I'm WinDumb and I admit it!

[JaXanim]

Doh...here we go again! I'm completely dumb on PeeCees, but I know someone here will get me through.

I have a tidgy 850Mb drive running Win98SE stuff, so I bought an 80Gb one. Of course, the other was full before I knew it! I'm trying to set it up to receive astropics from my telescope via a webcam, but it all seems a long way off atm!

Anyway, I'm trying to partition and format my spanking brand new 80Gb drive, but the Fdisk gizmo says it's only 12Gb. Doh...!

I'd like to create a boot partition of around 1Gb and another 79Gb partition containing all the apps, etc. i.e. do it a bit like Amigans do it.

Anyway, when I use the Win98 Fdisk command, it checks drive C: and reports that it's a large drive suitable for FAT32. So, I ask it to make a Primary DOS partition of 1 Gig or so and it does, but it says the disk is only 12624Mb.

So, I can create the first partition OK, but how do I get the other 79Gb to work?

Any advice most welcom.

Cheers,

JaX (WinDumb)

[odin]

It might very well be that your motherboard is too ancient to recognise bigger HD's. Sometimes (usually?) flashing a newer BIOS ('Kickstart') into it can help. Do you happen to know what motherboard you have? We might be able to help you find a newer version.

It's a bit like the 4 gig limit on Miggies, but not quite :-).

Oh and if that wouldn't help, I'd be happy to swap my 15 gig for your 80gig :-D.

[JaXanim]

@odin

Gulp...swap my 80Gb....!

I suspected it's the senility of the mobo, but I really didn't intend things to move this far when I got it.

Regular readers my remember that Spirantho (All Hail!) donated it to me when my WaveGuide masterpiece was in jeopardy? Anyway, that's another story.

The mobo has a PentiumII, so it's quite long in the dental area, I fear. I'd hoped that the 80Gg would solve all my problems (which are pretty small in PeeCee terms).

Anyway, I assume I need to swap the BIOS chip gizmo or something like that?

Is that what I need?

Cheers,

JaX

[Holley]

It could be the motherboard, but it's unlikely.  Windows 98 has a limit, IIRC it's 35Gb ish.  I've hit that wall and dual-booted into Win2K, been able to access the rest (without '98 seeing it).  Windows NT4 can handle bigger drives BTW, but can't handle a USB Webcam.

If you can find a copy of Partition Magic it'll probably work better than FDisk in reporting what you can/can't do.

[Lo]

Partition Magic is the best, but why not download the
Disk Wizard from the manufacturer?  SeaGate and Maxtor
both offer Utilities for partitioning.

[Lo]

Partition Magic is the best, but why not download the
Disk Wizard from the manufacturer?  SeaGate and Maxtor
both offer Utilities for partitioning.

[odin]

It's a possibility that your motherboard is so ancient that it's chips are not flashable. It might help, however, if you could provide the make and modelnumber :-).

Whatever did you do with that Packard from Hell? Trashed it?

[JaXanim]

@Holley

Mmm..the Win98 Boot Floppy says the drive is only around 12Gb, so that appears to be the limit as far as Win98SE/my mobo is concerned.

I can't get into dual booting systems, I'm too WinDumb to get a simple HD going!

Anyone suggest where to go?

Cheers,

JaX

[that_punk_guy]

Holley wrote:
Windows NT4 can handle bigger drives BTW, but can't handle a USB Webcam.

I dunno, I had a lot of trouble with partitions on a 10GB drive with NT4. Windows 2000 is the only version of Windows worth a crap IMO.

But yes, disregard fdisk entirely. I used to use Ranish Partition Manager for setting up partitions for Win98 and suchlike. http://www.ranish.com/part/

As for the BIOS/mobo thing? No idea. :-(

[JaXanim]

@odin

I used the Packard Bell case to take the 'new' mobo/PII/RAM, etc provided by Spirantho (All Hail!).

The PB power pack had blown so I bought another 300watt one. Unfortunately, this was too tall to fit in the PB desktop case, so I cut a rectangular hole in the top to clear the new supply box. Well, it works just fine! The PB innards are in the garage, but they'll eventually get dumped no doubt.

I kept the old 850Mb drive and managed to reformat it and install Win98SE and got all my WaveGuide stuff back on track. Everything was going great until the HD choked on the extra stuff I added.

Once I'd got it going I decided to try a USB webcam for my telescope, bunged up the drive and here I am.

Cheers,

JaX

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Holley wrote:
Windows 98 has a limit, IIRC it's 35Gb ish.

Can't be the problem, I got a 40gb hdd running on w98
it's gotta be the mobo wich is the problem,

btw. a 850mb hdd in a p2 comp? Strange. I got my p2 standard with 6gb wich was kinda standard.

[JaXanim]

My mobo is an ABit BX6, anyone know if it'll accept an 80Gb drive?

I'll also try the downloadable partitioning stuff. (How do you get a partitioning program over 1.44Mb to run on a non-booting PeeCee? Sounds daft to me!)

I've just got this feeling I need to spnd yet more money...Doh...!

Cheers,

JaX

[Speelgoedmannetje]

JaXanim wrote:
My mobo is an ABit BX6, anyone know if it'll accept an 80Gb drive?

I'll also try the downloadable partitioning stuff. (How do you get a partitioning program over 1.44Mb to run on a non-booting PeeCee? Sounds daft to me!)

methinks that's not necessary. I think ABit has a bios update on it's site so that'll do the job (at least, when I put in my 40gb hdd, I had to flash my bios, otherwise the mobo wouldn't reckognise more than 32gb).

btw. Be VERY careful though with flashing your bios, know the type motherboard and get the appropriate bios, or you'll destroy your mobo.

[JaXanim]

@speel...etc

No, it's a custom built special!

It was an old Packaged Hell with an AMD, but it broke (power surge we think). So I got this new (old) mobo from Spirantho (All Hail!) and got everything going with the PII that came with it. All was well, until I wanted more.

Yes, I wanted more and more, but the HD choked on it and I'm now wondering why the Hell I started all this!

Cheers,

JaX

[Ilwrath]

I've just got this feeling I need to spnd yet more money...Doh...!

Naw... I don't think so.  First try updating the motherboard BIOS.  (As stated, make sure you pick the exact perfect match for your motherboard -- "close enough" will usually result in a terminally broken system!)  

Then, if that doesn't work, try a utility that allows larger HDs.  I installed a 60GB Western Digital in an old Pentium 133mhz machine, by using the WD EZ-Drive utility.  Originally with BIOS only, the machine only recognized like 6 GB of the drive.  With the utility, it easily handled the full drive size.  Couldn't have been easier.

Since, then, EZ-Drive has been replaced by "Data Lifeguard Tools", which is still a free download...
Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools  (Not sure if it works properly on non-WD drives, though.  But odds are, your drive manufacturer has a similar toolkit.)