Windows 98 and Me do not natively support 48-bit LBA drives larger than 137 GB. However, there are ways to make your hard
drive work with Windows 98 or Me but you must work around some limitations and may likely need to upgrade components on your
system in order to install and use your 48-bit LBA hard drive with Windows 98 or Me. Adding a 48-bit LBA hard drive for use with Windows 98 or Windows Me is the most complicated scenario compared to other
more recent Microsoft operating systems such as Windows XP. If upgrading the operating system to a newer version of Windows is a
reasonable option for your system, you may be better off upgrading. Otherwise, if you are a novice computer user, consult
the section titled Information for Novice Users for the easiest and safest method for installing your large hard drive.
If you are an advanced computer user with experience working with hard drives, consult the section titled Information for
Advanced Users. For quick help installing a 48-bit LBA drive, consult Help on the menu
on the left.
For further details on the major issues involving 48-bit LBA and Windows 98 or Me, read on:
System tools in Windows 98 and Me do not work with 48-bit LBA hard drives. Specifically, Scan Disk, Defrag, and Fdisk
tools do not work with the larger hard drives. Potentially, you could corrupt data on the hard drive if you run some of the
tools. This will not be a problem if you keep this in mind and simply do not run any of these tools. However, Windows 98 and Me will
automatically run the Scandisk tool at startup after a bad shutdown. There is a way to configure Windows to not run Scandisk after
a bad shutdown. Further details can be found lower on this page.
Partitioning a 48-bit LBA hard drive for Windows 98 or Me. In order to install a new hard drive with Windows 98 or Me you
must partition and format the hard drive first. Unfortunately, FDISK, the tool for partitioning a hard drive with Windows 98 or Me does
not support 48-bit LBA. Therefore, you must use a 3rd party partition utility to partition the hard drive. Most hard drive manufacturers
provide a partition utility with their hard drives and make the utilities available for download from their website. The partition utilities provided
by the drive manufacturers will only work with their own hard drives meaning that you cannot for example use Maxtor's MaxBlast 3 utility to
partition a Western Digital hard drive. Refer to Tools & Drivers on the menu on the left for the most popular partition
utilities. Unfortunately, you may find that when you run any of these utilities you cannot create a partition to the full capacity of the
hard drive. The reasons for this and what you can do to correct the problem is a bit complicated. Refer to the following for more information:
Partition Tools and 48-bit LBA
If your BIOS does not support 48-bit LBA, some partition utilities will try to install a Dynamic Drive Overlay (DDO) on your hard drive so it can
be used. We do not recommend using a DDO. Refer to paragraph below for further comments about a DDO. For further information about a DDO, consult
documentation for your partition utility.
BIOS support for 48-bit LBA. BIOS support for 48-bit LBA is primarily needed to partition the hard drive to full capacity
depending upon how your 48-bit LBA hard drive is connected to an IDE controller and what partition utility you are able to use.
If your hard drive is connected to standard IDE controller on the motherboard you may need the BIOS to support 48-bit LBA. If your motherboard is based upon certain specific chipsets in the Intel 8xx chipset family, you can install
the Intel Application Accelerator driver which will enable 48-bit LBA hard drives to be used in Windows 98 without a 48-bit LBA BIOS.
Check out Drivers section under Tools & Drivers secton on left for link to Intel Application Accelerator and to see if other vendors have 48-bit LBA drivers for other non-Intel chipsets. However, with this option you
are going to need a Windows based partition utility to partition your hard drive. Only Seagate provides a Windows based partition utility. Maxtor's
MaxBlast 3 and Western Digital's Data LifeGuard II partition utilities are DOS based and require the BIOS to support 48-bit LBA. There are
3rd party partition tools available which are Windows based. Consult Tools & Drivers for more
information.
If your hard drive is connected to a PCI ATA controller adapter, you do not need the BIOS to support 48-bit LBA. All the partition utilities we have
tested will partition 48-bit LBA hard drives to full capacity. Consult Partion Tools and 48-bit LBA for
further information.
To test your system's BIOS for 48-bit LBA, refer to our HDInfo tool.
New install of Windows 98 or Me to new 48-bit LBA hard drive. Since Windows 98 and Me do not natively support 48-bit LBA
drives, you cannot do a fresh install from a Windows 98 or Me install CD and create a new partition during the installation to full capacity
of the hard drive. You can sort of work around this problem by creating a partition first using methods mentioned previously above. However,
you still have the problem where Windows 98 and Me do not natively support 48-bit LBA so your data could end up corrupted once Windows is
installed. Your options:
1. If your motherboard is based upon certain specific chipsets in the Intel 8xx chipset family, install the Intel Application Accelerator after Windows is installed. If your
motherboard is not based upon an Intel chipset supported by the Intel Application Accelerator check out Drivers section under Tools & Drivers secton on left to see
if other vendors have 48-bit LBA drivers. In order to use full capacity of the hard drive, before installing Windows you should create a single partition
less than 137 GB, install Windows to the hard drive, then run the partition utility again after Windows is installed and increase the partition to full capacity.
Refer to Tools & Drivers for more information about the Intel Application Accelerator.
