting tools supplied by drive makers (like
Seagate, WD, etc) to format FAT32 volumes using custom cluster-sizes in
order to get around the intentional custer-size strategy that Micro$oft
designed into format.com.
For example, I've installed win-98se on a 500 gb sata hard drive that
was formatted as a single volume with 4kb cluster size (same as any
NT-based OS would do). This resulted in about 125 million allocation
units (far beyond what Macro$haft claimed was possible for either DOS or
Win-98 to handle).

I would expect the size of the FAT is a bit of an issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_the_FAT_file_system#File_Allocation_Table
"Because each FAT32 entry occupies 32 bits (4 bytes) the
maximal number of clusters (268435444) requires..."
1073741776 bytes or a gigabyte of RAM to hold the whole FAT.
How many of those could you have sloshing around, without
needing to re-read the FAT ? That's got to have some impact.
Win98 has some funny address space limitations I don't
understand, so a FAT that big might even cause problems
with the dimensions of some of the addressing.
I've not tested this, mainly because I wouldn't
recommend it as a configuration to anyone. It would
be fun to test, but I don't have a spare disk that
size which is completely empty.
Paul

I have talked to others about the possibility of a FAT64. They say they
don't think it would be practical. MS does have this exFat thing that must
be an extension.

Bill

[98 Guy]

Post by Bill Cunningham
I have talked to others about the possibility of a FAT64. They say
they don't think it would be practical. MS does have this exFat thing
that must be an extension.

There is really no problem with the current structure of FAT-32 when
used with hard drives of 2 tb or smaller.

The FAT-32 method of storing files IS NOT limited to any particular
file-size (clusing chaining can theoretically give you a single file
that can take up the entire drive).

The file-size entry for FAT-32 could make use of a few spare bits so
that the max-file-size (as recorded in the FAT) could easily be 2 to 8
times more than the current limit of 4 gb.

[Bill Cunningham]

Post by 98 Guy

Post by Bill Cunningham
I have talked to others about the possibility of a FAT64. They say
they don't think it would be practical. MS does have this exFat thing
that must be an extension.

There is really no problem with the current structure of FAT-32 when
used with hard drives of 2 tb or smaller.
The FAT-32 method of storing files IS NOT limited to any particular
file-size (clusing chaining can theoretically give you a single file
that can take up the entire drive).
The file-size entry for FAT-32 could make use of a few spare bits so
that the max-file-size (as recorded in the FAT) could easily be 2 to 8
times more than the current limit of 4 gb.

So when we get up into the extbytes and petabytes we'll definately need
a FAT64 or better then right?

Bill

[98 Guy]

Post by Paul

Post by 98 Guy
For example, I've installed win-98se on a 500 gb sata hard drive
that was formatted as a single volume with 4kb cluster size (same
as any NT-based OS would do). This resulted in about 125 million
allocation units (far beyond what Macro$haft claimed was possible
for either DOS or Win-98 to handle).

I would expect the size of the FAT is a bit of an issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_the_FAT_file_system#File_Allocation_Table
"Because each FAT32 entry occupies 32 bits (4 bytes) the
maximal number of clusters (268435444) requires..."
1073741776 bytes or a gigabyte of RAM to hold the whole FAT.

I don't think that win-9x/me ever loads the entire FAT during normal
operation.

Right now I've got two large SATA drives (A and B) connected to the
win-98 system I'm typing this post on.

chkdsk on drive A:

1,464,780,864 kilobytes total disk space
900,908,800 kilobytes free

32,768 bytes in each allocation unit
45,774,402 total allocation units on disk
28,153,400 available allocation units on disk


Drive B is a 750 gb drive, with 22.8 million total clusters, with about
6000 free clusters.

I have 2 gb ram on this system (with a "special" memory patch that
allows win-98 to see and use all 2 gb).

According to Norton System Information, I currently have 2015 mb free,
and 87.3 mb in use. I have Firefox 2 running, and it's using 24 mb (the
most of any loaded module). Win16 Sys is listed as using 21.1 mb, Win32
Sys is using 14.6, Netscape (Communicator, what I'm using to read/post
to usenet) is using 14.1 mb. 32-bit device drivers are using 9.51 mb.

I see no large block of ram being used to store or cache the hard drives
or their FAT's.

Regarding this issue of cluster size and FAT-32, have a look at what I
posted back in 2007:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion/Rd6U5kIturI

Cluster size and exploring the limits of FAT-32

=================================
So here is the master summary of this thread:

---------------------------

1) Scandisk (DOS scandisk.exe, not Windows scandskw.exe) does not
appear to have a cluster-count limitation. Both Win-98se and Win-ME
versions of scandisk have been run on drives with up to 31 million
clusters and have executed properly with no errors. Himem.sys must be
loaded for scandisk to function properly. Microsoft states that
FAT-32 volumes are limited to 4.17 million clusters because of
scandisk.exe, and that scandisk.exe is limited to a memory or data
array size of 16 million bytes. It could very well be that this 16 mb
limit is based on Microsoft's stated minimum system requirements for
Windows 98 (which is 16 mb of system RAM) and that scandisk will
automatically make use of all available system memory if required.

