W98 and 320 Gig HDD

I just got a Western Digital 320 Gig external HDD and use it mainly on my
XP-based desktop. I've got a notebook PC running W98 and after getting the
HDD installed on it, it's not showing up in the list of drives.
The HDD is running NTFS, and to be honest, I've forgot most of what I used
to know about older Windows systems...
Will W98 read from this drive, and if not, can I use something like
Partition Magic to create a FAT32 partition on it (for my needs, I'd only
want maybe 10 Gigs for this) in order for it to be recognised by W98?

Thx

Win98 can't read NTFS without assistance. Not certain about writing to them,
though I see mention in Google searches of a DOS-based NTFS writer. Here's
one free NTFS reader:
http://www.diskinternals.com/ntfs-reader.shtml

I use it a lot.

You can also shrink existing partition(s) and install a FAT32 partition if
you want. Personally, I'd use BootIt NG (aka BING), www.bootitng.com.
Download the disk creation app, make a bootable floppy or a bootable CD,
boot to the app but DO NOT install (unless you want to use the included boot
manager, but then you'll have to pay for it after 30 days.) Click Cancel,
instead, then use Partition Work. Your system has to support "Legacy USB"
for the USB channel you're using, so that the external HD can be read by
this program. Otherwise, yes, you'll need a Windows based partitioning app
like Partition Magic, and even then I'm not sure it would work, since PM
also has to be able to access the disk before Windows loads. Most modern
computers won't have any p[roblem with this, but you didn't say what model
yours is. I assume you'll do this repartitioning using the XP desktop. The
laptop is probably too old and isn't likely to support the external HDD
outside of Windows.

--

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm
http://grystmill.com/articles/security.htm

OzBushDude wrote:
> I just got a Western Digital 320 Gig external HDD and use it mainly
> on my XP-based desktop. I've got a notebook PC running W98 and after
> getting the HDD installed on it, it's not showing up in the list of
> drives.
> The HDD is running NTFS, and to be honest, I've forgot most of what I
> used to know about older Windows systems...
> Will W98 read from this drive, and if not, can I use something like
> Partition Magic to create a FAT32 partition on it (for my needs, I'd
> only want maybe 10 Gigs for this) in order for it to be recognised by
> W98?
>
> Thx