Installing Win 98SE on an 80GB HDD

[ryantruck]

I have an HP Pavilion 7900 PC it has Win XP Pro installed on an 80GB HDD.

And I want to install Win 98SE on The 80GB HDD can I boot with a Win 98SE boot floppy and delete the Partion with FDISK and then make one logical active Partion For the OS & programs and then a second partion for Files & data.

I want to have one partion for the hole drive but I dont think I can do that with FAT32 Format or can I

Thanks for any help

Ryan

 

[RealBlackStuff]

With FDISK you can remove all existing partition(s).
Then split the disk in 3 or 4 partitions.
FAT32 (as needed for W98) has a maximum partition size of 32GB.
Your 80GB disk will give you nett about 74GB.
So make the partitions e.g. 10-30-25-10 (or whatever is left).

When asked, enable large disk support.
Create the first 10GB as Primary DOS partition and make it Active.
Then create an Extended DOS partition, using the rest of the HD-space.
Next, create Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition (30-25-10)

Format all partitions in FAT32

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

FAT32 (as needed for W98) has a maximum partition size of 32GB.

That's only the limit for some partitioning utilities. Others can create much larger working FAT32 partitions.

Comparing FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS
Maximum volume size 32 GB (This is due to the Windows 2000 format utility. The maximum volume size that Windows 98 can create is 127.53 GB).

I think others such as Partition Magic, Linux fdisk, Paragon Partition Manager etc. can also create larger than 32 GB FAT32 partitions.

 

[ryantruck]

I know someone that has a computer with Win ME and it has a 37GB HDD FAT32 format.

Does this mean that I can use FDISK to make one partion. For the hole 80GB drive and just format it FAT32 and install Win98 SE or should I make two partions.

Thanks Ryan

 

[RealBlackStuff]

My post was strictly considering the W98 FDISK.
As Mict said (correctly), other FDISK-lookalikes can format different size partitions.
Unless you have one of those mentioned by Mict, stick with my advise.

 

[ryantruck]

Ok I need some help FDISK is recognizing the 80GB hard drive as 10GB I deleted all partions then i tried to make a Primary dos partition and FDISK is telling me total disk size is 10,000 MB or 10GB I dont know what i should do

Ryan

 

[Triton]

Try erasing the MBR (Master Boot Record) and starting over.

http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/asm/mbr/BootToolsRefs.htm
http://www.accessdata.com/Product07_Download.htm
http://mbrwizard.tripod.com/
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/5327/5327.html

 

[ryantruck]

I let it make the primary dos partition as 10GB and then I formated the HDD when I installed Win 98SE it said free space was 74GB which is the size of the HDD so I installed Win 98SE and it works fine as the hole drive as one partition so I guess it was just FDISK but windows 98SE recognizes it just fine

Thanks for all the help Ryan