At this time Windows 98 does not natively support 137GB drives. However, there are some 3rd party utilities that will allow you to see the full capacity of the drive once the operating system has been installed (no support for installing to a full size partition).

Below you will find solutions for overcoming this capacity limitation with the advantages and disadvantages for each method.

3rd Party Controller Cards

Using a 3rd party controller card will allow you to overcome the 137GB limit by providing 48-bit support at the BIOS level and by providing drivers with 48-bit support. This is arguably the safest method for utilizing your drives full capacity:

Advantages:

• Card provides 48-bit support at the BIOS level
• Card comes with 48-bit support drivers
• Card is plug-and-play compatible

Disadvantages:

• Card must be purchased
• An additional PCI slot is required

Software Driver Updates (800 Series Intel Chipsets Only)

The Intel Application Accelerator (IAA) adds 48-bit LBA support for the 800 series Intel chipsets. Intel also provides information on how to identify your chipset.

WARNING: If your system's old boot drive is less than 137GB and uses a drive overlay program (DDO) to overcome a previous BIOS capacity limitation (such as Disk Manager or DiscWizard and identifiable as a blue banner box before the operating system loads), then the Intel Application Accelerator is incompatible with your system. If you have this legacy configuration, the Ultra ATA host adapter card is the only solution for Windows 98SE. If you install the Intel Application Accelerator on this type of system, loss of data will occur. If you are not sure if your system uses a DDO, contact us.

Advantages:

• Will provide support for the full capacity of drives larger than 137 GB
• No charge

Disadvantages:

• May be incompatible with some versions of drive overlays that could cause the system not to boot.

Software Driver Updates (Non-Intel Chipsets)

At this time, there are no software driver updates available.

Notes concerning the Windows 98 version of Scandisk and FDISK

Scandisk

The version of Scandisk that comes with Windows 98 does not support partitions larger than 137GB. If you try to run Scandisk on one of these drives you will receive the following error.

“ScanDisk could not continue because your computer does not have enough available memory. If any other programs are running, quit one or more of them, and then try running Scandisk again.“

FDISK

If you choose to use FDISK instead of DiscWizard you will need to partition the 137GB that can be seen, or partition using the "percentage" method. In FDISK, a 137GB limited drive will show up as 65,533MB. For more information, please see our FDISK FAQ.

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