Win98SE sees different drives in Safe & Normal modes

soundgeek · 08-11-2009, 12:59 PM

I've configured 2 new 400GB disks under one Win98SE system.

This is my second attempt. Somehow the partition tables and MBR became corrupt. I started again, using Testdisk to set up the partitions and MBR. (Thanks for publicising Testdisk!)

Now I have two disks set up with 6 partitions each, 1 primary partition and 5 in an extended partition, all FAT32. Disk 1 has volumes labeled VOL_1_1 to VOL_1_6 and disk 2 has the volumes labeled VOL_2_1 to VOL_2_6

The prollem is that although everything looks fine under DOS & under windows Safe Mode and the drives letters are assigned correctly 'C:' through to 'N:', when full windows is booted, drive 'I:' is a different drive with a different label and contents (I labeled it "PHANTOM_I" under windows).

Also drive 'N:' is a different drive "PHANTOM_P" ( the VOL_2_6 contents cannot be seen under Explorer).

It is as if normal windows is using a slightly different partition table (to DOS & Safe Mode), though the partitions have all the correct sizes!

FDISK running in a command window in normal windows mode shows:

C: 1 A PRI DOS VOL_1_1 12002 FAT32 3%
2 EXT DOS 369955 0 97%

Extended:

Drv Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
E: VOL_1_2 12002 FAT32 3%
F: VOL_1_3 12002 FAT32 3%
G: VOL_1_4 94005 FAT32 25%
H: VOL_1_5 125892 FAT32 34%
I: PHANTOM_I 125892 FAT32 34%

FDISK for DISK 2 shows:

D: 1 A PRI DOS VOL_1_1 12002 FAT32 3%
2 EXT DOS 369955 0 97%

Extended:

Drv Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
J: VOL_2_2 12002 FAT32 3%
K: VOL_2_3 12002 FAT32 3%
L: VOL_2_4 94005 FAT32 25%
M: VOL_2_5 125892 FAT32 34%
N: PHANTOM_P 125892 FAT32 34%

Explorer is odder still. Drive Phantom_P appears twice and drive PHANTOM_I appears a second time as drive 'O:'. Neither of the "PHANTOM" drives has the same content as the missing VOL_1_6 and VOL_2_6 which appear correctly in DOS and Safe Mode. In windows normal mode, windows Explorer shows this:

VOL_1_1 C:
VOL_2_1 D:
VOL_1_2 E:
VOL_1_3 F:
VOL_1_4 G:
VOL_1_5 H:
PHANTOM_I I:
VOL_2_2 J:
VOL_2_3 K:
VOL_2_4 L:
VOL_2_5 M:
PHANTOM_P N:
PHANTOM_I O:
PHANTOM_P P:

What can be going on here?
How can windows Safe Mode show different logical drives to windows normal mode?
Can I force windows to pick up the correct partition table details?

The last two logical partitions on each disk are about 125 GB each.

Help please! This is driving me nuts!

soundgeek · 08-12-2009, 02:59 AM

In Safe Mode, I transferred some directories & files from VOL_1_6 (I: drive) to VOL_1_5 (H: drive). This all looked fine in Safe Mode.

When I rebooted in normal mode, looking in VOL_1_5 (H:drive) the transfered directories & files I had added had corrupt names. Also a couple of the original directories had corrupt names too.

It is as if above a certain sector on the disk Safe Mode and normal mode are using different filing systems. The drives they see are different and also H: drive, which can be seen in both modes appears corrupt above a certain point.

H and I are 125GB logical drives. Maybe Win98SE just doesn't work for drives this big? Or am I missing something here?

Jlp1928 · 08-12-2009, 06:01 AM

Hi,

Safe mode always shows any devices that have ever been loaded even though they are no longer attached to the system. Remove any that you do not want and leave the ones you do. If in doubt you can usually just remove all under the heading. On reboot the ones that are attached will be reloaded.
That's probably not going to fix your other problems but may make them easier to deal with.

Good luck,

Jim

soundgeek · 08-12-2009, 11:25 AM

Hi Jlp1928,

the drives that show in Safe Mode are correct and I don't want to delete any.

What I'm puzzled about is that the last logical drives on the two physical disks become inaccessible in normal mode and extra "phantom" drives appear with the correct size, but with different contents.

Maybe different disk drivers are loaded? Maybe they are not addressing correctly? I'm baffled!

Maybe I can't have an extended partition of over 300 GB? Safe Mode seem to think it,s ok though! The partitions, directories and files look fine in Safe Mode. It's normal mode which shows corruption towards the high end of the disk. Rebooting in Sfae Mode, it all looks fine!

Jlp1928 · 08-14-2009, 06:40 AM

Hi Sound,

I guess this 81 yr. old brain gliched when I "read" your post. The only thing I can think of is that there is some restriction on how many Dos extended partitions you can have and I'm sure the number is 4. Never tried it. Check up on it. Maybe that's it.

soundgeek · 08-15-2009, 02:11 PM

You are right about 4 primary partitions. However my second partition on each disk is an Extended partition and that can hold a number of logical partitions.

I had another try and used fdisk & format under dos to set up the (FAT32) partitions:
C: 8205 MB primary
and in Extended:
E: 8205
F: 18,708.5 MB
G: 18,708.5 MB
H: 65,546.4 MB
I: 65,546.4 MB
J: 65,546.5 MB
K: 65.546.4 MB
L: remainder in another logical partition.

So 1 primary and 8 logicals.

DOS and safe mode can see all the drives (C: and E: through L:)
In win98SE normal mode, the last three logical drives are there, but they are inaccessible. It is as if they are unformatted and the FAT is inaccessible.

So I can't get at about half the disk in normal mode, but all fine in Safe Mode and DOS.

I can use the Windows format to format the inaccessible drives, but then this seems to set up a second FAT which then can't be read in Safe Mode.

It is as if Windows loses the ability to find the FATS in the place DOS has put them for the logical partitions further up the disk.

I can't fathom it!

Is there a bug in Win98SE which causes this? Has anyone else got big drives partitioned and working in Win98SE?

**TheOutcaste** · 08-19-2009, 04:52 PM

Win98 does not natively support hard drives larger than 137 GB (127.5 GiB). You need to have updated chipset drivers that support 48Bit LBA drives, or use an add in controller that supports 48bit LBA drives.
You might find this page useful:http://www.48bitlba.com/win98.htm

soundgeek · 08-21-2009, 12:06 PM

I followed the link. I wasn't clear whether it was referring to Win98 or Win98SE or 137GB physical drives or partitions.

Well, the BIOS recognises the full 400GB disk size. Also the 2000 version of Win98SE FDISK happily partitions it and FORMAT formats it. (I kept the partitions smaller than 125GB). Safe Mode happily accesses it and Explorer copies files to all the partitions fine. It all works in Safe Mode.

The problem comes when I reboot normal mode Win98SE and then it fails to find the FATs in the higher logical partitions. It all looks fine again if I reboot in Safe Mode. Actually, I can reformat in normal mode in the logical drives where it doesn't find the FATs and then I can access those drives in normal mode. However, then if I go back to Safe Mode, it sees the original FAT & files, not the ones I set up in normal mode. So it can all work in normal mode too, but not in normal mode AND Safe Mode!

Maybe the normal mode disk drivers are faulty? They are the MS generic ones (type 47?).

I'm baffled!

**TheOutcaste** · 08-22-2009, 01:02 AM

The title at the top of the page lists Win98, Win98SE and Win ME
The limit is the size of the drive, not the partition.
Win9X versions use 28 bit addressing.
The actual limit with 28-bits is a maximum of 268,435,456 sectors of 512 bytes of data or 137.4 gigabytes (137,438,953,472 bytes, which is 131,072 MiB, or 128 GiB)
The start of a partition is identified by the starting sector. When you get over 268,435,456 sectors, it can't access it. What usually happens is it "wraps around" and starts over at 0, which means that the 1st partition gets corrupted.
Easier to see in Hex.
28 bits in Binary = 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111
in Hex = FFF FFFF
in Decimal = 268,435,456.
The next sector in binary would be 1 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
In Hex it would be 1000 0000, but since the 1 is bit 29 it doesn't get seen, so it looks like 000 0000.

I'm baffled too, as I would expect it to work in Normal mode rather than Safe mode, as Safe Mode doesn't load all the drivers. And I'd expect issues with both the H and M drives (from the first post), as they are the ones that straddle the 137.4 GB limit (Starts at 130,011 MiB, just before the 131,071 limit). They may appear fine, until you start writing data and get more than 1,060 MiB written to the drive, when it will likely start overwriting the C: drive.
With the setup from post 6, Drive I starts at 119,374 MiB, so the first 11,697 MiB are within the limit, so it may appear fine until you try to put data after the first 11,697 MiB

Here's a table showing the approximate size used at the end of each partition, or where on the disk the next section starts.

