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known issues with win 98se and large HDDs?

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Pyromidion

Senior member
im running win98se, and ive recently bought a 120gb hDD, and it seems that the BSOD keeps comming around saying "cannot write to drive D, data may be lost, press any key to contitue", or just the standard BSOD on random rea/write. windows seemed to format it fine (DOS could only see 48gb of it, so i formated thru windows)...um, i have an XP disc here, would installing XP help out at all?
 
well, i followed the link, and DLd and installed it, it says its 11400 or so...id have to restart to find out what it actually says, because it looks kinda scarry...
 
how did you partition the drive....fdisk or with a utility that came with harddrive? you said you formated it through windows.
 
partition with FDISK...attempted to format with dos, but saw only 1/3 to 1/4 of the drive was going to be ther, so i formated it in windows. i think im going to try to repartition it wit the upgrade/patch thing from the link, and try again.
 
what kind of HD is that? maybe check out manufacturers website of drive....they usually have utilities for that as well.
 
so ive quick formated without repartitioning..i come here now with a question...what other freeware app could i use other than fdisk to partition the drive that can recognize its full size of 120gb???
 
win98se means FAT
FAT32 largest size is around 32GB (anyone to confirm?)

try to make 4 partitions, if you are lucky this will work
 
as far as I know 95 has a limitation i don't think 98 did, i could be wrong.
Pyromidion...like i had asked earlier, what brand HD is that....Maxtor, Western Digital...IBM and Seagate all have disk utilities that can partition the drive, i don't think a 3rd party app is good idea.
 
its an eastern analog...err wait, western digital....i went to the website, and didnt find a partitioner thing, but found a diagnostics that found nothing wrong with it. last night, i tried to copy about 10 GB off of it, to another drive...with many freezes. I later found that if i copied < 2gb at a time, it wouldnt freeze...is there a reason for this either? and just because Fdisk doesnt display the right #s, how would windows know to format it the correct size? id think that it just cant display the #s correctly, but actually got the partitioning job done. could this be true?
 
FAT32 largest size is around 32GB (anyone to confirm?)
Click to expand...

Win2K and XP only let you format FAT partitions up to 32G because they want you to move to NTFS cause FAT sucks. But the max theoretical size is like 2TB I think.
 
and just because Fdisk doesnt display the right #s, how would windows know to format it the correct size?
Click to expand...
....i'm not sure on that.

what we need to do, is get FDISK to properly see the drive at the right size and partition, you have a few options to try.

1) Download Data Lifeguard Tools from WD LINK....and yes this will partition your drive, read the notes on how to use.
or
2) go to Bootdisk.com and download the WinMe bootdisk at the bottom of page, download..run program, have floppy ready....winme/98 don't matter, just figured we don't want bad fdisk, and winme has a corrected fdisk, according to MS.

you'll probably have to delete the partition, on your 120GB drive,which you'll lose all data, so make sure you backed up everything, and then re-partition....hopefully this works....just make sure you do the right drive. :Q
I'll be checking back later and hoping everything went well, i'm crossing my fingers here.
 
fdisk.bmp 81kb

im not sure, but if you move the margins over, you can kind a see where it displays the right #s, just pushed over a bit. my 13gb is my primary, the 120 should be the D drive, and i have a 40gb as my E...like i said, i just formated it last night (without changing partitions), but i looked over this, and noticed the margin push thing, so....

btw, i also found and eliminated a virus that i found on my computer, its a network thing, so i dont think it effected this at all, but just maybe
 
I see what you mean, that is very odd....I don't have a clue on what all that means...not even sure what to suggest doing now...if your still able to get in windows, try to backup what you can....something got fubar, could be a fix....maybe someone can add some insight on this.
 
i emailed WD tech support, and they say with my symptoms, it could be a bad EIDE cable. he also suggests to make the two quantums on the same cable, and have the 120 be the master for my CD drive. i am going away for a week, so i wont be able to check on this until i get back, but if it works out...ill make sure to let you know,
 
you can use the westerndigital utility that you downloaded to pation and format the drive. by now i would try that and reinstall from scratch.
good luck
 
sorry to bring this back to the top, but i switched the drives / cables around, using the cable that came with the CD drive. after detecting the drives it says something about it not being an 80 pin? still doest seem to wanna be too nice to me, but ill see if (when i reboot) i can get the exact message about the cable
 
I think youre thinking that you are going to have the full 120 gigs. You aren't, HDD manufactures estimate or whatever. But you won't have a full 120 GIG HDD. Nobody that I know has ever had a full rating of the HDD.
 
Don't use the cable that came with the CD drive, those are usually 40-conductor cables that only support ATA-33. You should use the cable that came with a newer HD, you will notice that it has thinner (more) conductors - those are 80-conductor cables. The new cables are compatible with old drives (like your CD drive), but the old cables won't work with a new drive. You'll want 80-conductor cables for both IDE channels, assuming your quantum drives are be set to ATA-66 or ATA-100 (look at the cable you will know - thinner/more conductors). Hopefully you will have a spare since you have 2 quantum drives, or you have to either buy one or ask WDC to send you a replacement if your package came with one.
 
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