Member Avatar for rational611

Hi,

I want to install a 40GB hardisk on a Celeron 300 running Win 98SE.
When I run scandisk on this system, the HDD is show bad sectors after a certain point. However when I check the same HDD on a Celeron 1.7 GHz system, the scandisk is coming out clean. Someone told me that Cel 300 does not support HDDs larger than 20GB
Is there any utility or a BIOS upgrade that will fix this problem?

ratioinal611

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A short, practical diagnosis and safe next steps (adds to comments from , and ).

The mismatch — Scandisk on the Celeron-300 system reporting “bad” sectors while the same drive checks clean on a newer machine — is a classic BIOS/translation issue, not immediate proof of media failure. Older motherboards expose several well-known capacity boundaries and may present incorrect geometry or INT13/LBA behavior; disk utilities that fall back to BIOS/DOS-time calls can then read/write the wrong areas and report or even create errors. Running repair utilities before confirming how the BIOS sees the drive can cause corruption. (jeffpar.github.io)

Practical sequence to resolve (non-interactive checklist): record the motherboard make/model and the BIOS vendor/version shown at POST; verify the drive on a modern PC and make a full backup; run the drive maker’s diagnostics (SeaTools/WD Lifeguard) from a DOS/boot tool to validate surface health. If the board cannot be updated, the drive can be limited to a legacy capacity (SeaTools/MaxBlast set-capacity feature or the drive’s “alternate-capacity” jumper on many Seagate models) so the old BIOS will boot reliably, or the drive can be moved to a controller card that supplies its own BIOS. (seagate.com)

Notes on overlays and risks: Dynamic Drive Overlay (DDO) tools (Ontrack/Disk Manager and vendor variants) can expose full capacity on BIOS-limited systems but install boot-time overlay code and complicate later recovery or removal; when used, MBR/boot-track changes may require special removal steps. When possible, prefer a BIOS update or a PCI ATA controller with its own BIOS; if neither is practical, using the manufacturer’s capacity-limit jumper or SeaTools set-capacity is the least intrusive fallback after a verified backup. (en.wikipedia.org)

Summary: back up first, confirm drive health from a modern system, then choose BIOS update → vendor capacity tool/jumper → PCI controller → DDO, in that order; avoid running Scandisk/CHKDSK on the older machine until the addressing issue is resolved.

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Member Avatar for TallCool1

I want to install a 40GB hardisk on a Celeron 300 running Win 98SE.
When I run scandisk on this system, the HDD is show bad sectors after a certain point. However when I check the same HDD on a Celeron 1.7 GHz system, the scandisk is coming out clean. Someone told me that Cel 300 does not support HDDs larger than 20GB
Is there any utility or a BIOS upgrade that will fix this problem?

Your machine is likely of an age that a 40 GB hard drive will not work as shipped. Most motherboard BIOSes of that vintage have a 32 GB limit, and few to none can be updated for this.

You have two choices:

* Get a PCI hard-drive controller (about $30). This will bypass the BIOS altogether.

* Strap the hard drive to look like a 32 GB drive (because of the well-known BIOS limitation, all 40 GB drives can do this). This will cost you 8 GB of your capacity.

Member Avatar for feigned

Hi,

I want to install a 40GB hardisk on a Celeron 300 running Win 98SE.
When I run scandisk on this system, the HDD is show bad sectors after a certain point. However when I check the same HDD on a Celeron 1.7 GHz system, the scandisk is coming out clean. Someone told me that Cel 300 does not support HDDs larger than 20GB
Is there any utility or a BIOS upgrade that will fix this problem?

ratioinal611

Tall's right, but I would check for a BIOS update first. You'll need your motherboard make and model before doing anything.

If you can't find a BIOS that will support the larger drive then be prepared to spend that $30 for a controller card.

Member Avatar for Member #2466

Hi,

I want to install a 40GB hardisk on a Celeron 300 running Win 98SE.
When I run scandisk on this system, the HDD is show bad sectors after a certain point. However when I check the same HDD on a Celeron 1.7 GHz system, the scandisk is coming out clean. Someone told me that Cel 300 does not support HDDs larger than 20GB
Is there any utility or a BIOS upgrade that will fix this problem?

ratioinal611

first thing you need to do is make sure your motherboard BIOS is up to date. If you have an older system it will not enable large hard disks. Do a flash before you give it a go. I did with an old PI and got RH 7.2 running on it without a GUI (and it had a 40GB disk!). Good luck!

Member Avatar for TallCool1

I want to install a 40GB hardisk on a Celeron 300 running Win 98SE.

A good point has been raised: what is the brand/model of the motherboard?

I still strongly doubt a suitable BIOS upgrade is available, due to age.

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