Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA gard drives?

[E. Groenenberg]

Jerome,

Well, you could use VirtualBox for example. It supports even windows 3.1
as a guest O.S. Also, it's free.

I would by an of the shell laptop, install you favourite modern O.S.
W7, W8,1, W10, or Linux <insert you fav. distro here> and on top of that
VirtualBox.

VirtualBox allows you to create VM's with SATA, PATA/IDE and SCSI disks
all being container file(s) on the host OS.

I have a W98 virtual machine I only keep for posterity, and is rarely
powered up, but it still does work.

Regards,

Ed
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On Thu, January 28, 2016 17:44, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
> I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III.  I have
> replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives.
>
> It is a really good system to run the Ersatz-11 emulator for the
> PDP-11, specifically RT-11.  Since Ersatz-11 has built-in VT100
> emulation, I don't need a separate terminal emulator.  I also run
> Netscape 7.2 for e-mail and newsgroups.  And that is all - no
> surfing the internet or google of any sort.  Incidentally,  I use
> Ghost 7.0 for backups to DVDs.
>
> Aside from the daylight savings time changing 3 weeks too late
> in the spring and a week early in the fall, I really like the system
> and I would like to use it for another 20 years.  Since I am
> 77 years old now, I figure that will be just about satisfactory.
>
> The Pentium III hardware is more than a bit of a concern.  I would
> be very pleased to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 10, but the DOS
> variant of Ersatz-11 is not supported and I really would prefer to
> keep using Netscape 7.2 since I have over 100,000 e-mails
> and posts to newsgroups that it is important to be able to keep.
>
> QUESTION:  Is it even possible to run Win98SE on a current
> Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard disk drives?  I realize that it might
> be possible under a virtual machine, but I really want all of the
> advantages that Win98SE provides.  One problem, of course,
> is that there must be a patch to Win98SE when more than 1 GB
> of actual physical RAM is present.  But I can't seem to find out
> anything else.
>
> What leads me to believe that there is a reasonable chance is
> that the IDENTICAL 3.5" floppy media is able to boot DOS
> from drive A: and run on both the Pentium III (with a 3.5" HD
> floppy drive, of course) AND on a Q9550 Core 2 quad CPU
> which also has a 3.5" HD floppy drive which currently runs
> 64-bit Windows 7 from the C: drive, of course, using three
> SATA hard drives where the C: drive has an NTFS file
> structure and all the other partitions on all of the SATA drives
> have a FAT32 file structure.  So without really understanding
> the details of the device drivers and the BIOS, it would seem
> that the SATA drive hardware and software is compatible.
>
> Ghost 7.0 is a file on the F: drive of the Q9550 CPU
> (first extended partition of the 1st physical SATA hard drive).
> Ghost is able to take a file produced as a backup image on
> the Pentium III system (and copied over the router connecting
> the Pentium III and the Q9500 systems - that also provides
> internet access for both systems) and re-create the same files
> on a specified partition on the Q9550 via the Ghost 7.0
> program while the Q9550 is booted from the 3.5" floppy
> media.
>
> Since the SATA hard drives on the Q9550 system don't seem
> to have a problem with DOS on the floppy, then I have some
> hope that Win98SE could manage them as well.  Has anyone
> experience or knowledge about being able to run Win98SE
> using an Intel I7 CPU with SATA hard drives all of them using
> a FAT32 file structure?
>
> Alternatively, does it seem reasonable to attempt to keep a
> system with a Pentium III CPU and associated hardware
> running for another 20 years?
>
> Jerome Fine
>