W2KProf. Setup install Prob.

[Guest]

CPU: Pentium 4, 1.8Ghz
Primary Master 40 GBs
Primary Slave 60 GBs
256MBs DDR memory
MSI M/board 645 Ultra Socket 478

Today I tried to setup W2K Professional on my new computer. I have 4 W2K boot disks and partitioned both disks and formated the first partition ok. (Also I noticed that when I set my partition space in setup I'm always left with 8MBs over). But when setup auto-restarted it would not restart into the setup GUI. Keeps on saying "boot failure". insert boot diskette.....

At the end of the setup the installion files are copied into a installation folder but as I said before, restart into the Setup GUI-mode fails. I have a feeling that the restart is not finding the boot strap. I have partitioned the primary masterdisk into 2 parts C & D, (with 8Mbs left over) The Primary slave is partitioned into 1 partition. D & slave are yet unformatted.
The other thing is that when I first start the computer with the first W2K boot floppy in the drive after some seconds a message appears on the screen "Disk I/O error: Status = 00008020"after which setup goes into its' "Text-mode".
Any ideas what's happening?

 

[Zlash]

Have you tried setting up off a CD instead of disks?

"Keeps on saying "boot failure". insert boot diskette....."

And are you leaving the wrong disk in the floppy? I think only disk 1 is bootable...


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[Demosthenes]

Did you make the primary partition active?

Demo

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[Guest]

The boot failure occurs after the Text-mode setup ie after I have partitioned and formatted etc.
I have found the problem though. It was caused by a bad HDD.
I changed the HDD and I don't have a problem. Odd though. I put the same HDD in another system and it work fine.
Place it back in my system and reformat and the same problem.

Thanks

 

[Guest]

W2K does not give me this option. Only shows existing partitions and give the options to either create, delete or install on listed partitions.
I imagine your question only is valid when using either Fdisk or other partitioning software.

Thanks

 

[Zlash]

Might have to load your ata controller drivers at the beginning of setup.

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[Guest]

Surely the ATA Controllers are an ingeral part of the M/board? The board supports DMA ATA 33,66 & 100.
To answer your early question I didn't have a bootable W2K installation CD so I had to boot off the 4 floppies to run the Setup. I am certain that the Disk Error message was refering to the HDD. As soon as I changed the drive all was well. Also as I mentioned, if I put another drive in the system it was fine. That makes me think it wasn't the Board????
Bizarre but the problem is sorted. Still I don't know why this combination of HDD and board would not work.
Thanks

 

[Guest]

Maybe the floppies are defect. Try to create new ones (if not already done).
Further info on
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q197/0/63.asp

If you have a Win98 startup disk, boot with this, run FDISK and start "winnt.exe" from there.

If this also does not help, I assume a hardware problem.

 

[Guest]

I would also recommend to go to http://cweb.msi.com.tw/eforum/?target=search&act=input
Search for "boot failure" there. There are some interesting articles.

 

[Guest]

You may have noticed from previous posting that I have discovered that the problem was a dodgy HDD. Since then I have successfully loaded W2K on the new disk.
What I'm trying to do now (an exercise) is to load W2k via dos.
I have booted off a Win98 boot floppy, selected optioon 1 (load with CD enabled).
After navigating throuho the W2K install CD to the Winnt.exe I launch the this file and I get awindow saying that "Setup did not detect Smartdrive on your computer".
I then selected to continue anyway but a further window appeared saying that W2K couldn't find an uncopmpressed disk with a minimum of 252MBs.
I had no further option other than exit.

Keep in mind that the HDD i want to install to already has W2K install on an HDD with 2 partitions. C which is formatted to 20 Gbs and D which is unformatted.
I s this relevent.
Maybe the above error indicated that I am trying to install ion the CD itself??
The error message came up really quickly!
What am I doing wrong and how do I get winnt.exe to run setup and see my existing C drive?

 

[CALV]

odd, heres what I would do, either:

1. install on another drive and ghost over - shouldnt have to though

2. try booting form the 98 floppy, copy the u386 folder from the cd to c:, then run winnt from there- you really should install smartdrv, if not your windows install will take AGES, just copy smartdrc from a 98 system onto the floppy and run it from there when you boot.
does the hdd have some sort of overlay on it? I seen some in the past that do and they cuase probs sometimes.


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