HDD partitioning for large disk support

I had to upgrade the BIOS too to load a 20 GB hard drive, and I had to keep resetting the Master to "Auto" before it finally partitioned the drive as one. It was an older machine though - about 5 years old.

I've heard some good things about Partition Magic also, even though I haven't used it myself.

Tonya

Oh,

There were newer versions of FDISK? I wasn't aware. Because I was wondering why I didn't see that initial menu/choice. That must be it. Thanks alot!

Oh (I replied under wrong thread),

There were newer versions of FDISK? I wasn't aware. Because I was wondering why I didn't see that initial menu/choice. That must be it. So if I get say the version that comes with WinME it should support this?Thanks alot!

Many of the larger drives come with disk manager software. For instance, Maxtor drives come with the Max-Blast software. You boot your machine with the Max-Blast floppy, and then us it to format your drive. It places a disk management program that runs when your machine boots, enabling you to use big drives even with old BIOS setups. The one drawback is that the drive is not recognized if the management program does not run, so you can't just boot directly off the WIN98 setup floppy. you have to wait until the system prompts you to boot from floppy, then go from there. I've been able to put 16-20GB drives in 5-6 year old machines.
Also, some of the larger dirves have additional jumpers that configure them for the older machines. If you can, locate the documentation for your drive, and all should be revealed.

hi,... to tell you the truth I havent read all the replys so,.... it might be allredy mentioned...

if you fdisk then you get a screen with if you want to accept or not,... say yes ,...

then you go to menu 4 or 5( depends on how many hdds you have ( 4 if you have 1 hdd, and 5 if more...)

there you check your hdd,... and see what partitions you have.....

....also if your hdd is 30 there you will see if you have around( around because you have to multiply the amount given with 1024 to get your hdd size) the size of your hdd.

confusing aint it? LOL

ok if you can see all your partitions then this is good... then start deliting them first with menu 3, then non dos,...then all logical then your estendet then your primary,.... then you can start new partition.

in case that you have had a non dos partition you might like to,... before doing fdisk write in th c: promt

fdisk /mbr then return then fdisk.....

ok hope that helps a bit.

BTW,... if you start win98 from a cd then
1. start from CD
then
2. with CD-Rom support sarting.

then go to the CD-ROM, for ex. d:

then typ cd win98

there you will then be able to do fdisk from....

greetings,... have fun...

LOL :)

Just a couple of thoughts about this problem. I discovered this when I was playing with Linux.

First, NT's boot manager may have to be installed below the 1024th cluster on the drive. Otherwise, you'll never be able to install NT. I don't recall exactly what causes this problem.

Second, I don't believe NT 4 can read a FAT32 disk. I am not sure about this.

Third, I use Partition Commander and had no trouble with it. They even throw in a free boot manager. This may allow you to install NT beyond cluster 1024. I have never tried this so I do not know.

Hope this helps.
Sandor

Hi Sulman,

Reference to the 1024 simply implies that the current partition is unrecognized. I think you stated that the remaining 28 Gig is not partitioned. Partition to Fat 16 or NTFS and load it up.

try and use a boot loader. It's much easier to load multiple OSs. System Commander is great and so is Partition magic. Load win98 first the load the boot loader software and then use the boot loader to load winnt. There is a free loader called xosl, but I do not know how it works.

Of course you can do it the way you are doing it know, but you will have to fumble through the process

YOU MIGHT NEED AN ATA CONTROLLER ALSO..
IN ORDER TO GET THE WHOLE DRIVE RECOGNIZED.

Dear All,

Thank you very much for your quick & helpful optoins.Will try all of these options to install win98 & nt.

Will let u know if I'v any further help.

Thank you once again for such prompt replys.

Thanks & Regards / Sulman

Dear All,

Thank you very much for your quick & helpful optoins.Will try all of these options to install win98 & nt.

Will let u know if I'v any further help.

Thank you once again for such prompt replys.

Thanks & Regards / Sulman

WinME CD's are Bootable, but not all Motherboard BIOS will support booting from CD. This is also selectable in BIOS, if available, by choosing Boot sequence.

WinME has Native support for FAT32.
Upgrading OLDER systems to WinME is not always recommended, before proceeding, make sure you have WinME certified drivers for all devices installed in the system.
Check this page before proceeding with any Win OS Upgrade:
windowsupdate.microsoft.com

If dualBooting with win9x and winNT4 the first partition MUST be Fat16, and 2GB or less. If you wish Win9x to utilize Fat32 larger partitions, then Primary partition must be a smaller Fat16 Dos boot partition, say 100MB. You can then create extended fat32 win9x partition, and install win9x inthis partition. WinNT4 setup can be run from within Win9x, and WinNT4 Setup will have a GUI interface to allow for partitioning the remainder of the drive.

Important notes Re WinNT4 partition,

boot partition should not exceed 4GB
Additional NTFS partitions can be up to 16 exabytes (trillion)
NT4 CANNOT read from or write to FAT32
Win9x FAT32 cannot read from or write to NTFS
Cluster size is critical in reducing unusable drive space (slack)

Good Luck!!!

Dan T, MCSE, A+, tech support since 1982