Win98 Disc Limits

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Gary D. - 27 Sep 2005 11:05 GMT

I recall reading somewhere that Windows 98 (original verson) cannot be
installed on systems with large disk drive sizes. However, I cannot remember
where I read this, nor can I find the reference again.

I want to install Win98 on a dual boot PC along with XP Home.
That way I can run Office97 Pro on the 98 setup.

The PC uses SATA drives, each 80GB. The system partition is 30GB and the
smallest (non-system/non-bootable) partition is 4.55GB.

Can this be done?

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Lil' Dave - 27 Sep 2005 11:25 GMT

Its a limitation of Win98/98SE/ME. They cannot store data beyond 127GB
without filesystem errors. The number of partitions is not a factor, it
covers the entire hard disk.
This is not related to windows disk tools, which is another problem related
to partition size, not hard disk capacity.

98 > SATA is another factor.

> I recall reading somewhere that Windows 98 (original verson) cannot be
> installed on systems with large disk drive sizes. However, I cannot remember
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> Can this be done?

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Jeff Richards - 27 Sep 2005 11:47 GMT

Windows 98 can have problems with disks larger than 128Gb, without special
drivers.

80Gb disks should not be a problem. But note that partition sizes can be an
issue. The figures you have quoted should not be a problem, provided the
partitions are FAT32.

AFAIK Office 97 Pro runs just fine under XP, but you could check in an XP
newsgroup.

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Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

>I recall reading somewhere that Windows 98 (original verson) cannot be
> installed on systems with large disk drive sizes. However, I cannot
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>
> Can this be done?

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Ron Martell - 28 Sep 2005 21:23 GMT

>I recall reading somewhere that Windows 98 (original verson) cannot be
>installed on systems with large disk drive sizes. However, I cannot remember
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
>Can this be done?

First of all, Office 97 is compatibile with Windows XP and there is no
need to install Windows 98 just for that application. There are a
large number of people who use Office 97 with Windows XP.

You will need to create a FAT32 partition for Windows 98, and it will
not be able to access anything that you have on NTFS partitions.

And you will need to install a third party boot manager or to manually
configure the Boot.ini for the multiple boot.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada

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Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm

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Gary D. - 29 Sep 2005 09:52 GMT

Thanks for your advice everyone.

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