Hard Drive Compatibility Issues

I got one of my Christmas presents today! A 7200 RPM 60 GB Hard Drive from Western Digital...However, my dad informed me that hard drives about 40 GB might have compatibility issues concerning memory recognization from Windows 98.Here is the specs of the hard drive... I'm wondering if someone can surely confidently inform me that this hard drive is indeed compatible as a new hard drive for my computer... (Possibly Drive F:)Western Digital Enhanced IDE 3.5 Inch Hard Drive, 60 GB at 7200 RPM, Ultra ATA/100.My comp specs are:Compaq Presario Model 7594 (Refurbished)
566 mhz Celeron Processor
319 MB of RAM
10 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive (C:)
1.85 GB System_Sav Drive (Presumably 5400 RPM, Labeled D:)
Windows 98 Second Edition Operating System
------------------------------------------------------------I'll never let go of the railroad that inspired me to be involved with trains, the Union Pacific!John Ekhoff
14 yr. old Train Sim Reskinner from Abilene, Texas.A member of the Yonder Locomotive Works.

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RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, Transcon, Dec-02-02, 10:06 PM, (1) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, kevarc, Dec-02-02, 10:11 PM, (2) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, Transcon, Dec-02-02, 10:17 PM, (3) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, sniper297, Dec-02-02, 10:19 PM, (4) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, Transcon, Dec-02-02, 10:23 PM, (5) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, MrFuzzums, Dec-02-02, 10:41 PM, (6) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, chucksc, Dec-02-02, 11:23 PM, (7) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, MrFuzzums, Dec-03-02, 06:48 AM, (10) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, NoMoreTrains, Dec-03-02, 10:28 AM, (12) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, geekman, Dec-02-02, 11:53 PM, (8) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, Vince, Dec-03-02, 00:06 AM, (9) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, bob hahn, Dec-03-02, 12:02 PM, (13) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, sd70mac666, Dec-03-02, 09:15 AM, (11) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, Transcon, Dec-03-02, 05:41 PM, (14) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, MrFuzzums, Dec-03-02, 06:16 PM, (15) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, Transcon, Dec-03-02, 09:08 PM, (16) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, MrFuzzums, Dec-03-02, 10:24 PM, (18) RE: Hard Drive Compatibility Issues, ashiva1313, Dec-03-02, 09:29 PM, (17)

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*bump*------------------------------------------------------------I'll never let go of the railroad that inspired me to be involved with trains, the Union Pacific!John Ekhoff
14 yr. old Train Sim Reskinner from Abilene, Texas.A member of the Yonder Locomotive Works.

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Depends on the operating system.Kevin Arceneaux
It is time for Amtrak to become a fallen flag!

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LAST EDITED ON Dec-02-02 AT 10:20 PM (EST)

That's entirely the point, lol.Windows 98 Second EditionI've read on the Internet that Windows 98 SE handles only hard drives of up to 64 GB, meaning that the HD that I've bought should work for my computer... right?P.S. I've contacted Western Digital about this problem and I hope to receive an e-mail by the end of tommorrow. Plus I recommend not to go to Circuit City for tech advice, as they recommended a 120 GB 7200 RPM for Windows 98 when it really would screw up the OS badly... ------------------------------------------------------------I'll never let go of the railroad that inspired me to be involved with trains, the Union Pacific!John Ekhoff
14 yr. old Train Sim Reskinner from Abilene, Texas.A member of the Yonder Locomotive Works.

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LAST EDITED ON Dec-02-02 AT 10:20 PM (EST)

I got 98SE, and a WD 80 gig special addition with the 8mb hardware cache. Win98SE has problems with more than 512mb RAM (I had to edit the system.ini file to add the min&max filecache to get 768mb to work with Win98SE), but I never heard anything about limits on hard disk size, and didn't have to do anything special to get the 80 gigs to work with 98SE.If all else fails, look for the Western Digital tech support number, friendly patient guys that really know their stuff.

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Alright thanks Sniper! If I get a positive response from the WD representative, I'll get my dad to pop open the computer and load it in tommorrow. Thanks again to all who responded!------------------------------------------------------------I'll never let go of the railroad that inspired me to be involved with trains, the Union Pacific!John Ekhoff
14 yr. old Train Sim Reskinner from Abilene, Texas.A member of the Yonder Locomotive Works.

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LAST EDITED ON Dec-02-02 AT 10:43 PM (EST)

Your dad was either thinking of FAT32 under Windows 2000 and Windows XP, or he was just wrong about Windows 98. FAT32 under Windows 98 will support up to a 127GB volume size, but under Windows 2000 and Windows XP the maximum partition in FAT32 is limited to 32GB. So hypothetically speaking if you formatted the 60GB drive in Win98 to make the entire drive one partition and then upgraded to Windows XP at some point in the future, you'd either have to repartition to stay with FAT32 or convert to NTFS, which can support partitions up to some ridiculously high number (in the terabytes I think). Bottom line--if you're going to stick with Windows 98 for a while you're fine. The only other possibility is if Compaq tossed in some kind of limitation of their own; having serviced them for a while now and dealing with their little proprietary quirks I wouldn't be surprised if they did. You can check and be certain by going to their support site and looking up your system by the model number, and then searching their knowledge base for anything related to hard drive size limits. But really if you wanted to experiment, just put it in your system as a secondary drive and try partitioning it, the worst that could happen is you simply would get an error before it was ready for use, or you just wouldn't be able to partition the entire drive as one volume, in which case you can just choose a smaller partition size and divide it up accordingly. As long as you don't go, say, loading it up with your entire MSTS collection before playing around like that you're alright. Anyhow, hope it all helps. My Western Digital 80GB 7200rpm drive has served me well, you should enjoy yours.EDIT: D'oh---curse these slow fingers.....Mr. F

"There's no 'I' in 'Team'.....there's no 'U' either....."