Code:

Drive	 Size		Size at end
C:       12,002		 12,002
E:       12,002		 24,004
F:       12,002		 36,006
G:       94,005		130,011
H:      125,892		255,903
I:      125,892		381,795

Drive	 Size		Size at end
C:       8,205		  8,205
E:       8,205		 16,410
F:      18,708.5	 35,118.5
G:      18,708.5	 53,827
H:      65,546.4	119,373.4
I:      65,546.4	184,919.8
J:      65,546.4	249,466.2
K:      65,546.4	315,011.6
L:      66,783.4	381,795

If the system is not using 48bit LBA aware drivers, when you figure in the way it will wrap around at 28 bits, then the first Drive I starts at about 124,832 MiB into the drive (255903-131071=124,832) so data written to I is actually being written to the tail end of G, then will start overwritting H. It won't be seen on G as the directory and FAT are not being changed, but if you had data in that part of the drive it would be overwritten. And Drive H would be affected quickly, as the root directory is usually at the start of the disk.

For the second setup, Drive J starts at 53,848 MiB into the drive, Drive K at 118,395 MiB into the drive, and drive L at 52,869 MiB into the drive.

This would explain why copying files causes corrupted entries, but doesn't explain why it seems OK in Safe Mode but not normal mode

soundgeek · 09-06-2009, 03:34 AM

Many thanks for this analysis TheOutcast!

For the time being, I'm just using 125 GB of each disk and partitioning that.

But I'll digest your advice and have another go at it when I get time.

What did we spend our time on before computers?!

08-11-2009, 12:59 PM	#1 (permalink)
soundgeek Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 13 OS: Win98SE	Win98SE sees different drives in Safe & Normal modes I've configured 2 new 400GB disks under one Win98SE system. This is my second attempt. Somehow the partition tables and MBR became corrupt. I started again, using Testdisk to set up the partitions and MBR. (Thanks for publicising Testdisk!) Now I have two disks set up with 6 partitions each, 1 primary partition and 5 in an extended partition, all FAT32. Disk 1 has volumes labeled VOL_1_1 to VOL_1_6 and disk 2 has the volumes labeled VOL_2_1 to VOL_2_6 The prollem is that although everything looks fine under DOS & under windows Safe Mode and the drives letters are assigned correctly 'C:' through to 'N:', when full windows is booted, drive 'I:' is a different drive with a different label and contents (I labeled it "PHANTOM_I" under windows). Also drive 'N:' is a different drive "PHANTOM_P" ( the VOL_2_6 contents cannot be seen under Explorer). It is as if normal windows is using a slightly different partition table (to DOS & Safe Mode), though the partitions have all the correct sizes! FDISK running in a command window in normal windows mode shows: C: 1 A PRI DOS VOL_1_1 12002 FAT32 3% 2 EXT DOS 369955 0 97% Extended: Drv Volume Label Mbytes System Usage E: VOL_1_2 12002 FAT32 3% F: VOL_1_3 12002 FAT32 3% G: VOL_1_4 94005 FAT32 25% H: VOL_1_5 125892 FAT32 34% I: PHANTOM_I 125892 FAT32 34% FDISK for DISK 2 shows: D: 1 A PRI DOS VOL_1_1 12002 FAT32 3% 2 EXT DOS 369955 0 97% Extended: Drv Volume Label Mbytes System Usage J: VOL_2_2 12002 FAT32 3% K: VOL_2_3 12002 FAT32 3% L: VOL_2_4 94005 FAT32 25% M: VOL_2_5 125892 FAT32 34% N: PHANTOM_P 125892 FAT32 34% Explorer is odder still. Drive Phantom_P appears twice and drive PHANTOM_I appears a second time as drive 'O:'. Neither of the "PHANTOM" drives has the same content as the missing VOL_1_6 and VOL_2_6 which appear correctly in DOS and Safe Mode. In windows normal mode, windows Explorer shows this: VOL_1_1 C: VOL_2_1 D: VOL_1_2 E: VOL_1_3 F: VOL_1_4 G: VOL_1_5 H: PHANTOM_I I: VOL_2_2 J: VOL_2_3 K: VOL_2_4 L: VOL_2_5 M: PHANTOM_P N: PHANTOM_I O: PHANTOM_P P: What can be going on here? How can windows Safe Mode show different logical drives to windows normal mode? Can I force windows to pick up the correct partition table details? The last two logical partitions on each disk are about 125 GB each. Help please! This is driving me nuts!

