[Vampyromaniac]

This is for those who have ever been curious about this subject . . . .
For the last month and a half, I have been running 3 separate installations of Windows 98 SE, including one well beyond the forboding 8 GB "limit."

Win98 A - 5 GB partition, FAT32, starting at beginning of drive
Win98 B - 9 GB partition, FAT32, starting at 5 GB mark
Win98 C - 11 GB partition, FAT32, starting at 14 GB (!) mark

Contrary to everyone who I've asked, and also to PartitionMagic's warnings and Microsoft's vehement disapproval, each separate OS has been running fine and dandy!

The only thing I did differently was: I prepared the 2nd and 3rd OS's by way of a Ghost image of the first OS, not installing from the Win98 CD. Could this be what made the difference? Perhaps.

This all started when I bought a couple new hard drives and started installing my OS and my previous stuff. Then I got the hankering to experiment a little, and started reading up on the subject. After installing Ghost and PartitionMagic, I got to work.

One thing a few sources said was that Win98 had to be in the first partition of the first disk. So I decided to try moving my OS partition over, leaving 5 GB of empty space before it, and it worked fine. Then I formatted and dumped the image onto that 5 GB space, and I had 2 separate Win98's, both working fine.

Now just about everything I read said you can't have Win98 on a partition that started after the 8GB mark on the disk. So I created another FAT32 partition right next to the other two, ignored PartitionMagic's warning that it "will not be bootable," and dumped the image to that partition.

It's been over 90 days, and all the OS's have been working fine. The only software I used to do it were Ghost and PartitionMagic (I've been using the PQBoot utility to switch the Active partition.) I didn't set out using Ghost specifically to see if I could get around the "rules;" I just used it because it's much easier to dump an image than to install an OS, drivers, etc. But it seems that my using an image just might be the reason that it worked. If anyone has any input on that, let me know.

Apart from when I dumped the image to the 2nd and 3rd OS's, I've been using each installation differently, just to see if it affected anything (games on one, Internet stuff on another, video and music stuff on the other.) I think the only other thing I could do is try putting another Win98 on the second disk, but since I've partitioned and set that disk up quite nice I don't want to mess with it.

Anyway, if anyone read through all my rambling, hope you gained something from it!
... later

[Sourcer_2002]

wow thats all i can i really say about that i dont see the need for 3 win 98 os's but the fact and the ay i did it is pretty amazing. Let us know if anything devlopes

[uf4]

i like that and you know i'm with you all the way. IIRC i did write somes in responded to one of your posts and it was about if your hardwares supports INT13 extensions(whices most of today will) you will get through.. just not sure that you'll actually do it..

Re: "The only thing I did differently was: I prepared the 2nd and 3rd OS's by way of a Ghost image of the first OS, not installing from the Win98 CD. Could this be what made the difference? Perhaps."
- uh-huh! Yep, the Ghost image was certainty help in that OSes setup. again i wrote it once about i could get 8 win98es on to my 2 Hdd drives and that with the help of some tools like PQMagic.. and of coz i'll need to use an OSs image file too but i didt wrote that.

Re: "PartitionMagic's warnings"
- PM will always do that you know in case of users got some old hardweres. (4 yours.. no longer need to worry about that warning any more)

Re: "Microsoft's vehement disapproval"
- well you know M$, that's just in general and does not apply to your case at all.
and yes, you had it done beautifully.

ps i hope there'll be no one that ask a funny question like why? 3 win98es. well just in case,... F**k off pls.

[fornicatarachnid]

Originally posted by uf4

ps i hope there'll be no one that ask a funny question like why? 3 win98es. well just in case,... F**k off pls.

why 3 win 98's ?

[Mark7]

What are you reffering to by the 8 gig limit. I have all my Win98SE installs running on greater than 8 gig partitions. I thought the limit for this version of Windows was 32 gigs.

[uf4]

Originally posted by fornicatarachnid
why 3 win 98's ?

lol dont ask me

;

[uf4]

..in order to be bootable, win98 partition will need to be started below the 8 GB boot boundary.(1024 cylinder limit-- it means for the BIOS limitation)

ps. the above shows-- Win98 C partition was starting at 14 GB (!) mark

;

[uf4]

fornicatarachnid, ok you asked me.
seriously, if i want that i wud say one for internet, 2nd for test(anything) and 3rd for everything but internet. and i could have one more just for fun so what do you think?

