Will a new harddrive work witn win98SE?

Are any of the external, or if need be internal, harddrives that are
sold at stores these days work with win98SE?

I know that the MP3 player I bought two years ago said it required XP,
but that was just if I wanted to use special features. As long as I
only wanted to copy files to it from a PC using Windows Exploer, that
worked fine.

So I'm hoping that these harddrives will really work fine with 98SE.


I confess, I admit, I throw myself on the mercy of the ng, that I have
strayed, I have followed the desolute path, and I have installed
winXP.

It's in partition D: on the same harddrive, and it has stopped
working. I can almost complete booting, I get to the blue screen that
follows the welcome screen, the screen that should get a set of icons
and a taskbar if it would finish booting, but it doesn't. It stops
there.

So I log into win98SE on the other partition, and I can see the
directory structure of D fine, and probably all the files but one are
fine. The XP people said I should consider doing a Repair Install,
and I should back up XP before I reistall. I have backed up the data
from win98, but I need a bigger hd to do the whole partitions.

The store had a 500 Gig externnal drive for only 90 dollars. It's
soooo big. Any chance I can use it with win98. Is there Any brand I
can find at a store or order online that will work like this.

Thanks a lot.

mm wrote:
Are any of the external, or if need be internal, harddrives that are
sold at stores these days work with win98SE?

I know that the MP3 player I bought two years ago said it required XP,
but that was just if I wanted to use special features. As long as I
only wanted to copy files to it from a PC using Windows Exploer, that
worked fine.

So I'm hoping that these harddrives will really work fine with 98SE.


I confess, I admit, I throw myself on the mercy of the ng, that I have
strayed, I have followed the desolute path, and I have installed
winXP.

It's in partition D: on the same harddrive, and it has stopped
working. I can almost complete booting, I get to the blue screen that
follows the welcome screen, the screen that should get a set of icons
and a taskbar if it would finish booting, but it doesn't. It stops
there.

So I log into win98SE on the other partition, and I can see the
directory structure of D fine, and probably all the files but one are
fine. The XP people said I should consider doing a Repair Install,
and I should back up XP before I reistall. I have backed up the data
from win98, but I need a bigger hd to do the whole partitions.

The store had a 500 Gig externnal drive for only 90 dollars. It's
soooo big. Any chance I can use it with win98. Is there Any brand I
can find at a store or order online that will work like this.

Thanks a lot.


Though an external drive should work with win98 there are a number of
potential problems:


Unless the manufacture specifically says it will work with Win98
there is the possibility you will need to use so called "generic"
drivers. Chances are there are some available...but there is no
guarantee of course.


Additionally, the preferred file system for XP is NTFS...
but win98 cannot recognize an NTFS partition, so you will need to create
at least one Fat32 partition on the drive.


Finally, if your machine does not have USB2 capabilities,
you will really need to add a USB2 card. Accessing a lot of data with a
USB1 connection will be frustratingly slow.


Before you do anything, I'd run the mfg's diagnostic on your current
drive...because if it's failing...the smartest thing do do would be to
replace it...and not worry about an external drive at this time

mm wrote:
Are any of the external, or if need be internal, harddrives that are
sold at stores these days work with win98SE?

I know that the MP3 player I bought two years ago said it required XP,
but that was just if I wanted to use special features. As long as I
only wanted to copy files to it from a PC using Windows Exploer, that
worked fine.

So I'm hoping that these harddrives will really work fine with 98SE.


I confess, I admit, I throw myself on the mercy of the ng, that I have
strayed, I have followed the desolute path, and I have installed
winXP.

It's in partition D: on the same harddrive, and it has stopped
working. I can almost complete booting, I get to the blue screen that
follows the welcome screen, the screen that should get a set of icons
and a taskbar if it would finish booting, but it doesn't. It stops
there.

So I log into win98SE on the other partition, and I can see the
directory structure of D fine, and probably all the files but one are
fine. The XP people said I should consider doing a Repair Install,
and I should back up XP before I reistall. I have backed up the data
from win98, but I need a bigger hd to do the whole partitions.

The store had a 500 Gig externnal drive for only 90 dollars. It's
soooo big. Any chance I can use it with win98. Is there Any brand I
can find at a store or order online that will work like this.

Thanks a lot.


Though an external drive should work with win98 there are a number of
potential problems:


Unless the manufacture specifically says it will work with Win98
there is the possibility you will need to use so called "generic"
drivers. Chances are there are some available...but there is no
guarantee of course.


Additionally, the preferred file system for XP is NTFS...
but win98 cannot recognize an NTFS partition, so you will need to create
at least one Fat32 partition on the drive.


Finally, if your machine does not have USB2 capabilities,
you will really need to add a USB2 card. Accessing a lot of data with a
USB1 connection will be frustratingly slow.


Before you do anything, I'd run the mfg's diagnostic on your current
drive...because if it's failing...the smartest thing do do would be to
replace it...and not worry about an external drive at this time

On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:49:19 -0500, philo
wrote:

mm wrote:
Are any of the external, or if need be internal, harddrives that are
sold at stores these days work with win98SE?

I know that the MP3 player I bought two years ago said it required XP,
but that was just if I wanted to use special features. As long as I
only wanted to copy files to it from a PC using Windows Exploer, that
worked fine.

So I'm hoping that these harddrives will really work fine with 98SE.


I confess, I admit, I throw myself on the mercy of the ng, that I have
strayed, I have followed the desolute path, and I have installed
winXP.

It's in partition D: on the same harddrive, and it has stopped
working. I can almost complete booting, I get to the blue screen that
follows the welcome screen, the screen that should get a set of icons
and a taskbar if it would finish booting, but it doesn't. It stops
there.

So I log into win98SE on the other partition, and I can see the
directory structure of D fine, and probably all the files but one are
fine. The XP people said I should consider doing a Repair Install,
and I should back up XP before I reistall. I have backed up the data
from win98, but I need a bigger hd to do the whole partitions.

The store had a 500 Gig externnal drive for only 90 dollars. It's
soooo big. Any chance I can use it with win98. Is there Any brand I
can find at a store or order online that will work like this.

Thanks a lot.

Though an external drive should work with win98 there are a number of
potential problems:


Unless the manufacture specifically says it will work with Win98
there is the possibility you will need to use so called "generic"
drivers. Chances are there are some available...but there is no
guarantee of course.

Thanks for replying and so quickly. Should I look on the Western
Digital webpage for something like that? If not there, is there a
more precise desciptor than gneeric driver.

Or would this be in WIN98SE already?

?Additionally, the preferred file system for XP is NTFS...
but win98 cannot recognize an NTFS partition, so you will need to create
at least one Fat32 partition on the drive.

I used Fat32 in the first place, so I could read my XP data from 98.
In fact I still have Eudora and Agent in the C: partition and use the
same files whether I am in winXP or 98. I can't tell the difference.

Finally, if your machine does not have USB2 capabilities,
you will really need to add a USB2 card. Accessing a lot of data with a
USB1 connection will be frustratingly slow.

Hopefully, I will only have to do this once.

I have 35 gigs total, but I'm in no hurry. It can run all day or all
night afaict.

Before you do anything, I'd run the mfg's diagnostic on your current
drive...because if it's failing...the smartest thing do do would be to
replace it...and not worry about an external drive at this time

Good point. This presumably single file that keeps xp from starting
is the only file I have had trouble with. But I will run the
diagnostics as you say.

On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:49:19 -0500, philo
wrote:

mm wrote:
Are any of the external, or if need be internal, harddrives that are
sold at stores these days work with win98SE?

I know that the MP3 player I bought two years ago said it required XP,
but that was just if I wanted to use special features. As long as I
only wanted to copy files to it from a PC using Windows Exploer, that
worked fine.

So I'm hoping that these harddrives will really work fine with 98SE.


I confess, I admit, I throw myself on the mercy of the ng, that I have
strayed, I have followed the desolute path, and I have installed
winXP.

It's in partition D: on the same harddrive, and it has stopped
working. I can almost complete booting, I get to the blue screen that
follows the welcome screen, the screen that should get a set of icons
and a taskbar if it would finish booting, but it doesn't. It stops
there.

So I log into win98SE on the other partition, and I can see the
directory structure of D fine, and probably all the files but one are
fine. The XP people said I should consider doing a Repair Install,
and I should back up XP before I reistall. I have backed up the data
from win98, but I need a bigger hd to do the whole partitions.

The store had a 500 Gig externnal drive for only 90 dollars. It's
soooo big. Any chance I can use it with win98. Is there Any brand I
can find at a store or order online that will work like this.

Thanks a lot.