08-12-2009, 02:59 AM	#2 (permalink)
soundgeek Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 13 OS: Win98SE	Re: Win98SE sees different drives in Safe & Normal modes In Safe Mode, I transferred some directories & files from VOL_1_6 (I: drive) to VOL_1_5 (H: drive). This all looked fine in Safe Mode. When I rebooted in normal mode, looking in VOL_1_5 (H:drive) the transfered directories & files I had added had corrupt names. Also a couple of the original directories had corrupt names too. It is as if above a certain sector on the disk Safe Mode and normal mode are using different filing systems. The drives they see are different and also H: drive, which can be seen in both modes appears corrupt above a certain point. H and I are 125GB logical drives. Maybe Win98SE just doesn't work for drives this big? Or am I missing something here?

08-12-2009, 06:01 AM	#3 (permalink)
Jlp1928 Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Chicago Posts: 440 OS: Win98, XP, 2000	Re: Win98SE sees different drives in Safe & Normal modes Hi, Safe mode always shows any devices that have ever been loaded even though they are no longer attached to the system. Remove any that you do not want and leave the ones you do. If in doubt you can usually just remove all under the heading. On reboot the ones that are attached will be reloaded. That's probably not going to fix your other problems but may make them easier to deal with. Good luck, Jim

08-12-2009, 11:25 AM	#4 (permalink)
soundgeek Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 13 OS: Win98SE	Re: Win98SE sees different drives in Safe & Normal modes Hi Jlp1928, the drives that show in Safe Mode are correct and I don't want to delete any. What I'm puzzled about is that the last logical drives on the two physical disks become inaccessible in normal mode and extra "phantom" drives appear with the correct size, but with different contents. Maybe different disk drivers are loaded? Maybe they are not addressing correctly? I'm baffled! Maybe I can't have an extended partition of over 300 GB? Safe Mode seem to think it,s ok though! The partitions, directories and files look fine in Safe Mode. It's normal mode which shows corruption towards the high end of the disk. Rebooting in Sfae Mode, it all looks fine!

08-14-2009, 06:40 AM	#5 (permalink)
Jlp1928 Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Chicago Posts: 440 OS: Win98, XP, 2000	Re: Win98SE sees different drives in Safe & Normal modes Hi Sound, I guess this 81 yr. old brain gliched when I "read" your post. The only thing I can think of is that there is some restriction on how many Dos extended partitions you can have and I'm sure the number is 4. Never tried it. Check up on it. Maybe that's it.

08-15-2009, 02:11 PM	#6 (permalink)
soundgeek Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 13 OS: Win98SE	Re: Win98SE normal mode sees unformatted logical drives You are right about 4 primary partitions. However my second partition on each disk is an Extended partition and that can hold a number of logical partitions. I had another try and used fdisk & format under dos to set up the (FAT32) partitions: C: 8205 MB primary and in Extended: E: 8205 F: 18,708.5 MB G: 18,708.5 MB H: 65,546.4 MB I: 65,546.4 MB J: 65,546.5 MB K: 65.546.4 MB L: remainder in another logical partition. So 1 primary and 8 logicals. DOS and safe mode can see all the drives (C: and E: through L:) In win98SE normal mode, the last three logical drives are there, but they are inaccessible. It is as if they are unformatted and the FAT is inaccessible. So I can't get at about half the disk in normal mode, but all fine in Safe Mode and DOS. I can use the Windows format to format the inaccessible drives, but then this seems to set up a second FAT which then can't be read in Safe Mode. It is as if Windows loses the ability to find the FATS in the place DOS has put them for the logical partitions further up the disk. I can't fathom it! Is there a bug in Win98SE which causes this? Has anyone else got big drives partitioned and working in Win98SE?

08-19-2009, 04:52 PM	#7 (permalink)
TheOutcaste TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 821 OS: MS-Dos 6.22 - Win7	Re: Win98SE sees different drives in Safe & Normal modes Win98 does not natively support hard drives larger than 137 GB (127.5 GiB). You need to have updated chipset drivers that support 48Bit LBA drives, or use an add in controller that supports 48bit LBA drives. You might find this page useful:http://www.48bitlba.com/win98.htm __________________ Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience Of course I know all the answers; I just don't always match the answers to the right questions. Rated R for Violence -- When your PC flies through a window, that's violent, right?