;

[Mark7]

????? "..in order to be bootable, win98 partition will need to be started below the 8 GB boot boundary.(1024 cylinder limit-- it means for the BIOS limitation)" ????

I have 4 systems still running Windows 98SE. One starts and runs with a hard drive partitioned as a single 20 gig unit; the other three perform the same task using 30 gigs partitions/drives.

What am I missing in your statement regarding an 8 gig limit? Windows 98 SE has a limit of 32 gigs without using "tweaking" software, as I recall.

[uf4]

Originally posted by Mark7
????? "..in order to be bootable, win98 partition will need to be started below the 8 GB boot boundary.(1024 cylinder limit-- it means for the BIOS limitation)" ????

I have 4 systems still running Windows 98SE. One starts and runs with a hard drive partitioned as a single 20 gig unit; the other three perform the same task using 30 gigs partitions/drives.

What am I missing in your statement regarding an 8 gig limit? Windows 98 SE has a limit of 32 gigs without using "tweaking" software, as I recall.

Re: "What am I missing in your statement regarding an 8 gig limit?"
- its the 8 GB boot boundary.

anything else?

;

[Mark7]

Yup, now I seeeeeeeeeee what he was saying.....

[Vampyromaniac]

Originally posted by Mark7
????? "..in order to be bootable, win98 partition will need to be started below the 8 GB boot boundary.(1024 cylinder limit-- it means for the BIOS limitation)" ????

I have 4 systems still running Windows 98SE. One starts and runs with a hard drive partitioned as a single 20 gig unit; the other three perform the same task using 30 gigs partitions/drives.

What am I missing in your statement regarding an 8 gig limit? Windows 98 SE has a limit of 32 gigs without using "tweaking" software, as I recall.

OK, let me try to answer . . . .

The 8-gig boundary isn't referring to the size of a particular partition; it refers where the beginning of the partition is.

Most home computers have their Winodws partition starting at the very beginning of the disk. This is probably the situation with the 4 systems you mentioned. It looks somewhat like this:



Note that "Windows partition" means the partition where you actually have the OS installed; it doesn't include partitions that Windows merely can access (such as a separate partition only for mp3's)

Anyway, if you wish, you can also have your Windows partition start somewhere other than the very beginning of the disk, like so:



This is OK, since the beginning of the partition is within the 8-gig mark. (The 6 GB area before the Windows partition in this example can be made into a separate partition for files, back-ups, swap file(s), another OS, etc., or can be left empty.

Now the situation which is supposed to be impossible is where you have your Windows partition start after the 8-gig boundary (meaning after 8 GB of area on the disk.) Something like this:



As you see, the beginning of the Windows partition is beyond the 8-gig boundary, and is not supposed to be bootable. But the way I did it, I have one starting all the way at the 14 GB mark, and still it boots fine.
Here is what my current setup looks like for comparison:



Hope that helped!


P.S. To all those asking why: like I said, all this was mainly for experimenting

[Ryoko]

Originally posted by Mark7
Windows 98 SE has a limit of 32 gigs without using "tweaking" software, as I recall.

actually, windows 98se doesn't have that limit, fat32 does. fat32 is running on a 22 bit allocation table, allowing for at most 1/8TB on a single partition. mathematically speaking, that is. i know it works because i have an 80gb drive with a single partition that is working great...

(fat16 > 16 bit alloc... 65536 units x 32768 bytes per unit, 2,147,483,648 bytes/partition)

(fat32 > 22 bit alloc... 4194304 units max (2097152 recommended) x 32768 bytes per unit, 137,438,953,472 bytes/partition)

(ntfs > 32 bit alloc... 4294967296 units x 65536(?) bytes per unit, 281,474,976,710,656 bytes/partition(?))

[uf4]

its okay really once we all have that good thing thiss DH it will not be like this in some forum
btw its very nice images up there.

;

[Vampyromaniac]

Originally posted by uf4
btw its very nice images up there.

Hehe thanks! Made with MS Paint!!! Who needs Photoshop ??? Hahhahahahaha



ok, that's all

[fornicatarachnid]

Originally posted by uf4
fornicatarachnid, ok you asked me.
seriously, if i want that i wud say one for internet, 2nd for test(anything) and 3rd for everything but internet. and i could have one more just for fun so what do you think?

;

[uf4]

Originally posted by fornicatarachnid