SATA on Win98SE Can it be done?

[Ghosth]

yes Yes yes I know I'm a dinosaur.

Fact is I like 98SE, it lets me tell IT what to do, unlike XP which wants to tell you what its going to do. I was going to do a dual boot, but I need to load 98 first.

But I have a problem getting  system to see the HD  so I can partition it etc.

All the information is all aimed at windows 2k, XP, using a boot CD & holding down F6 then putting in driver floppy/cd.

Is there ANY way to get this working with Win98?

Any serious answers greatly appreciated.

Anyone who says forget 98 go to XP can go, well, you know where.
Don't waste your time or mine if thats all you have to add.

[OOZ662]

If you're trying to setup WinXP and already have 98, then it's asking for the drivers so it can load them into memory, not install them at that point. When it asks you to put in the drivers, just use the CD that hopefully came with the HDD. It'll load the drivers into memory, install XP, and probably install the drivers along with XP.

I have NO experience myself with SATA; I still use IDE. This is just from the little I picked up reading this forum for too long.

[TequilaChaser]

I don't see why not , Ghosth........

the SATA drivers should be on the Motherboard CD that came with the MB........same as sound drivers, Lan driver, etc.... and any other integrated devices ya MB has built in

You will want to go into the CMOS/BIOS and set your CD-rom drive or CDRW/DVDRW/DVDrom as your first boot up choice then depending on MB type/brand use boot up #2 selection as prob an optical or removable one.....or maybe even other

start up the Computer, you prob get system error or no disk, install your win98se,  as it goes to install it should ask you which drive you want to install on, it should see the HD even if it is a SATA drive.........be sure to note wether it labels it drive letter C: or E:  or even G: or I: lol.depending on how many usb slots ya got and other devices/drives/cd/DVD roms......

it should pick up the HD so you can format it, then after you get it installed/setup for 98 install the MB CD with the drivers and it should fix ya up on your SATA speed/settings.......

if this doesn't work, try using the MB CD first to maybe load the SATA drivers in memory ( though this does not sound right to me really )......

if ya do decide to dual boot win98se & WinXP ,  I think you can only use the FAT32 file structure though. and the NTFS file structure of WinXP is a lot better in my opinion.........

anyhow hope this helps,  prob get better info from the more technical PC gurus here.......

Good Luck!!

[38ruk]

In look around the net , ive seen some things on 98 and sata . Some people get lucky and it just installs normally,  Others have a ton of trouble. Sata drivers need to be installed before the os is loaded , this is a problem for win98 as there is no prompt for loading 3rd party drivers at the begining of the install (F6). Some of the suggestions on various bbs are , (1)  clone a working ide drive with win98 and the sata drivers already installed , (2) run win98 in compatability mode , (3) some drive utilities from the manufacturer will install 98 without issue .  GL 38

[Ghosth]

TC,

Not quite that simple on this end, at least it hasn't been yet.

With just the SATA drive installed I can't even fdisk it (win startup disk)It simply doesn't see a drive there.

Also doesn't help that the Mboard drivers only have raid drivers for Win2k & XP. I suspect Abit is  going to get a piece of my mind later today about that.

I am in the process of a work around. By using an old 5 gig drive to install windows 98 & drivers on, then reconnect the SATA drive & see if I can get at it that way.

It doesn't help that my old WD utilities has no clue how to deal with a Sata drive. And the new WD utilities sucks rocks, and won't fit on a floppy.

I think I can get there eventually but at this point I'm really kicking myself for going SATA. As I'd be up & running on my new machine if I'd stuck with an IDE.

Thanks for the good thoughts all, will let you know how it goes!

[eagl]

Ghost,

I suspect you'll have to keep windows on a small IDE drive to boot from, and then just use the SATA drive for storage.

Have you googled for win98 SATA?  Someone may have hacked or beta drivers out there.  Maybe nvidia or whoever makes the chipset used on your mobo.  Some sample google results:

http://www.seagate.com/support/ts/sata/drive_setup/win98_me.html

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/1129423816

Asrock and MSI both seem to have win98 drivers, so check out the mobo manufacturer's website and browse the downloads.  Check the mobo cd again in case the driver is in some folder there but not labelled right.

[Ghosth]

ALLSTOP.... Stop the presses....Hold the phone, new info coming in stop.

Just in Ghost finally found WD utilitys 11 for floppy stop.
Made new WD Lifegaurd utilitys floppy stop.
Ran floppy, configured drive sata (no raid)stop.
Partitioned drive into 3 54gig logical drives, all bootable stop.
In process of installing Win98SE on SATA drive stop.

Looks like I'm on the road here guys!

Wife is telling me "You know this is the last time You'll be able to pull this off, that eventually you WILL have to accept Windows XP"

Yes dear, yes dear, I know dear, but THIS time I still win!
I beat off the Billgatesebub XP dragon ONE MORE TIME!
Being it may be the last time just makes it that much sweeter.

Grin

Thanks for all posts, help, encouragement

[Roscoroo]

yes Sata's work in win98se

but .. you have to run a regular  ide hd 1st and load the drivers and enable the sata in bios at the end ... now load/copy win 98 onto the sata w/ all drivers ect... voila it works off sata after you set it to boot 1st in bios.

Note ; i've found its best to setup the primary partition at 40gb or less its more stable when running 98 (I run service pack 1.5 on mine also ) it helps prevent the Virtual memory problem's .

Its almost the same as setting 98se to run from a scsi