Bypassing 8GB BIOS limitation on old PC

[fixal0t]

he could format is as fat32 (personally I'd do a "convertfs", no data loss) but that would be unrecognizable in win95
he should do BOTH, convert to fat32, and upgrade to 98
windows 98 upgrade should be done first...

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

It's a FAT 32 drive, Windows 98. Windows and Dos Prompt don't see more than 8GB, however, every Linux CD (and installation) has picked right up on its real size. I've just installed 98 over DSL Linux that used to be there, and DSL would boot and run fine (a bit slow though) with the full HDD size. The Current BIOS is an old version of AMI BIOS but I don't think it's an AMI board, at least from what I could find on AMI's site. Even if it won't boot, I could just pull the drive and reformat it with one of my better comps and stick it back in.

 

[fixal0t]

a linux cd (or installation) is gonna run through the same BIOS before booting to disk, as windows does
it's unreasonable for it to be a BIOS issue.
I'd love to be there to see this issue, I'm very intrigued...

 

[EricB]

boot from the xp cd. format the drive as fat32. as it get done formatting immediately eject the disc. it will say something like windows can't continue. then hit f3 to exit

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I don't have an XP CD, my XP machine came with cheap junk Recovery CD's. I have 98 installed now, but I used a boot floppy to start it (apparenlty a Windows 98 boot floppy). I have the drive formatted as FAT32 though, just its only 8GB. PC Wizard (running in 98) detects the drive as 40GB. I can use a Linux Live CD with a partition editor to resize, just I don't want to mess it up.

 

[fixal0t]

so you're running from a boot disk of 98, not an actual install?

 

[KSoD]

Windows 95, 98, and ME wont recognize anything over 8GB. Need to do a windows update to get all the patches and that probably still wont fix this.

Best bet is to use the "cheap recovery discs" and install XP. Either that or download a copy of XP and use your serial that you already have.

 

[EricB]

98, and ME

???

are you talking about first edition of 98? ME doesn't have that limitation. it ask you during install if you have a bigger drive

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I'm using a Windows 98 SE CD, installed, on an 8GB partition. I was able to create another partition using Puppy Linux live CD (gparted), which worked, Windows picked up all 30GB of it. However, Puppy won't let me resize the current partition (2 partitions is OK, but one large one would be best). I think the comp doesn't have enough RAM because gparted has a malloc: memory error when it won't resize. I'll pull the drive and extend the partition using one of my other comps, then put it back in with the correct partitioning and see how that goes.

 

[Osiris]

and how did it go?