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Actually Mr. F as I understand it XP can recognize FAT32 partitions greater than 32GB in size it just can't make them its self.... This so that an upgrade to a Win98 or ME system can be made... Then you should convert to NTFS according to MS.....Chuck Schneider
Chief Cook and Bottle Washer
North American Locomotive Works

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Makes sense.....I remember when I upgraded I wiped the drive and did a clean reinstall. I do recall a lot of people were annoyed at that 32GB limit though, I think it was an artificial limit and not a limitation of FAT32.Mr. F

"There's no 'I' in 'Team'.....there's no 'U' either....."

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This must be true, because I run a 40 gig drive as a single partition with no trouble at all (it's my MSTS drive). It was, however, carried over from a Windows 98 SE system.Ray

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John,I don't run 98, but I'm almost positive you won't have any problems. If you should find out what your Dad says is true, you can always partition the drive into a 40 and a 20, - or (2) 30's. Larry

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John, I'm running two WD 60Gig 7200's, Win98SE, P3 processor on a ASUS main board.(two years old)

The HD size limitation is in the mainboard BIOS (Basic Input Output System). That's the little bugger that handles, you guessed it, input and output between the main board and all I/O.(disk, CD, ect.)When I got my big fast HD's, my old mainboard only recognized if I remember, 10Gig.
These computer manufacturers have got us by the short ones.
Buy a HD and you need a MoBo (and maybe a power supply too!).

Regards,
Vince Cockeram
NEC Track Team
http://hometown.aol.com/nectrackteam/main.html
E-Mail me at vcockeram@lvcm.com

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The HD size limitation is in the mainboard BIOSYes, depending on how old this machine is, that could be another limitation. It has to do with how many cylinders the BIOS will recognize. The symptom of this is that the drive shows up in Windows as being a lot smaller than you know it is... a 60G drive showing up as 10G or something like that.The drive manufacturers all have fixes for this. There's software you can run that "remaps" the drive so that an older BIOS can see the whole thing. This has to be done at the beginning, though. The process of running that software will destroy any data that's on the disk.

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LAST EDITED ON Dec-03-02 AT 09:17 AM (EST)

I have a 40GB hard drive running XP Home SP1 under NTFS and my computer works fine. It might have brain farts, but it works liek a charm. I don't like Windows 95, 98 or ME, I'm more of an NT user because of it's stability. Maybe you might want ot upgrade, because XP would recognize hard drives bigger than 60GB. Partitioning would work fine if you have Partition Magic or some other program like that. I've cloned my hard drive onto CD-RW just incase of the serious problems. Quite easy to do if yo uknow how to compress everything

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I just got an e-mail reply from a WD representative, they say it should work properly...Another question: Would you recommend moving MSTS to the 60GB 7200RPM drive? or keep it on the 10 GB 5400 RPM as its own personal drive?P.S. This will probably be my last post before my dad comes home and installs the drive, so wish me luck! ------------------------------------------------------------I'll never let go of the railroad that inspired me to be involved with trains, the Union Pacific!John Ekhoff
14 yr. old Train Sim Reskinner from Abilene, Texas.A member of the Yonder Locomotive Works.

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Go on and throw it on the new drive if you're so inclined. Even if your motherboard might only work it at Ultra ATA/66 speed (many of the older Compaq Celerons didn't do ATA/100) you'd still get higher sustained transfer rates from 7200rpm vs. 5400, which can only be a good thing for MSTS considering how it works your HDD. I'd be backing up the \TRAINSET folder if I had a burner though. Mr. F

"There's no 'I' in 'Team'.....there's no 'U' either....."

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Unfortunately, I've ran right into a problem, apparently Windows 98 wont recognize the entire HD's memory, instead of 60 GB, it's only reading 1.95 GB...What could be the problem?------------------------------------------------------------I'll never let go of the railroad that inspired me to be involved with trains, the Union Pacific!John Ekhoff
14 yr. old Train Sim Reskinner from Abilene, Texas.A member of the Yonder Locomotive Works.

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You've got it formatted using FAT16, where the maximum partition size is 2.1GB (unformatted, so 1.95 formatted sounds right). When you run FDISK to partition, you should get a message before the menu about whether or not to enable support for large drives. Answer yes to that and it should let you create one big partition. Then when you format, it will see the partition size and automatically know it's FAT32.Mr. F

"There's no 'I' in 'Team'.....there's no 'U' either....."

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IF one would bother to go to MICROSOFT... there are 2 patches available out there, that allows scan dish to check a 64 G hd under 98... and defrag I believe is the other one...
both were made for LARGE drives...

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