2. Use a PCI ATA controller to connect your hard drive to the system.
Running a fully partitioned 48-bit LBA hard drive with Windows 98 or Me. Since Windows 98 and Me do not natively support 48-bit LBA hard
drives larger than 137 GB you cannot use one of these drives partitioned to full capacity without some sort of updated Windows driver which
supports 48-bit LBA for the IDE controller which the hard drive is connected to, usually on the motherboard or on a PCI ATA controller adapter. Therefore,
your only options to use your 48-bit LBA hard drive at full capacity with Windows 98 or Me are:
1. Use PCI ATA controller adapter to connect the hard drive to the system. A 48-bit LBA driver is provided with the controller.
2. If the hard drive is connected to IDE controller on the motherboard, you need an updated driver for the basic chipset on the
motherboard. If the motherboard uses certain specific chipsets in the Intel 8xx chipset family, there is the Intel Application Accelerator. Refer to Tools & Drivers
for more information about 48-bit LBA drivers.
Some comments about using a Dynamic Drive Overlay (DDO). This is software which many partition utilities will install on the hard
drive to enable support for 48-bit LBA when the BIOS does not support 48-bit LBA. Using a DDO can be an alternate method for using a 48-bit LBA
hard drive with Windows. However, there are disadvantages to using a DDO and they can cause problems especially later on if you move the
hard drive to another system. The following contains further information:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/over_DDO.htm
We do not recommend using a DDO and you will not find any further information about using a DDO with
48-bit LBA devices on this site. If you are interested in exploring this option, consult documentation provided with your hard drive
and the manufacturer's web site.
Information for Novice Users
If you are a novice computer user with limited technical background involved with adding a new hard drive to a computer system, the easiest
option for installing your 48-bit LBA hard drive to Windows 98 or Me is the following:
If a PCI ATA controller card was provided with your hard drive, use it. If not, your only other option requires that the basic chipset used on
your motherboard be based on the Intel 8xx chipset family so that you can use the Intel Application Accelerator driver. If neither of these is an
option for you, then you will need to upgrade to a newer version of Windows.
1. Install the hard drive as a secondary drive to your system where you continue to use the existing hard drive in the system to boot Windows.
This means you connect the new hard drive to primary IDE connector on the motherboard with the drive jumpered as a slave or connect the drive to
secondary IDE connector with the drive jumpered as appropriate depending upon whether there is already a device connected to the secondary IDE
connector.
2. Run the partition utility provided with the hard drive. Follow instructions to create a new partition on the hard drive. If the hard drive is
connected to the system using the IDE controller connector on the Intel 8xx chipset motherboard and the maximum partition the utility will create is
less than 137 GB, then you will need to get a BIOS upgrade for your system which supports 48-bit LBA in order to use the hard drive at full capacity.
3. Once the partition utility is able to recognize the full capacity of the drive, create partitions on the hard drive as desired.
4. Boot into Windows 98 or Me. If the hard drive is connected to the system using a PCI ATA controller card, install the Windows driver provided
with the card. If the hard drive is connected to the system using the IDE controller connector on the Intel 8xx chipset motherboard, install the Intel
Application Accelerator driver.
Information for Advanced Users
If you are an advanced computer user with some experience adding a new hard drive to a computer system, the following are your
options for installing your 48-bit LBA hard drive to Windows 98 or Me:
1. PCI ATA Controller card. Using a PCI ATA controller card to connect your 48-bit LBA hard drive to the system is the easiest
and simplest option. With this option you can partition the hard drive without the need to upgrade the BIOS to support 48-bit LBA if it does not
support this technology. The drivers provided with controller card will provide 48-bit LBA support in Windows 98 or Me.
2. Intel Application Accelerator. If you do not use a PCI ATA controller card then you will have to connect your 48-bit LBA drive
to the onboard IDE controller of the motherboard. In this case you will need updated drivers to support 48-bit LBA. For motherboards based
upon certain specific chipsets in the Intel 8xx chipset family, installing the Intel Application Accelerator driver will provide support for 48-bit LBA devices with Windows
98 or Me. Refer to Tools & Drivers for more information about the Intel Application Accelerator.
3. Other chipset drivers. We have been informed by one user that VIA has drivers which support 48-bit LBA for their chipsets.
For latest driver list check out Drivers section under Tools & Drivers section on the left.
For information on partitioning the hard disk, consult Partion Tools and 48-bit LBA.
CAUTION! Above are the only two options we know of to use 48-bit LBA hard drive partitioned to full capacity with Windows 98 or Me.
The hard drives will work properly because updated Windows drivers are installed which provide 48-bit LBA support with Windows 98 or Me.
You may be able to install a 48-bit LBA drive without either of the above options where it seems that the drive is working at full
capacity. However, from our tests we found that data will become corrupted once the amount of data on the hard drive begins to extend beyond 137 GB.
To disable ScanDisk from running after a bad shutdown in Windows 98 or Me:
1. Click on Start->Run
2. Enter "MSCONFIG"
3. On the General tab, click on the Advanced button.
4. Enable the checkbox "Disable Scandisk after bad shutdown"
5. Click on OK to exit the advanced settings
6. Click on OK to exit MSCONFIG.
Source for 48-bit LBA Information