----------------------------

2) Win-98se has been installed directly on 160 gb volumes formatted
with 4kb cluster size (resulting in 40 million clusters) and has not
shown any instability. This was performed on a 160 gb SATA drive
assigned to a RAID controller (but not used in RAID mode). To test
for 137gb data corruption (which theoretically takes place when a read
or write across the 137 gb boundary occurrs) a series of 1 gb VOB
files were copied repeatedly in order to fill the drive. The drive
was eventually filled with 150 of these 1 gb files, and no drive
corruption occurred.

----------------------------

3) The only drawback that I've seen when running a volume with a large
cluster count is that DOS will take a much longer time to perform the
first DIR command. This might also happen in Windows as well - I may
have seen this effect but I haven't specifically looked for it. The
issue is the computation and display of free remaining drive space,
which is part of the DIR command and also happens when browsing the
drives in windows. Related to this is the question does windows store
the amount of remaining drive space somewhere on the drive (instead of
requiring it to be re-calculated every time it's needed).

---------------------------

4) Standard DOS tools like fdisk and format can be used to partition
and format hard drives in excess of 137 gb. Fdisk was used to
partition a 160 gb drive into a 32 gb primary and 121 gb secondary.
The updated or "fixed" version of fdisk.exe was used. What has not
been tested (yet) is the undocumented /Z:n command line parameter for
format, which allows the user to specify a particular cluster size (n
x 512 bytes). Third-party drive utilities (based on On Track's Disc
Manager) can also be used to partition and format hard drives, but I
have found those utilities to be very unstable and to lock up/crash
about 75% of the time I use them.

---------------------------

5) There is evidence that 6,291,204 clusters may represent some sort
of "magic number". A third-party drive partition tool (PartitionMagic
Pro Server 8.05) resorted to this cluster count when an existing 32 gb
partition was manually resized to 4kb cluster size. Norton Disk
Doctor and Speed Disk was found to work properly using this cluster
count, but not on a volume with a slightly larger cluster count of 7.8
million clusters (see note 7 below). This 6.3 million cluster count,
combined with 32kb cluster size, results in a volume size of 206 gb.
Perhaps this set of parameters is the reason for the 200 gb hard drive
size which emerged in early to mid 2003. A dir command is also
performed instantly with no delays in computing free space given a
volume with 6.3 million clusters.

---------------------------

6) Win-98 versions of Scandisk (scandskw.exe) and Defrag did not
function on a volume with 6.3 million clusters but seems to be limited
to the MS stated value of 4.17 clusters. However, Windows ME versions
of dskmaint.dll and defrag.exe does appear to function correctly with
Windows 98se and compatibility with volume size of up to 31.2 million
clusters has been observed. It is not know what their ultimate limit
is.

----------------------------

7) Norton Utilities is a very common third-party set of applications
and their compatibility with large hard drives with a large cluster
count may be of importance to some people. I have found that Norton
Disk Doctor and Norton Speed disk were compatible with volumes with up
to 6.3 million clusters, but not more without using the command-line
parameter /NOLBA. When using this parameter, NDD and SD worked on
volumes with 7.8 million clusters but not 31 million. The exact
cluster-count limit is therefore unknown at this point and I may
explore that in the future.

The switch /NOLBA forces NDD and SD to skip the drive configuration
check. This can also be done using a registry entry by adding a DWORD

registry value named NOLBACHECK at this location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Symantec\Norton Utilities

When this option is set to 1, Norton Disk Doctor and Speed Disk skip
the drive configuration check.

----------------------------

8) Anyone considering adding a large hard drive (a drive larger than
137 gb) to an existing win-98 computer needs to consider certain
issues that include the drive type (IDE/PATA vs SATA) as well as how
the drive is controlled by the motherboard BIOS (mapped to IDE channel
or controlled by RAID controller). The main issue here is that you DO
NOT WANT the win-98se 32-bit driver (ESDI_506.PDR) to be used to
access a hard drive larger than 137 gb. Many or most motherboards
made for the past 3 years will have built-in SATA ports. Windows-98
users are advised to obtain SATA drives instead of the older
conventional IDE drives when adding a new drive (larger than 137 gb)
to a system or if building a new system.

====================================

And see also this:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion/DV_7O2vV1hw

Windows 98 large file-count tests on large volume (500 gb hard drive)

[Bill Cunningham]

Post by 98 Guy
If you're going to ask questions about win-98, then why be a bone-head
and not cross-post to microsoft.public.win-98.gen_discussion?

Wow I just found out about this group. I always liked 98. It was DOS
with windows. Now Windows has a "fake" DOS, basically a CLI or DOS box.

I can't get my 98se to boot and I think I now know why. I had a genuine
win98se CD years ago. Now I don't know where it's at and I have a copy of it
I burned. I must not have made the CD-R bootable. I'm not sure what to do
now.

Bill

[Axel Berger]

I'm not sure what to do now.

