Format Hard drives >64 Gigabyte, Windows 98

[CCiCA]

I am having problem, installing a 120 Gigabyte WD IDE hard drive under Windows 98. The BIOS recognizes the full capacity, but FDISK, creates a 100% partition showing only 64 Giagbytes. Iam sure there must be patch to fix it, need help!

[jtzou]

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q263044

That might help a bit. Older FDISKs can't handle more than 64 GB... stupid MS... just like Bill Gates saying you'd never need more than 540k of RAM...

[paramufay]

Quote:

Originally posted by CCiCA
I am having problem, installing a 120 Gigabyte WD IDE hard drive under Windows 98. The BIOS recognizes the full capacity, but FDISK, creates a 100% partition showing only 64 Giagbytes. Iam sure there must be patch to fix it, need help!

Use the western digital EZ BIOS program to fool the bios. Be sure to read the instructions well.

[Dokeman]

I would stay away from the Western Digital software. I have found that it causes problems running scandisk and defrag later on. I have also seen it cause problems if you have to pull the hdd out and put it in another machine. It will detect the drive but wont display its contents. I say just download the microsoft fix and then do a "real" format. (A:\format d: at a dos prompt) Not a "quck" format found on the HDD install disks.

[CCiCA]

Thanks, JTZou.
Dowloaded the patch from MS website, installed it as laid out in the instructions. Same result. I also noted that the site did indicate that it is a COSMETIC issue only, the drive is formatted to the full capacity. I hope that is true, I will find out once the data exceeds 64 Giagbytes.

[John C. Dechon]

I agree about EZ-BIOS...once on it's hard to get rid of and it can cause problems because it's seen as a "non-DOS partition" which causes problems later.

If you want to be sure you can use it all and it all will be recognized, go back into FDISK and make two 60 GB partitions (50% each).

Or, instead of a SOFTWARE solution to the "64GB Barrier" such as EZ-BIOS, use a HARDWARE solution and get an ATA Controller Card...like one from Promise Technology (http://www.promise.com/product/controller_list_eng.asp)...probably their Ultra133 TX2 model card.

Good luck,

John D.

[AuraEdge]

If you can make a startup disk with a computer that has WinME on it instead of Win95/98/98SE, that will also fix it. They had fixed the version of FDISK that WinME uses so that it supports more than 64GB.

Hit Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Startup Disk to make a Startup Disk in WinME.