Hello,
i know that Rloew has paid AHCI driver and Sata IDE mode drivers for Windows 98,but maybe exist also some PCI-E sata contoller with Win98 driver from its manufactors… PCI Sata controllers are too slow and proven as working, so im looking for something better.
Maybe, maybe Promise,JMicron, Marvell did something like that.
JMicron PCIE card
https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-PCI-Expre…ZgAAOSwhcJWNqgZ
with IDE BIOS mod? (comes configured in RAID by default)
https://onedrive.live.com/?id=4F7BE65BF6…F7BE65BF6B6294F
You can also install 98SE onto Intel SATA controller SATA SSD. I didn’t need any special AHCI driver to boot it. I’m not sure if there are any reliable PCIe SATA controllers but maybe Asmedia 106X ones are the best to test since they have XP compatibility. The only issue I found with PCI SATA controllers is they don’t detect on my Ivy Bridge and thus cannot boot on them. Maybe someone else here has more experience booting off internal PCIe SATA controller cards. This would allow even AMD or Intel motherboards in the future work with XP without needing a specific SATA driver for their OS.
Bad idea i wouldn’t bother it will never be fully stable, instead i would use a IDE SSD Drive:
Just buy the converter cable job done:
SSD 1 > https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/Transcend-PSD33…984262521&rt=nc
SSD 2 > https://www.amazon.co.uk/KingSpec-2-5-in…r/dp/B008RWKFYE
SSD 3 > http://www.fortasa.com/products/pata-ssd…AiAAEgKzcPD_BwE
SSD 4 > https://www.amazon.com/Super-Talent-2-5-…011&s=pc&sr=1-8
SSD 5 > https://www.dpie.com/ssd/2.5-pata/
Option 1 Cable > https://www.startech.com/uk/Cables/Drive…Adapter~IDE4044
Option 2 Converter > https://www.amazon.com/QNINE-Laptop-Desk…C8X4RXNH2BNTGW3
Windows 3.11 FW/95/98/ME will run fast as lightning with either of these drives. I can verify this.
@POE_UK
Actually it is stable. I had installed Windows 98SE on the Intel SATA controller in SATA AHCI mode. It worked and PCI sound and video cards also worked. There is no need to use a pure IDE SSD except on pure IDE only controller motherboards. I used a real SATA SSD on the SATA controller. I also used a USB to SATA SSD adapter and it also worked. Using this same technique I also got 98SE OS to boot on Z370 and an AMD AM4 MB that was installed on the Ivy Bridge.
Its much better to run win98se in raid mode if you are using a sata bus, ide mode will cause problems as its only an ide emulation and win98 doesnt like it and will run in compatibility mode massively decreasing performance. just because its running in raid mode doesnt mean you need to setup a raid array, a single hdd or sdd will be perfect. of course if you raid 0 two hdds or ssds on the sata 1 bus you will double the speed from 32 to 64 bits wide in turn doubling the throughput. some motherboard allow pci overclocking as well, so a few thing to consider here, but defo stay away from IDE sata with windows98 use a raid controller instead. If your older motherboard supports raid i would use it, if not buy a pci raid card.
AHCI is the better option over RAID
@ruthan
There’s good news and bad news.
The bad news is that R. Loew passed away in September, 2019. But that brings good news as well. Everything that he developed, both paid and free is available for free now. You can find the files you want on these sites:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=cre…olph+R.+Loew%22
https://rloewelectronics.com/
The AHCI SATA drivers for Windows 9x is also available on these sites.
Cheers,
@ BonkerCronk
Thanks, i already know that and using it, post i now 10 months old.
Usually PCI - SATA adapters are low profile format so they can be used with a PCI-E to PCI adapter and the final „thing” will look like a regular card and can fit in any normal case.
I’m using one of these combinations right now and I m very pleased by the ergonomics and especially by the compatibility of VIA 6241 adapter. This one has official drivers for: Windows 98,Windows 95,Windows XP,Windows 2000,Windows ME,Windows NT,Windows 98SE,Windows Server 2003 x64,Windows Vista 32-Bit,Windows 7 32-Bit,Windows 7 64-Bit,Windows Vista 64-Bit,Windows XP 64-Bit</i>(copied from the driver description VIA V-RAID Driver Dated: 12-Mar-2010 ) . Of course, will be recognized in Windows 10 by default. (I have a Silicon Image adapter which is not)
Funny thing: I have an X470 motherboard with 2 PCI slots and the same card is working fine, but requires a BIOS reset at first installation no matter what. With this adapter it does not. 
Where did you get that particular low profile PCI SATA adapter board? Can you provide the link to purchase it?
When you say BIOS reset meaning does the system hang from POSTING? Then you require to reset CMOS settings and it then remembers this card for all future power ons?
Are you able to boot off the IDE controller card and if so what steps do you need to override the built in SATA controller from being the primary BOOT controller? I haven’t been able to get any add on PCI or PCIe SATA or IDE controllers to be recognized so curious what steps you took.
This is the adapter, the cheapest on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-e-PCI-Expre…ip/392871348495
It uses this bridge chip: https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/E8AyQ…f2yq89xz7URBZqD
In my case a BIOS reset was needed when I plugged the VIA SATA card on the on board PCI slot for the very first time. With this cheap adapter card things are smoother…
I didn t use the IDE port at all, so I don’t know if it is bootable - but I will try in the future…
I’m using this card over a year now … and the main reason was to be able to boot Windows 3.11 in the enhance mode on a Ryzen 3900x… Also it helps with Windows XP, 2K…
The IDE port will be useful for booting 2K and XP on AMD systems post AM4 chipset era.
Where did you buy that specific PCI storage controller and what is the link?
It’s possible the ones I got are faulty.
So you didn’t have to do anything in the BIOS settings to enable this as the primary storage device boot controller?
I can’t seem to get any of these PCI storage adapter cards to recognize and boot from it as the primary.
What is your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files for your Windows 3.11 Enhanced Mode working installation on your Ryzen 3900X? Can you upload them here?
Also why do you even need this PCI adapter as you can run Windows 3.11 and DOS on normal SATA without it?
What are you using for your Audio and Video devices in Windows 3.11 Enhanced Mode setup?
Any special software you are using on the Windows 3.11 EM?
What is your memory free properties window showing in Windows 3.11 Enhanced Mode?
Can you snapspot it and upload it here?
Have you found a better way to mount the card with the PCI->PCIe riser adapter into your chasis than just sitting there exposed?
Yes, the IDE port is totally bootable. I had NT 4.0 installed on a IDE hard drive which booted directly on my a Ryzen 3900X. This is something considering that NT is not using INT 13H, and could initialize directly the drive by itself.
They are pretty generic adapters and very cheap, as low as 7$ on ali/ebay.
No special attention, the IDE drive or SATA drive attached to this controller are as bootable as any other drive…
I use himem.sys from Windows 3.x (c) 1993 or from DOS 6.22. On my computer, it’s pretty important to use /M:1 switch.
Well, on my computer Win 3.11 won’t go in enhanced mode from on board SATA, even if it is using INT 13h. I can even access FAT16 partitions created on NVME and on the other SATA drives, but it won’t go in enhanced mode unless I’m using this PCI to SATA card. A problem might be that I have too many SATA drives connected. One particular SATA drive from Micron was blocking Windows 3.11 from booting, took me a day to realize what’s the problem.
Creative/Ensoniq with ES1371 chip with moded drivers, no DOS support, but pretty good for mp3s using WinPlay or Windows application like native Win 3.x games or multimedia apps like Encarta.
Voodoo 3 3000 PCI. Yes, it has drivers for Windows 3.11. Not Voodoo 3 directly, but 8MB Velocity variant which is a crippled version for business. Using Velocity drivers, you can get 1024x768x64K or 1280x1024x256.
I have all major software installed. Like Photoshop 3.0, Adobe Acrobat from creating PDFs, Turbo C++, Microsoft Office and games…
I have 256mb available using included himem.sys. This out of the box, without any tinkering, except /M:1 machine type switch. Now that I know what himem.sys to use and what switch, also what PCI to SATA controller - I literally can install Windows 3.11 and go directly in enhanced under 3 minutes… But it took me a while to get here. Initially I was using a newer himem.sys which worked fine on a HP Z220 workstation.
Nope, but it’s not something to worry about if you are using a low profile card.
98 is already very unstable even with period correct hardware, it even crashed at launch by Bill gates live in front of hundreds of people, must have been quite embarrassing.
My recommendations are:
384MB Ram
Athlon64 3700+ (Socket 754)
SiS 964 Chipset motherboard
120GB SSD (133Mb/s) or 2x60GB SSD’s in Raid0 (266Mb/s) or 4x32GB SSD’s in RAID0 (533Mb/s)
A Server motherboard that has 66MHz PCI Slots not 33MHz this will give maximum performance for SSD’s
Promise Fastrack TX 2300 SATA II PCI Raid Cards
Radeon X800/X850XT 256MB Graphics card or Radeon 9600pro/9800pro
All of Rudolph Loew’s Storage patches
Switching off “get acpi from protected mode” and “real mode” under the PCI BUS tab in device manager
Setting up 98 with the /P j /ie /iv switch
Not installing fake service packs, they do more harm than good
OR, Consider installing WindowsME instead then manually adding DOS back to it (takes 5 minutes)