08-21-2009, 12:06 PM	#8 (permalink)
soundgeek Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 13 OS: Win98SE	Re: Win98SE sees different drives in Safe & Normal modes I followed the link. I wasn't clear whether it was referring to Win98 or Win98SE or 137GB physical drives or partitions. Well, the BIOS recognises the full 400GB disk size. Also the 2000 version of Win98SE FDISK happily partitions it and FORMAT formats it. (I kept the partitions smaller than 125GB). Safe Mode happily accesses it and Explorer copies files to all the partitions fine. It all works in Safe Mode. The problem comes when I reboot normal mode Win98SE and then it fails to find the FATs in the higher logical partitions. It all looks fine again if I reboot in Safe Mode. Actually, I can reformat in normal mode in the logical drives where it doesn't find the FATs and then I can access those drives in normal mode. However, then if I go back to Safe Mode, it sees the original FAT & files, not the ones I set up in normal mode. So it can all work in normal mode too, but not in normal mode AND Safe Mode! Maybe the normal mode disk drivers are faulty? They are the MS generic ones (type 47?). I'm baffled!

08-22-2009, 01:02 AM	#9 (permalink)
TheOutcaste TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 821 OS: MS-Dos 6.22 - Win7	Re: Win98SE sees different drives in Safe & Normal modes The title at the top of the page lists Win98, Win98SE and Win ME The limit is the size of the drive, not the partition. Win9X versions use 28 bit addressing. The actual limit with 28-bits is a maximum of 268,435,456 sectors of 512 bytes of data or 137.4 gigabytes (137,438,953,472 bytes, which is 131,072 MiB, or 128 GiB) The start of a partition is identified by the starting sector. When you get over 268,435,456 sectors, it can't access it. What usually happens is it "wraps around" and starts over at 0, which means that the 1st partition gets corrupted. Easier to see in Hex. 28 bits in Binary = 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 in Hex = FFF FFFF in Decimal = 268,435,456. The next sector in binary would be 1 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 In Hex it would be 1000 0000, but since the 1 is bit 29 it doesn't get seen, so it looks like 000 0000. I'm baffled too, as I would expect it to work in Normal mode rather than Safe mode, as Safe Mode doesn't load all the drivers. And I'd expect issues with both the H and M drives (from the first post), as they are the ones that straddle the 137.4 GB limit (Starts at 130,011 MiB, just before the 131,071 limit). They may appear fine, until you start writing data and get more than 1,060 MiB written to the drive, when it will likely start overwriting the C: drive. With the setup from post 6, Drive I starts at 119,374 MiB, so the first 11,697 MiB are within the limit, so it may appear fine until you try to put data after the first 11,697 MiB Here's a table showing the approximate size used at the end of each partition, or where on the disk the next section starts. Code: Drive Size Size at end C: 12,002 12,002 E: 12,002 24,004 F: 12,002 36,006 G: 94,005 130,011 H: 125,892 255,903 I: 125,892 381,795 Drive Size Size at end C: 8,205 8,205 E: 8,205 16,410 F: 18,708.5 35,118.5 G: 18,708.5 53,827 H: 65,546.4 119,373.4 I: 65,546.4 184,919.8 J: 65,546.4 249,466.2 K: 65,546.4 315,011.6 L: 66,783.4 381,795 If the system is not using 48bit LBA aware drivers, when you figure in the way it will wrap around at 28 bits, then the first Drive I starts at about 124,832 MiB into the drive (255903-131071=124,832) so data written to I is actually being written to the tail end of G, then will start overwritting H. It won't be seen on G as the directory and FAT are not being changed, but if you had data in that part of the drive it would be overwritten. And Drive H would be affected quickly, as the root directory is usually at the start of the disk. For the second setup, Drive J starts at 53,848 MiB into the drive, Drive K at 118,395 MiB into the drive, and drive L at 52,869 MiB into the drive. This would explain why copying files causes corrupted entries, but doesn't explain why it seems OK in Safe Mode but not normal mode __________________ Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience Of course I know all the answers; I just don't always match the answers to the right questions. Rated R for Violence -- When your PC flies through a window, that's violent, right?

09-06-2009, 03:34 AM	#10 (permalink)
soundgeek Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 13 OS: Win98SE	Re: Win98SE sees different drives in Safe & Normal modes Many thanks for this analysis TheOutcast! For the time being, I'm just using 125 GB of each disk and partitioning that. But I'll digest your advice and have another go at it when I get time. What did we spend our time on before computers?!