Though an external drive should work with win98 there are a number of
potential problems:


Unless the manufacture specifically says it will work with Win98
there is the possibility you will need to use so called "generic"
drivers. Chances are there are some available...but there is no
guarantee of course.

Thanks for replying and so quickly. Should I look on the Western
Digital webpage for something like that? If not there, is there a
more precise desciptor than gneeric driver.

Or would this be in WIN98SE already?

?Additionally, the preferred file system for XP is NTFS...
but win98 cannot recognize an NTFS partition, so you will need to create
at least one Fat32 partition on the drive.

I used Fat32 in the first place, so I could read my XP data from 98.
In fact I still have Eudora and Agent in the C: partition and use the
same files whether I am in winXP or 98. I can't tell the difference.

Finally, if your machine does not have USB2 capabilities,
you will really need to add a USB2 card. Accessing a lot of data with a
USB1 connection will be frustratingly slow.

Hopefully, I will only have to do this once.

I have 35 gigs total, but I'm in no hurry. It can run all day or all
night afaict.

Before you do anything, I'd run the mfg's diagnostic on your current
drive...because if it's failing...the smartest thing do do would be to
replace it...and not worry about an external drive at this time

Good point. This presumably single file that keeps xp from starting
is the only file I have had trouble with. But I will run the
diagnostics as you say.

In message , mm
writes:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:49:19 -0500, philo
wrote:

mm wrote:
Are any of the external, or if need be internal, harddrives that are
sold at stores these days work with win98SE?

As philo said, it's chancy.

I know that the MP3 player I bought two years ago said it required XP,
but that was just if I wanted to use special features. As long as I
only wanted to copy files to it from a PC using Windows Exploer, that
worked fine.

Interesting. Most things in '98 - certainly those that look like drives,
as this is doing - need some sort of driver to be installed. Did you
load anything specifically to access the mp3 player? If not, had you
done so in the past (to access a pen drive, say, or perhaps a camera, or
card reader), which might be what the mp3 player is using?
[]
Though an external drive should work with win98 there are a number of
potential problems:


Unless the manufacture specifically says it will work with Win98
there is the possibility you will need to use so called "generic"
drivers. Chances are there are some available...but there is no
guarantee of course.

Thanks for replying and so quickly. Should I look on the Western
Digital webpage for something like that? If not there, is there a
more precise desciptor than gneeric driver.

There are two (that I know of) generic driversets.

One, known as the universal USB driver for Windows 98 or something very
like that, I have differing experience with. It tells you to remove any
USB drivers you may already have on the machine. Since I was reluctant
to remove something that was working (with a different drive), I didn't,
and it gave me some grief (I can't remember exactly what); on other
machines I have installed it in "from scratch", it has worked fine. Like
most USB drivers (at least under '98), it recommends installing the
driver _before_ connecting the hardware.

The other one I know of is from an Italian (.it) site. It is a .zip
file, which you unzip to a folder, but unlike most others you don't
install it before connecting the hardware; instead, you connect the
hardware, and when Windows says new hardware found and asks you what
driver to use, you point it at the folder you unzipped into. I haven't
played with that one.

AFAIK neither set is obtainable from a disc manufacturer's site; someone
here'll hopefully post where to get them. If the external drive you're
thinking of - including the USB gubbins, not just the drive inside it -
is made by Western Digital, then certainly check their 'site to see if
there is a '98 driver; I haven't _heard_ of any of the mainstream drive
manufacturers doing a USB driver for '98, but it doesn't hurt to look.

Or would this be in WIN98SE already?

No, there's very little USB support in '98SE. (Though as I've said, your
system must have _something_ - though I suspect _not_ part of the
original OS - if you can see your mp3 player as a drive. [Do you get the
"safely eject" icon in your system tray - something with a green arrow
on - when it is connected? Not that its absence proves anything - I
don't get it on one of my PCs, even though it works fine with two of my
flash drives, for which I must have installed drivers at some time.)

?Additionally, the preferred file system for XP is NTFS...
but win98 cannot recognize an NTFS partition, so you will need to create
at least one Fat32 partition on the drive.

I used Fat32 in the first place, so I could read my XP data from 98.

I would use FAT32 too - same reason.
[]
Good point. This presumably single file that keeps xp from starting
is the only file I have had trouble with. But I will run the
diagnostics as you say.

Have you tried safe mode (I _think_ XP has something like safe mode), or
the XP recovery console, to restore a restore point?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

"I hate the guys that criticize the enterprise of other guys whose enterprise
has made them rise above the guys who criticize!" (W9BRD, former editor of
"How's DX?" column in "QST")

In message , mm
writes:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:49:19 -0500, philo
wrote:

mm wrote:
Are any of the external, or if need be internal, harddrives that are
sold at stores these days work with win98SE?

As philo said, it's chancy.

I know that the MP3 player I bought two years ago said it required XP,
but that was just if I wanted to use special features. As long as I
only wanted to copy files to it from a PC using Windows Exploer, that
worked fine.

Interesting. Most things in '98 - certainly those that look like drives,
as this is doing - need some sort of driver to be installed. Did you
load anything specifically to access the mp3 player? If not, had you
done so in the past (to access a pen drive, say, or perhaps a camera, or
card reader), which might be what the mp3 player is using?
[]
Though an external drive should work with win98 there are a number of
potential problems:


Unless the manufacture specifically says it will work with Win98
there is the possibility you will need to use so called "generic"
drivers. Chances are there are some available...but there is no
guarantee of course.

Thanks for replying and so quickly. Should I look on the Western
Digital webpage for something like that? If not there, is there a
more precise desciptor than gneeric driver.

There are two (that I know of) generic driversets.

One, known as the universal USB driver for Windows 98 or something very
like that, I have differing experience with. It tells you to remove any
USB drivers you may already have on the machine. Since I was reluctant
to remove something that was working (with a different drive), I didn't,
and it gave me some grief (I can't remember exactly what); on other
machines I have installed it in "from scratch", it has worked fine. Like
most USB drivers (at least under '98), it recommends installing the
driver _before_ connecting the hardware.

The other one I know of is from an Italian (.it) site. It is a .zip
file, which you unzip to a folder, but unlike most others you don't
install it before connecting the hardware; instead, you connect the
hardware, and when Windows says new hardware found and asks you what
driver to use, you point it at the folder you unzipped into. I haven't
played with that one.

AFAIK neither set is obtainable from a disc manufacturer's site; someone
here'll hopefully post where to get them. If the external drive you're
thinking of - including the USB gubbins, not just the drive inside it -
is made by Western Digital, then certainly check their 'site to see if
there is a '98 driver; I haven't _heard_ of any of the mainstream drive
manufacturers doing a USB driver for '98, but it doesn't hurt to look.

Or would this be in WIN98SE already?

No, there's very little USB support in '98SE. (Though as I've said, your
system must have _something_ - though I suspect _not_ part of the
original OS - if you can see your mp3 player as a drive. [Do you get the
"safely eject" icon in your system tray - something with a green arrow
on - when it is connected? Not that its absence proves anything - I
don't get it on one of my PCs, even though it works fine with two of my
flash drives, for which I must have installed drivers at some time.)

?Additionally, the preferred file system for XP is NTFS...
but win98 cannot recognize an NTFS partition, so you will need to create
at least one Fat32 partition on the drive.

I used Fat32 in the first place, so I could read my XP data from 98.

I would use FAT32 too - same reason.
[]
Good point. This presumably single file that keeps xp from starting
is the only file I have had trouble with. But I will run the
diagnostics as you say.

Have you tried safe mode (I _think_ XP has something like safe mode), or
the XP recovery console, to restore a restore point?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

"I hate the guys that criticize the enterprise of other guys whose enterprise
has made them rise above the guys who criticize!" (W9BRD, former editor of
"How's DX?" column in "QST")

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , mm
writes:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:49:19 -0500, philo
wrote:

mm wrote:
Are any of the external, or if need be internal, harddrives that are
sold at stores these days work with win98SE?

As philo said, it's chancy.

I know that the MP3 player I bought two years ago said it required XP,
but that was just if I wanted to use special features. As long as I
only wanted to copy files to it from a PC using Windows Exploer, that
worked fine.

Interesting. Most things in '98 - certainly those that look like drives,
as this is doing - need some sort of driver to be installed. Did you
load anything specifically to access the mp3 player? If not, had you
done so in the past (to access a pen drive, say, or perhaps a camera, or
card reader), which might be what the mp3 player is using?
[]
Though an external drive should work with win98 there are a number of
potential problems:


Unless the manufacture specifically says it will work with Win98
there is the possibility you will need to use so called "generic"
drivers. Chances are there are some available...but there is no
guarantee of course.

