Using Windows 98 with large Hard Disks?

Sean Fox

Sean Fox

Sean Fox

Associate
Joined
25 Dec 2019
Posts
50
So whilst clearing out the loft today I discovered an old Windows XP laptop, nothing fancy, just a 1.6ghz core duo with 2GB of RAM.

It works perfectly, so I figured I'd slap Win98SE onto it and use it as a portable retro gaming machine.

However... I've just formatted the drive and it's only seeing 2GB of the 100GB HDD.

Is there a workaround for this? I assume Win98 has limitations on large drive sizes, so is it possible to maybe partition the disk into several smaller drives and 'fool' the system that way?

It's been a verrrrry looong time since I did anything like this so some idiot-proof guidance would be much appreciated!
 
Armageus said:
Sounds like the hard drive has been partitioned as FAT16 which only supports 2GB.

You can either use a Win98SE boot disk, and use FDISK to delete all partitions and create a new FAT32 partition, or a linux live cd or similar

IIRC Windows 98 is good for 137GB or thereabouts
Click to expand...

Thank you :) Unfortunately I can't use a boot disk (no floppy drive), but I've just taken a look at FDISK - It was reporting that the primary (only) partition was already FAT32.

I deleted it and created a new primary partition - FDISK is still saying it's FAT32, but now it's giving me 29GB (which i guess must be 32GB after formatting?). I've no idea why it can't see the other 70GB though :(
 
synrgy87 said:
Windows 98SE may also have issues with the ram size, I'd cut it down to 512MB if you can until you get it installed and patched up, may be ok with 1GB . Just a little note ontop of what Armageus said.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's good to know! I'll crack it open and see if I can take out some of the ram :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom