what is the max. size of a HDD partition under FAT32 file system?

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Sen - 30 Jun 2008 09:01 GMT

I have a 80 GB HDD. I want to install windows 98 in it. Can I use FDISK
command from the win 98 booting floppy ( I have read that for HDD > 64GB, it
does not display correct HDD size ) ? What should be the max. size of a
partition that FAT32 can support ?

Reply to this Message

Gary S. Terhune - 30 Jun 2008 10:00 GMT

See:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/263044/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/327202

I *believe* the largest partition (no matter what tool is used) that Windows
98 can run on is ~137 GB, but if I'm wrong, someone will come along and
correct me.

Signature

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com

>I have a 80 GB HDD. I want to install windows 98 in it. Can I use FDISK
> command from the win 98 booting floppy ( I have read that for HDD > 64GB,
> it
> does not display correct HDD size ) ? What should be the max. size of a
> partition that FAT32 can support ?

Reply to this Message

philo - 01 Jul 2008 11:20 GMT

> See:
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/263044/en-us
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> 98 can run on is ~137 GB, but if I'm wrong, someone will come along and
> correct me.

Here is what Microsoft says

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;184006

IIRC I think you can have a larger drive but you'd need third party
utilities to replace
scandisk and defrag...such as the Win98 version of Norton.
Of course to install Windows on a large drive, setup would have to be run
with the switch specifying
not running scan disk

> Gary S. Terhune
> MS-MVP Shell/User
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> > does not display correct HDD size ) ? What should be the max. size of a
> > partition that FAT32 can support ?

Reply to this Message

98 Guy - 08 Jul 2008 15:28 GMT

> What should be the max. size of a partition that FAT32 can support?

Look here:

Cluster size and exploring the limits of FAT-32

posted to this news-group in Feb/2007

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion/browse_thre
ad/thread/45de94e6422dbab2/0e0e53eea1ce2fbf?lnk=st&q=#0e0e53eea1ce2fbf

Or, if that link is too long, try this:

http://tinyurl.com/6crjr7

A summary of that thread can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/6pdfpe

A related thread is this:

Windows 98 large file-count tests on large volume (500 gb hard drive)

http://tinyurl.com/5g3vya

The DOS FDISK (updated version) and FORMAT tools can correctly partition
and format hard drives up to (and probably exceeding) 500 gb in size.

The bottom line is that Win-98se can comfortably handle 500 gb hard
drives (and probably larger) even when formatted as a single partition -
BUT ONLY if the drive in question is NOT being controlled by the native
32-bit windows driver (ESDI_506.PDR).

There are 2 ways to insure that ESDI_506 is not being used for drive
access:

1) by using a SATA hard drive configured in RAID mode (not PATA/IDE
"re-map" mode)

2) by using a SATA or PATA drive connected to a third-party PCI
controller card which comes with it's own replacement for ESDI_506.PDR.

Reply to this Message