Thanks for replying and so quickly. Should I look on the Western
Digital webpage for something like that? If not there, is there a
more precise desciptor than gneeric driver.

There are two (that I know of) generic driversets.

One, known as the universal USB driver for Windows 98 or something very
like that, I have differing experience with. It tells you to remove any
USB drivers you may already have on the machine.

The older version(s) didn't require that as I recall (like nusb23e, as I
recall). That was just for the newer versions.

Since I was reluctant
to remove something that was working (with a different drive), I didn't,
and it gave me some grief (I can't remember exactly what); on other
machines I have installed it in "from scratch", it has worked fine. Like
most USB drivers (at least under '98), it recommends installing the
driver _before_ connecting the hardware.

The other one I know of is from an Italian (.it) site. It is a .zip
file, which you unzip to a folder, but unlike most others you don't
install it before connecting the hardware; instead, you connect the
hardware, and when Windows says new hardware found and asks you what
driver to use, you point it at the folder you unzipped into. I haven't
played with that one.

AFAIK neither set is obtainable from a disc manufacturer's site; someone
here'll hopefully post where to get them. If the external drive you're
thinking of - including the USB gubbins, not just the drive inside it -
is made by Western Digital, then certainly check their 'site to see if
there is a '98 driver; I haven't _heard_ of any of the mainstream drive
manufacturers doing a USB driver for '98, but it doesn't hurt to look.

Or would this be in WIN98SE already?

No, there's very little USB support in '98SE. (Though as I've said, your
system must have _something_ - though I suspect _not_ part of the
original OS - if you can see your mp3 player as a drive. [Do you get the
"safely eject" icon in your system tray - something with a green arrow
on - when it is connected? Not that its absence proves anything - I
don't get it on one of my PCs, even though it works fine with two of my
flash drives, for which I must have installed drivers at some time.)

?Additionally, the preferred file system for XP is NTFS...
but win98 cannot recognize an NTFS partition, so you will need to create
at least one Fat32 partition on the drive.

I used Fat32 in the first place, so I could read my XP data from 98.

I would use FAT32 too - same reason.
[]
Good point. This presumably single file that keeps xp from starting
is the only file I have had trouble with. But I will run the
diagnostics as you say.

Have you tried safe mode (I _think_ XP has something like safe mode), or
the XP recovery console, to restore a restore point?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

"I hate the guys that criticize the enterprise of other guys whose
enterprise
has made them rise above the guys who criticize!" (W9BRD, former editor of
"How's DX?" column in "QST")

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , mm
writes:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:49:19 -0500, philo
wrote:

mm wrote:
Are any of the external, or if need be internal, harddrives that are
sold at stores these days work with win98SE?

As philo said, it's chancy.

I know that the MP3 player I bought two years ago said it required XP,
but that was just if I wanted to use special features. As long as I
only wanted to copy files to it from a PC using Windows Exploer, that
worked fine.

Interesting. Most things in '98 - certainly those that look like drives,
as this is doing - need some sort of driver to be installed. Did you
load anything specifically to access the mp3 player? If not, had you
done so in the past (to access a pen drive, say, or perhaps a camera, or
card reader), which might be what the mp3 player is using?
[]
Though an external drive should work with win98 there are a number of
potential problems:


Unless the manufacture specifically says it will work with Win98
there is the possibility you will need to use so called "generic"
drivers. Chances are there are some available...but there is no
guarantee of course.

Thanks for replying and so quickly. Should I look on the Western
Digital webpage for something like that? If not there, is there a
more precise desciptor than gneeric driver.

There are two (that I know of) generic driversets.

One, known as the universal USB driver for Windows 98 or something very
like that, I have differing experience with. It tells you to remove any
USB drivers you may already have on the machine.

The older version(s) didn't require that as I recall (like nusb23e, as I
recall). That was just for the newer versions.

Since I was reluctant
to remove something that was working (with a different drive), I didn't,
and it gave me some grief (I can't remember exactly what); on other
machines I have installed it in "from scratch", it has worked fine. Like
most USB drivers (at least under '98), it recommends installing the
driver _before_ connecting the hardware.

The other one I know of is from an Italian (.it) site. It is a .zip
file, which you unzip to a folder, but unlike most others you don't
install it before connecting the hardware; instead, you connect the
hardware, and when Windows says new hardware found and asks you what
driver to use, you point it at the folder you unzipped into. I haven't
played with that one.

