The most recently drive size boundary problem was 137G (128G binary). Drives over that require more bits in the sector number than what was in the former IDE spec in order to address all sectors.
Drives over 137G generally come with a controller in the retail box.
But a different controller is not needed for chipsets made in the last couple of years. Because of the way the size expansion was done, the old controllers just need a BIOS update and Windows driver revision to do drives over 137G, and manufacturers have done that back to stuff a couple of years old. I suppose it could be done for still older controllers, but that is too much to expect.
XP requires SP1. W98 evidently handles drives over 137G as is. You should do the driver upgrades and SP1 BEFORE you change drives to be safe.
Even without BIOS support, retail boxes have software that gets around the 137G issue, people just prefer not to use it to avoid complications.
My mobo is an old ABIT KT7 with a VIA KT133 chipset. ABIT provided the BIOS upgrade. VIA did the driver revision (which they don't even bother to mention.) I have access to all of my 160G drive.
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