DOS Games Discussion

ok so i have a Compaq Armada SB 5200 Laptop that came with a 4 gig drive as well as 98se on it i want to upgrade the ide drive to something bigger but i have no way of knowing if it has the hard drive bug that limits the size of the drive i.e. how many gigs limitation so what are my options aqs far as how many gigs the drive can be

I don't know about "bug" vs. just maximum value the software supported, or if that laptop has specific harware limitations, but the general numbers I'm seeing online like:

Windows 98 has a max of 64GB and windows 98SE 137GB
https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions ... 98-102695/
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/18429 ... rive-limit

And as I recall, the limitations in OS and hardware sometimes still meant you could plug in a larger drive, but the BIOS only reported and would use that max size. Still, better to keep it in that healthy range for stability, and I could be wrong on that point.

And of course, because of file system limitations, max partition size maybe smaller than drive size, but you can have multiple partitions on the larger drives... that may not be as big a problem in Win98 & FAT32 as in Dos.



How's that laptop doing for you? You've got it working but want more space, or still working on getting it running?

Quadko wrote:I don't know about "bug" vs. just maximum value the software supported, or if that laptop has specific harware limitations, but the general numbers I'm seeing online like:

Windows 98 has a max of 64GB and windows 98SE 137GB
https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions ... 98-102695/
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/18429 ... rive-limit

And as I recall, the limitations in OS and hardware sometimes still meant you could plug in a larger drive, but the BIOS only reported and would use that max size. Still, better to keep it in that healthy range for stability, and I could be wrong on that point.

And of course, because of file system limitations, max partition size maybe smaller than drive size, but you can have multiple partitions on the larger drives... that may not be as big a problem in Win98 & FAT32 as in Dos.



How's that laptop doing for you? You've got it working but want more space, or still working on getting it running?

the laptop works fine i have 98se on it but honestly the 4 gig drive is to small for me so im thinking about putting a 20 or 40 gig drive in there

Sounds like that's comfortably under the 64GB limit, so don't hesitate! And let us know how it goes.

will do the hard part will be taking the whole laptop apart because unlike most newer laptops that have a hard drive cady or tray this one has the hard drive inside the laptop whjich means taking the whole thing apart

Yeah, I hear you. My current "modern" laptop needs the wifi card replaced, but I have to take it apart to install the new one I got it and I've been hesitant. Good luck!