Hi, I have a windows 98 unit which I kept because I was not successful in transferring files from it back in the noughties. That is I did transfer the files onto a flash drive which subsequently didn’t work on the newer windows versions back in about 2005 or 2006. I wanted to save the files but I would really like to get rid of the CPU & cables etc. The giant monitor went into recycling years ago.
I’ve been looking online and advice seems to be to use a flash to transfer and then link that flash into some sort of external drive adapter thingy which can then be used to interface with windows 10. This is all very bewildering.
I have been trying to find this fix for years without success due to the variety of options proposed on different sites, most of which I don’t understand due to tech jargon.
I was hoping that someone here might have done this in the past or may be able to offer advice on the steps to take. I have no idea where the flash drive I originally used is, although it may be in the same storage box where I found my old Sony laptop this morning (which has just crashed on me after booting up).
I would really like to have a clearout and extract the data I want from these old/broken devices so that I can bin them. I think there are about 4 or 5 laptops which have died as well as the windows 98 HP CPU.
Looking at this as a good storage device for these and other files :
I think the problem might have been the disk or thumb drive formatting. Old machines used FAT32 whereas newer machines use several different methods and a new disk drive (HDD) will probably be formatted with a newer version (NTFS or exfat) however you should be able to reformat it to FAT32 before you start.
The older system had file size limitations and was wasteful of disk space but it is still used in places.
A friend of mine had a similar problem - his TV couldn’t read a new HDD which arrived formatted with exFAT it had to be reformatted with NTFS
Right click on the drive in windows explorer and click on format (be careful!) and you should get this window
This particular drive is already formatted in FAT32 Just be careful you don’t want to format your C: drive for example
BTW I could be totally wrong about your problem with WIN98 and it might be nothing to do with the formatting so take care. Without actually seeing it I can only guess
BTW I have a vague memory that WIN98 might not be able to read a HDD or thumb drive larger than 2GB - remembering that HDD these days come in TB
On reflection that might be the root of your problem - I am guessing now. If you can find an old thumb drive or even an old SD card plugged into a USB adapter of less than 2GB, try that
If memory serves, I’m sure I read somewhere that Windows98 Second Edition version has a limit of 120GB for external drives and a max file size of 4GB, unless there is a manufacturers patch which can take it to 2TB. If not, you may have to partition the drive down to 120GB to get it to work and there may be limitations in BIOS which may also get in the way.
I could be wrong and stand corrected if someone knows better, as it’s been a long time since I messed with Win98.
