[LoveMyWii]

I've got a spare 98SE laptop with 28MB Ram and a 300GB external maxtor drive. I'd like to use the Maxtor drive to play music while I'm at work but Maxtor says that this drive isn't supported on 98SE.

What are my best solutions?

Is there anyway to make this drive work? Should I be looking for another drive? Someone mentioned an internal drive with an enclosure but I don't know anything about putting that together. Any ideas? Thanks!

[Advertisements]

The problem with Windows 98 and 98SE is that, unlike XP and Vista, there are no generic drivers included for "mass storage" devices, which is what an external hard drive is, and it's these generic drivers that the drive manufacturers rely on, and consequently they don't spend the time or money on writing their own proprietary drivers because these days they are not required, or at least not required in sufficient numbers to make it worth their while. It's a hard fact, they all support the mainstream, and that isn't Windows 98 any more.

There is a possible solution to your problem here: http://www.technical...age-drivers.php



If still no joy, read this also: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240075 If you know that your laptop is fitted with either of those two components, download and install the fix, but not otherwise.

Edited by pip22, 18 November 2007 - 01:15 PM.

[pip22]

The problem with Windows 98 and 98SE is that, unlike XP and Vista, there are no generic drivers included for "mass storage" devices, which is what an external hard drive is, and it's these generic drivers that the drive manufacturers rely on, and consequently they don't spend the time or money on writing their own proprietary drivers because these days they are not required, or at least not required in sufficient numbers to make it worth their while. It's a hard fact, they all support the mainstream, and that isn't Windows 98 any more.

There is a possible solution to your problem here: http://www.technical...age-drivers.php



If still no joy, read this also: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240075 If you know that your laptop is fitted with either of those two components, download and install the fix, but not otherwise.

Edited by pip22, 18 November 2007 - 01:15 PM.

[LoveMyWii]

The problem with Windows 98 and 98SE is that, unlike XP and Vista, there are no generic drivers included for "mass storage" devices, which is what an external hard drive is, and it's these generic drivers that the drive manufacturers rely on, and consequently they don't spend the time or money on writing their own proprietary drivers because these days they are not required, or at least not required in sufficient numbers to make it worth their while. It's a hard fact, they all support the mainstream, and that isn't Windows 98 any more.

There is a possible solution to your problem here: http://www.technical...age-drivers.php



If still no joy, read this also: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240075 If you know that your laptop is fitted with either of those two components, download and install the fix, but not otherwise.

Thank you. I tried the first fix and it appears to have worked to some extent. I installed the file and installed it. I then went to "add new hardware" and saw my external drive listed whish it never did before. I searched for the driver and it appears to have loaded correctly. The device is now listed under disk drives in the device manager.

The only problem is that the drive isn't showing up under my computer. It's listed fine in device manager though.

[LoveMyWii]

OK, I did a little research and did get the drive to finally appear in my computer. Here's what I did.

http://www.annoyance...w/article02-024 Solution#1


Only problem now is that it's saying the drive isn't formatted. lol I don't want to format the drive because I already have my files on it.

[Neil Jones]

If the external drive is formatted NTFS, Windows 98 cannot read NTFS drives.
You would need to copy anything off it from an XP machine and reformat it to FAT32 before Win98 can read it.

[LoveMyWii]

I can't put what you said into words but I figured it was that. I'll probably just end up buying another drive. Once I get the new drive and format for 98 then I should be good to go, right?

[Neil Jones]

You don't need to buy another drive.
Plug it into your XP machine, copy off the music, then use XP to format it FAT32, then copy your music back.

[LoveMyWii]

If I format it for 98 then will it still work in XP?

[Neil Jones]

Yes.