AFAIK neither set is obtainable from a disc manufacturer's site; someone
here'll hopefully post where to get them. If the external drive you're
thinking of - including the USB gubbins, not just the drive inside it -
is made by Western Digital, then certainly check their 'site to see if
there is a '98 driver; I haven't _heard_ of any of the mainstream drive
manufacturers doing a USB driver for '98, but it doesn't hurt to look.

Or would this be in WIN98SE already?

No, there's very little USB support in '98SE. (Though as I've said, your
system must have _something_ - though I suspect _not_ part of the
original OS - if you can see your mp3 player as a drive. [Do you get the
"safely eject" icon in your system tray - something with a green arrow
on - when it is connected? Not that its absence proves anything - I
don't get it on one of my PCs, even though it works fine with two of my
flash drives, for which I must have installed drivers at some time.)

?Additionally, the preferred file system for XP is NTFS...
but win98 cannot recognize an NTFS partition, so you will need to create
at least one Fat32 partition on the drive.

I used Fat32 in the first place, so I could read my XP data from 98.

I would use FAT32 too - same reason.
[]
Good point. This presumably single file that keeps xp from starting
is the only file I have had trouble with. But I will run the
diagnostics as you say.

Have you tried safe mode (I _think_ XP has something like safe mode), or
the XP recovery console, to restore a restore point?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

"I hate the guys that criticize the enterprise of other guys whose
enterprise
has made them rise above the guys who criticize!" (W9BRD, former editor of
"How's DX?" column in "QST")

mm wrote:

Are any of the external, or if need be internal, harddrives that
are sold at stores these days work with win98SE?

I don't use external hard drives so I'm not going to comment about them.

Brand-new internal hard drives are very much still compatible with
windows 98.

There are two basic technologies for (internal) hard drives that you
will find on store shelved:

1) IDE (also known as PATA or Parallel-ATA)
2) SATA (Serial ATA).

IDE drives have a connector for a wide ribbon cable (about 2" wide).
This is the traditional type of hard drive that PC's have since about
1990. Most CD and DVD drives were also of this type and many still are,
but the SATA interface is more widely available for them for maybe only
the past 2 years.

Prior to about 2005 or 2006, you didn't see many SATA drives, and many
computers did not have motherboards with SATA controllers. But now you
have more choice in SATA drives compared to IDE. SATA drives usually
have a narrow cable (usually red) about 1/2" wide.

Most likely if you have a computer that came with windows 98 installed
on it, you will not have a SATA controller and your only choice will be
IDE.

For technical reasons, Windows 98 will not properly handle an IDE hard
driver larger than 128 GB. Even if you have a large drive and divide it
into smaller partitions (each under 128 gb) that will not help. A
common size for hard drives is 160 GB. If you buy a 160 GB IDE hard
drive, when you format and partition it, you must only partition the
first 128 gb and leave the rest as un-used.

I know that the MP3 player I bought two years ago said it
required XP, but that was just if I wanted to use special
features. As long as I only wanted to copy files to it from
a PC using Windows Exploer, that worked fine.

Yes, usually MP3 players appear as USB thumb drives to the computer.

... I have installed winXP.

Some have already told you that XP uses (by default) the NTFS file
system. Windows 98 uses only the FAT32 file system. The two file
systems are very different. XP can be installed on and read both types,
but Win-98 is only compatible with FAT32.

You seem to have installed XP on the existing FAT-32 file system on the
secondary partition of your existing hard drive. There is nothing wrong
with installing XP on a FAT32-formatted drive, and in fact there are
many advantages that many people either don't understand or want to
simply ignore or depreciate because they believe the added complexity
and overhead of NTFS is somehow beneficial to them.

I would recommend that you obtain a new 160 gb hard drive, and format it
with 2 partitions (primary and extended) each being 60 gb in size and
each being FAT32.

You will be able to move your existing hard drive to the secondary
position and you can format it any way you want. It will be available
as D: drive. By the way, what is the size of your existing drive?

Install Windows 98 on the C: partition first, then install XP on the D:
partition.

The store had a 500 Gig externnal drive for only 90 dollars.
It's soooo big. Any chance I can use it with win98.

External hard drives are slow compared to internal hard drives.

Someone else here will have to tell you their experience with connecting
external USB hard drive to Windows 98. I don't think you will be happy
with the answer.