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re: Using a Hard Disk exceeding 137GB with USB Friday, May 22, 2009 at 6:16 am Posted by Steve (21647 messages posted) I had a 180 gigger a few years ago, I put about 150gigs of of Media files on it to see what would happen. For a month or so things seemed fine. Then when looking for some music I noticed that a bunch of file names had changed to Generic numerical file names that Windows must have generated somehow. Also noticed that some Music with recognizable File names would actually be a different song then what I expected, so the Data had obviously become corrupted. I move the Drive from a variety of new and Old Operating Systems, so I ended up just replacing the Big 180 gig drive with a smaller 120 gig Drive in the enclosure, so I did not have to deal with Partitioning the smaller Drive. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Using a Hard Disk exceeding 137GB with USB Friday, May 22, 2009 at 3:40 pm Posted by C K (6525 messages posted) I've had one more expensive USB enclosure that seemed to work well with a 200 gig drive on Win 98/ME with USB 2.0 drivers installed for the card. The cheaper/generic enclosures had a tendancy to corrupt the entire drive so that nothing was recoverable. http://www.48bitlba.com/usbharddrives.htm WIN 9X doesn't natively support 48 bit addressing from IDE or USB. The drivers that come with an enclosure to support Win 98 aren't all that stable I have found. Without proper 48 bit support in drivers, it makes no difference to partition since anything above the 137 limit needs 48 bit addressing to be available. Partitioning 120 and 80 won't help as part of the 80 gig will be above the 137 gig addressing limit. you could start out on the 80 just fine and then sometime down the road the drive corrupts when you start addressing where 48 bit is required to work, at least in my tests. DDO is designed for a non 48 bit controller as it is software that must run between your controller and it's drivers. DDO was made for IDE contollers on the motherboard and since a USB drive (with a PATA drive) will already have a 48 bit controller in it, DDO will not even do any good, and may in fact cause some issues. I have used a USB 2 card with fairly stable drivers (for Win 98) to connect a USB 2 enclosure with a SATA drive, and it functioned the same as a PATA drive. Problem is that I have found no USB 2 drivers for Win 98 or ME that I would trust long term. Win 9X can be so unstable sometimes that I wouldn't count on it for non-replaceable/critical data long term. It is a matter if when, not if a case of corruption will occur IME. Manufacturers just aren't concerned enough to spend a lot of time on drivers for out of date op systems and the hardware may not be conpatible at all in the future. Much of it isn't now for Win 9X. It's not just a driver issue anymore. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Using a Hard Disk exceeding 137GB with USB Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 9:25 am Posted by Ed (659 messages posted) Thanks for suggesting http://www.48bitlba.com/usbharddrives.htm Have you tried any of the drivers for Win 9x which that page recommends, at www.driveragent.com? The latter contains a vast number of USB drivers (400 are listed on a search), so it's not immediately clear which are the appropriate ones. Did the "more expensive USB enclosure" which you used eventually succumb to corruption? If it did not, which make/model was it? Ed On Friday, May 22, 2009 at 3:40 pm, C K wrote: >I've had one more expensive USB enclosure that seemed to work well with a 200 gig >drive on Win 98/ME with USB 2.0 drivers installed for the card. The cheaper/generic >enclosures had a tendancy to corrupt the entire drive so that nothing was recoverable. > >http://www.48bitlba.com/usbharddrives.htm > >WIN 9X doesn't natively support 48 bit addressing from IDE or USB. The drivers that >come with an enclosure to support Win 98 aren't all that stable I have found. > >Without proper 48 bit support in drivers, it makes no difference to partition since >anything above the 137 limit needs 48 bit addressing to be available. Partitioning >120 and 80 won't help as part of the 80 gig will be above the 137 gig addressing >limit. you could start out on the 80 just fine and then sometime down the road the >drive corrupts when you start addressing where 48 bit is required to work, at least >in my tests. > >DDO is designed for a non 48 bit controller as it is software that must run between >your controller and it's drivers. DDO was made for IDE contollers on the motherboard >and since a USB drive (with a PATA drive) will already have a 48 bit controller in >it, DDO will not even do any good, and may in fact cause some issues. > >I have used a USB 2 card with fairly stable drivers (for Win 98) to connect a USB >2 enclosure with a SATA drive, and it functioned the same as a PATA drive. Problem >is that I have found no USB 2 drivers for Win 98 or ME that I would trust long term. > Win 9X can be so unstable sometimes that I wouldn't count on it for non-replaceable/critical >data long term. It is a matter if when, not if a case of corruption will occur IME. > Manufacturers just aren't concerned enough to spend a lot of time on drivers for >out of date op systems and the hardware may not be conpatible at all in the future. > Much of it isn't now for Win 9X. It's not just a driver issue anymore. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Using a Hard Disk exceeding 137GB with USB Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 10:55 pm Posted by C K (6525 messages posted) I looked through the drivers on that site at one time, but didn't find any that fit my hardware so didn't try any. I use all Acomdata or Vantec enclosures (prefer Acomdata though) so it really doesn't matter about the model number. The older ones I use on the Win 9X system are no longer sold, but the newer models that are still around should work the same, but the newer models may cause problems on a USB1.1 system no matter what drivers you use. I have an Adaptec USB 2 and Firewire card on my Asus P2B-DS system that has been really stable. The cheaper cards really gave me fits, including scrambling the data on the drives when they decided to disconnect so it was worth the extra 20 bucks for the adaptec as the BX chipset in the motherboard seemed to like it better. I haven't had corruption yet, but then I don't run the Win 9X system every day either so it could be only a matter of time... [Reply or follow-up to this message] Using a Hard Disk exceeding 137GB with SATA Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 1:36 pm Posted by Ed (659 messages posted) In fact I've fitted my Windows ME machine with a set of USB 2.0 ports, by installing a PCI card. So I would not be trying this with a USB 1.1 port. What I was wondering is whether anyone had met with unqualified success, perhaps by installing a USB 2.0 PCI card with a 48-bit LBA controller? My existing PCI card is an old one, which I would have to replace. It does the job well, in terms of providing USB 2.0 ports; but it doesn't have a 48-bit controller. Does your Adaptec USB 2 PCI card provide 48-bit LBA support? The only PCI cards I've so far found which provide 48-bit LBA functions are for SATA or PATA/EIDE disks, but I was hoping to track down a USB 2.0 PCI card that has a 48-bit LBA controller. Otherwise my best option might be a 48-bit SATA PCI card. There are lots about, e.g. at Amazon. But that means fitting a 3.5 inch caddy in my spare 5.25 inch drive bay, installing a SATA hard disk (OEM) into it, buying a SATA data cable and a molex-to-SATA power cable convertor, and installing a SATA PCI card. A slightly daunting prospect! Can you think of any problems to watch out for in installing and partitioning a SATA disk (probably a 500 GB disk) in that way? (Other than the need for the partitions to be less than 127GB each for WinME. The disk would have to be partitioned using the hard disk manufacturer's software.) Ed On Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 10:55 pm, C K wrote: >I looked through the drivers on that site at one time, but didn't find any that fit >my hardware so didn't try any. > >I use all Acomdata or Vantec enclosures (prefer Acomdata though) so it really doesn't >matter about the model number. The older ones I use on the Win 9X system are no >longer sold, but the newer models that are still around should work the same, but >the newer models may cause problems on a USB1.1 system no matter what drivers you >use. I have an Adaptec USB 2 and Firewire card on my Asus P2B-DS system that has >been really stable. The cheaper cards really gave me fits, including scrambling >the data on the drives when they decided to disconnect so it was worth the extra >20 bucks for the adaptec as the BX chipset in the motherboard seemed to like it better. > >I haven't had corruption yet, but then I don't run the Win 9X system every day either >so it could be only a matter of time... [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Using a Hard Disk exceeding 137GB with SATA Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 7:28 am Posted by Ricer46 (22013 messages posted) You got drivers with the controller card, no drivers are required for the drive. For an external USB unit SATA/PATA should be irrelevant. However, do not ignore CK's comments, cheap enclosures are fairly well guaranteed to fail. On Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 1:36 pm, Ed wrote: >In fact I've fitted my Windows ME machine with a set of USB 2.0 ports, by installing >a PCI card. So I would not be trying this with a USB 1.1 port. > >What I was wondering is whether anyone had met with unqualified success, perhaps >by installing a USB 2.0 PCI card with a 48-bit LBA controller? My existing PCI card >is an old one, which I would have to replace. It does the job well, in terms of providing >USB 2.0 ports; but it doesn't have a 48-bit controller. > >Does your Adaptec USB 2 PCI card provide 48-bit LBA support? > >The only PCI cards I've so far found which provide 48-bit LBA functions are for SATA >or PATA/EIDE disks, but I was hoping to track down a USB 2.0 PCI card that has a >48-bit LBA controller. > >Otherwise my best option might be a 48-bit SATA PCI card. There are lots about, e.g. >at Amazon. But that means fitting a 3.5 inch caddy in my spare 5.25 inch drive bay, >installing a SATA hard disk (OEM) into it, buying a SATA data cable and a molex-to-SATA >power cable convertor, and installing a SATA PCI card. A slightly daunting prospect! > >Can you think of any problems to watch out for in installing and partitioning a SATA >disk (probably a 500 GB disk) in that way? > >(Other than the need for the partitions to be less than 127GB each for WinME. The >disk would have to be partitioned using the hard disk manufacturer's software.) > >Ed > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Using a Hard Disk exceeding 137GB with SATA Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 9:08 pm Posted by Ed (659 messages posted) I'm sorry, but comments such as this are quite unhelpful: unless you're prepared to state what makes and models of so-called "cheap" enclosures have actually failed in practice. Ed On Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 7:28 am, Ricer46 wrote: >You got drivers with the controller card, no drivers are required for the drive. >For an external USB unit SATA/PATA should be irrelevant. >However, do not ignore CK's comments, cheap enclosures are fairly well guaranteed >to fail. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows Me Discussion Forum