W98se 60Go hd size limit : any workaround ?

sirbellog wrote on 5/27/2002, 9:11 AM
I plan to buy a 80 or 100 Go hard drive for working with Vegas.
A big hd is necessary because I’m running out of free ide connectors...
Unfortunately I was told that Windows 98se does not recognize hd size beyond 60Go.
Well, I do not plan to switch to 2k or XP for now, and just for that, so does anybody here know if there is a workaround (I was thinking of making 2 X 40 Go partitions) in order not to waste this disk space which is above those 60 Go.
Thanks for any tip !

Comments

Former user wrote on 5/27/2002, 9:24 AM
sirbellog,

Remember too that you will get lesser performance (RPM wise) from these really huge drives. I tend to go only with 7200RPM drives to keep performance optimum. This biggest I have been able to find is a 60GB so far.

Also - you might think about picking up a Promise ATA card if you are running out of IDE channels...I have 3 drives in my system and still have an IDE channel open

Partitioning will definitely help but 2000/XP will let you really use these drives to their best capability.

Cheers,

Cuzin B
Chienworks wrote on 5/27/2002, 9:40 AM
Western Digital's Caviar series includes 7200RPM versions of their 40, 60, 80, 100, and 120GB drives.
sirbellog wrote on 5/27/2002, 9:45 AM
Cuzin,
thanks for your reply,
Nevertheless it surprises me a little : you talk about lesser performance, but the current "big" hard drives I see for sale (western digital, seagate...) all announce 7200 rpm as well, with very fast access/read/write times !
So it seems to me that performance is okay... but I may be wrong because I'm not very solid in computer's department.
BobMoyer wrote on 5/27/2002, 10:09 AM
sirbellog,

I don't believe that the 60 gig limitation is correct. I have Win98se and am currently using an additional external hard drive that is 80 gig and it is fully recognized.

Bob
sirbellog wrote on 5/27/2002, 10:19 AM
Well Bob, this is good news !
I was told that "W98se-hd-size-limit" story by a computer store salesman, but they don't always know eveything....
So I'm gonna buy and try !
Thank you.
Former user wrote on 5/27/2002, 10:30 AM
Well...there ya go. Shows ya how fast this stuff changes. I don't use Seagate or Western Dig but if they have 7200RPM for the real big sizes...then go for it.

Cuzin B
jboy wrote on 5/27/2002, 1:43 PM
I vaguely recall there is some disk size limitation in various OS's, but that the drive install floppies that come w/the drive write new instructions to the bios getting around the limitation. I do believe there is a limitation in 98, but its up in the 130-40+gb range.
riredale wrote on 5/27/2002, 3:27 PM
On my system I have installed a "caddy" hard-disk enclosure in one of my bays. The idea is you mount a raw hard drive in a plastic enclosure, then with the power off you slide the enclosure into the caddy, and boot. In this way you can have multiple hard disks available, though only one is accessible at a time, of course.

As mentioned, you can install additional PCI cards that give you added drive access.

On my W98SE system, I recently updated the BIOS file, and one item that caught my eye on the accompanying readme file was the note to the effect that the upgraded BIOS "removed the 140GB limitation..." (!) I don't have any idea what the theoretical W98SE limitation is.
Cheesehole wrote on 5/27/2002, 3:34 PM
limiting factors could be the BIOS, the OS, the file system used... I'm not sure why but sometimes I have trouble formatting very large partitions using FAT32 using Win2K/XP's disk administrator. I'm sure the drive will come with instructions/utilities to deal with these issues as was suggested by someone else...
BillyBoy wrote on 5/27/2002, 4:29 PM
For those still using Windows 98, following is a interesting site if you like to mess around with Windows: http://members.aol.com/axcel216/newtip98.htm#HOME

Regardless of Windows version this site is packed with information. Scroll down the left magin of the page and go to your version of Windows. Site has a good local search engine. For example under Windows 98 375 hits by entering hard drive.
http://www.windows-help.net/index.html
vinyl wrote on 5/27/2002, 4:54 PM
If you want to know about hard drive limits then visit here

http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=jK45Gbgg&p_lva=&p_faqid=960&p_created=1016203855&p_sp=cF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTUyMSZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=

If your computer salesman tells you Widows98 SE has a 60Gb limit then buy your computers somewhere else.

As for staying with Windows98, surely you have a problem with capturing large videos in Vegas Video. There is a 4Gb size limit with FAT32 (roughly 13 mins) which you dont get when you run Windows2000 using drives formatted as NTFS
Chienworks wrote on 5/27/2002, 5:02 PM
There are lots of advantageous reasons for many of us to stick with Windows 98SE. I have yet to come across any
limitations that prevent me from getting the job done.

Yes, there is a 4GB file size limit in FAT32, and this allows approximately 19 minutes of DV capture. This isn't a
problem when using Sonic Foundry's Capture/Print to tape, or even for rendering. The software automatically creates
multiple files as necessary.
Stiffler wrote on 5/28/2002, 1:24 AM
I have read (somewhere) that Win98 does not use MEMORY past a certain point. Windows98 will recogonize it, but does not use it.

If this IS true, is it also true with WinME?

Cheesehole wrote on 5/28/2002, 12:22 PM
according to these articles, 2GB is the real limit, but if you have more than 512MB installed, you will have to fix the vcache setting.

http://www.cc.umb.edu/desktop/FAQw98SEramlimit.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q253912

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q181594

Stiffler wrote on 5/29/2002, 1:04 AM
Thanks, cheesehole...that explains it very well.