I've never installed from CD. With current drives sizes I've copied the
CD to a folder on one of the partitions and used a floppy disk to boot
and run the installation from the HD drive. If you've no longer got a
floppy drive any other bootable CD ought to suffice to give you a DOS
prompt and HD access too.

This helps with the "insert installation CD" messages later and also
allows editing the /WIN98/MABATCH.INF

[Setup]
InstallDir="e:\WINBUNT"
InstallType=3
ProductKey="12345-67890-abcdef-ghijk-lmnop"
NoPrompt2Boot=1

Axel

[Hot-Text]

Post by Bill Cunningham

Post by 98 Guy
If you're going to ask questions about win-98, then why be a bone-head
and not cross-post to microsoft.public.win-98.gen_discussion?

Wow I just found out about this group. I always liked 98. It was DOS
with windows. Now Windows has a "fake" DOS, basically a CLI or DOS box.
I can't get my 98se to boot and I think I now know why. I had a genuine
win98se CD years ago. Now I don't know where it's at and I have a copy of
it I burned. I must not have made the CD-R bootable. I'm not sure what to
do now.

Bill
I have a Genuine windows 98 se CD too
That have to run in windows 98 fe

But there is a work around to it

By adding win98 boot to your
CD-R bootable

I would use
< http://www.deepburner.com/ >
The Free will do the job

[Bill Cunningham]

Post by Bill Cunningham

Post by 98 Guy
If you're going to ask questions about win-98, then why be a bone-head
and not cross-post to microsoft.public.win-98.gen_discussion?

Wow I just found out about this group. I always liked 98. It was DOS
with windows. Now Windows has a "fake" DOS, basically a CLI or DOS box.
I can't get my 98se to boot and I think I now know why. I had a genuine
win98se CD years ago. Now I don't know where it's at and I have a copy of
it I burned. I must not have made the CD-R bootable. I'm not sure what to
do now.

Bill
I have a Genuine windows 98 se CD too
That have to run in windows 98 fe

But there is a work around to it

By adding win98 boot to your
CD-R bootable

I would use
< http://www.deepburner.com/ >
The Free will do the job

What is "win98 boot"?

Bill

[Hot-Text]

Post by Hot-Text

Post by Bill Cunningham

Post by 98 Guy
If you're going to ask questions about win-98, then why be a bone-head
and not cross-post to microsoft.public.win-98.gen_discussion?

Wow I just found out about this group. I always liked 98. It was DOS
with windows. Now Windows has a "fake" DOS, basically a CLI or DOS box.
I can't get my 98se to boot and I think I now know why. I had a
genuine win98se CD years ago. Now I don't know where it's at and I have a
copy of it I burned. I must not have made the CD-R bootable. I'm not sure
what to do now.

Bill
I have a Genuine windows 98 se CD too
That have to run in windows 98 fe
But there is a work around to it
By adding win98 boot to your
CD-R bootable
I would use
< http://www.deepburner.com/ >
The Free will do the job
What is "win98 boot"?
Bill

Windows 98 Set Up
Floppy Disk
That can with the CD

But if your have a upgrade CD
You will not have Floppy Disk

I have in this file Boot_98.img
But I'll can make a zip file for you at:
< http://store.mynews.ath.cx/temp/Virtual_PC/Virtual_Win-98/ >

Boot_98.zip

Make a New CD
Add all your Win 98 CD files
and add all file out of that Zip

Not the Folder Boot_98
Just the Files that in it

Then deep burner it to a new CD

That will make a Bootable CD for You
you do have your
Genuine windows 98 se
Product Key

You have to have it

[Bill Cunningham]

Post by Hot-Text

Post by Bill Cunningham

Post by 98 Guy
If you're going to ask questions about win-98, then why be a bone-head
and not cross-post to microsoft.public.win-98.gen_discussion?

Wow I just found out about this group. I always liked 98. It was DOS
with windows. Now Windows has a "fake" DOS, basically a CLI or DOS box.
I can't get my 98se to boot and I think I now know why. I had a
genuine win98se CD years ago. Now I don't know where it's at and I have a
copy of it I burned. I must not have made the CD-R bootable. I'm not sure
what to do now.

Bill
I have a Genuine windows 98 se CD too
That have to run in windows 98 fe
But there is a work around to it
By adding win98 boot to your
CD-R bootable
I would use
< http://www.deepburner.com/ >
The Free will do the job
What is "win98 boot"?
Bill

Windows 98 Set Up
Floppy Disk
That can with the CD

But if your have a upgrade CD
You will not have Floppy Disk

I have in this file Boot_98.img
But I'll can make a zip file for you at:
< http://store.mynews.ath.cx/temp/Virtual_PC/Virtual_Win-98/ >

Boot_98.zip

Make a New CD
Add all your Win 98 CD files
and add all file out of that Zip

Not the Folder Boot_98
Just the Files that in it

Then deep burner it to a new CD

That will make a Bootable CD for You
you do have your
Genuine windows 98 se
Product Key

You have to have it

http://www.cheetahburner.com/

I like this one too.

Bill