Win98SE crashes if SATA enabled in BIOS

[Optimummind]

Ok, here is my current setup. I have 3 HDD's---2 of them are PATA and 1 is SATA.

On the primary IDE controller are attached a WD 80GB PATA HDD and a WD 30GB PATA HDD.
On the secondary IDE controller are attache a Lite-On CD-RW and a TDK indiDVD burner.

Finally, a WD 120GB SATA HDD is plugged into the SATA connector on the mobo.

I wanted to have a dual-boot system so I installed Win98SE on the 80GB HDD in its own FAT32 partition.
After the installation is complete, when Win98SE tries to go to the Desktop, the computer will freeze. In order to get around this, I had to disable SATA support in the BIOS.

Once at the Desktop, I installed the Unofficial Win98SE service pack, all the Windows Updates, mobo chipset driver, audio driver, LAN driver, and GPU driver.

Hoping perhaps that now Win98SE will be able to correctly recognize and install the SATA HDD, I rebooted and enabled SATA in the BIOS.

Once I hit the loading screen for Win98SE, however, Win98SE froze at the part where it states it's installing drivers for the primary ide controller.

What can I do to enable Win98SE to recognize and make use of my SATA hard drive??

 

[E4g1e]

Unfortunately, you have no choice but to stick with (or upgrade to) Windows 2000 or Windows XP, or eliminate your 30GB PATA hard drive and convert your 80GB PATA hard drive to SATA using an adapter, or purchase a PCI SATA controller card in your case, since you have a total of five ATA devices. Windows 98SE cannot support more than four ATA devices total, nor can it support an ATA-driver-based SATA controller in its native mode (you'll have to force it to run in legacy compatibility mode). (This assumes that you have an Intel-based system and an 865- or 875-series chipset, which is recognized as two additional ATA channels in Windows.) Furthermore, again assuming an i865- or i875-based system, you must disable one of the PATA channels if you're going to use a mixture of SATA and PATA devices on a dual-boot system with Windows 98SE or Windows Me on it.

Also, if you already have Windows XP, and you have more than four ATA devices enabled on such an Intel-based system (this includes both PATA and SATA devices), then you cannot install Windows 98SE on your system even if you're building a dual-boot system unless your SATA hard drive is connected to an add-in PCI SATA controller card, simply because 98SE cannot support more than four ATA devices in its atapi.sys driver at the same time.

Furthermore, some motherboard BIOSes (like the one on my current Intel motherboard) cannot be set to boot from a PATA device if an SATA hard drive is also connected, unless the controller's configuration mode is switched from native (enhanced) mode to compatible (legacy) mode - and again, the compatible (legacy) mode restricts the maximum number of ATA devices to a maximum of four total.

However, if you're using a system that has a separate SATA controller chip - either onboard or an add-in PCI card - then those SATA controllers would be considered to be SCSI devices under Windows. In that latter case, then you can use the SATA controller under Windows 98SE (with the correct drivers for that controller loaded into Windows 98SE, of course).

 

[Optimummind]

Thx for your excellent replay. You just saved me a lot of time in trying to solve this problem.

Yes, you're correct. I have 4 ATA devices installed on my 865PE-based mobo--2 PATA HDD's and 2 optical drives (one CD-RW and one DVD+/-R/RW). I also have a 5th HDD connected to the mobo's native SATA controller.

The way I set up the dual-boot is through using Acronis Partition Expert 2003 and Bootmagic.

HDD #1 (80GB):
-Partition #1 (30GB): Contains WinXP Home
-Partition #2 (8GB): Contains Win98SE
-Partition #3 (the rest): Data

HDD #2 (30GB):
-Partiton #1 and #2 are both for data storage.

HDD #3 (120GB) (SATA)
-Partition #1, #2, and #3 are all for data

Using Bootmagic, I choose between which of the 2 OS's I boot into.

However, if I want to boot into Win98SE, I currently have to disable SATA in the BIOS first. I think I'll buy a PCI SATA controller. Thx for the tip!!