Not able to install Win 2000

[judester]

I actually had my computer working rather well, considering, but felt I should remove some programs from the boot drive to free up room for virtual memory. I deleted some programs that I should not have and essentially killed my computer. After making a few attempts to recover, I finally reformatted.

I have disks for Windows 98, ME, and 2000, so I figured I would install 2000. I had made the four boot disks previously, because I anticipated reformatting eventually. I thought that with these boot disks the installation would go smoothly, that the CD-ROM drive would be recognized and so forth. But I was wrong.

I was able to get through all four boot disks but then got an error message that the CD-ROM drive could not be found. In spite of the fact that the drivers were loaded earlier, or at least that's how it appeared from the progress reports as the boot process went on.

It occurred to me that maybe if I switched the CD-ROM and hard drives to the motherboard from the Promise card where they were both attached that the drivers might understand better. I made the switch but neither the hard drives nor the CD-ROM drive were found then, so I was unable to go anywhere with that. I did make the mistake of placing the CD-ROM drive in the primary slot and the hard drives in the secondary and I have not switched them to where they should be, but I suspect this will not make any difference.

Any clues? Ideas? I have nothing but a blank disk now.

[judester]

I forgot:

processor: celeron 530(+/-) mh
10-gig boot drive, 120-gig secondary
384 mg RAM
No operating system

Also: I tried to install Win 98, with Win 98 startup disk, and had the same problem.

[mike breck]

I think motheboard BIOS is having trouble seeing your 120GB HD. Remove that and try installing W2K to the 10GB.

Make sure the 10GB is detected properly in the BIOS; set it to AUTO on the Primary Master.

If you go into the BIOS and change your boot sequence to CD-Rom first, then you can bootup with the W2K CD and begin installation.

Make sure you load the Promise drivers during the installation.
You usually press F6 after you get the message "Press F6 if you need to install third-party SCSI or RAID drivers".

After you do that, you should be able to move the 10GB to the Promise card and have it detected. Then you can add the 120GB and partition and format it thro W2K.

Also, it's not a good idea to put optical drives on a Promise Controller. These controllers are really just for HDs. So put your HDs on the controller and put CDs, CD-Rws on the mobo IDE controllers.

If you're still having problems with the CD-Rom, then check your jumpers and that the cable and power connections are secure.

If that fails, try a different cable, power connector, or CD-Rom.

HTH

[judester]

There was no problem with finding the 10-gig hard drive or the 120-gig until I moved them from the promise card to the motherboard. The reason the CD-R drive was on the card was that I could not get it recognized on the motherboard after I moved the hard drives to the card.

The 10-gig drive is the primary drive right now. The mistake I made was to plug both drives (they are on the same cable, as usual) to the secondary slot in the motherboard. As I said, I doubt that was really a big issue.

The real issue is that I was unable to get the CD-R drive recognized during the installation process. I will look for the promise card software and if I can install it from DOS I will do so. If not...I really have no other way to install it. That may be the answer. Thank you.

[judester]

Back to that about the CD-R drive. I believe I will need to change something in the BIOS to get it recognized from the motherboard. But what?

[mike breck]

What motherboard do you have?

If it's an older one then it will not have 48-bit BIOS and it will not be able to cope with the 120GB - it could literally freeze the system. That's probably why you had a PCI Controller card installed - to get large HD support and performance.

If you still have the 120GB connected to the cable, then disconnect it and see if your 10GB and CD-Rom are then recognised.

Put the 10GB on Primary Master jumpered as Master and the CD-Rom on the Secondary Master jumpered as Master.

Go into the BIOS (CMOS Setup) and set Primary and Secondary Master to AUTO. If the drives are working, receiving power, and have good cables, then the BIOS should recognise them.

[judester]

I am not at my computer now (obviously!) nor am I at home. My motherboard is a TYAN but I do not remember which version. I do know that I am pushing the limits on the processor when I use the 120-gig drive as a boot drive but I am no longer doing that.

I did have trouble with the 120-gig hard drive, in that it slowed the system, when I first installed it several months ago as the primary drive. I posted here about that and the best solution recommended was the promise card, yes. So that was why I got it and installed that drive on it.

I then ran into various windows 98 issues, not related to the size of the drive. Ultimately, it corrupted itself to the point where it was not a salvagable system. Rather than reformat the 120-gig drive at that time, I switched to the ten-gig (making it primary, changing jumpers and cables, in case you are wondering), which also had win 98 installed (I had copied the whole of the ten-gig to the 120-gig when I bought it).I had been running off the ten-gig drive successfully and well until I destroyed it by deleting important programs the other day.

So no, the 120-gig drive is not the problem. I am booting from, and trying to install the operating system on, the 10-gig drive. The 120 isn't even in the picture in that sense. It gets recognized just fine (except when I attached it to the motherboard) but it has nothign to do with what I am trying to do. Why would its mere presence affect the installation of this operating system on another drive? Is there something I am not understanding?

I can easily detach it but I am fairly sure this will not make any difference. The problem is in the recognition of the CD-ROM drive during the installation process. Moving the drives to the motherboard was simply an effort to get the CD-ROm drive recognized. I have no intention of leaving them there.

[mike breck]

If the BIOS cannot recognise a big HD, then it can cause all sorts of weird and wonderful problems. So I am saying, that is the first thing to eliminate by removing it from the motherboard IDE controller.

See if you can get the 10GB and CD-Rom recognised by the BIOS and then if you can install W2K to the HD.

If the CD-Rom still fails to be recognised by the BIOS, then:

it's not jumperered properly
it's not getting power
the cable is faulty
the CD-Rom is faulty
the mobo IDE is faulty

Also, try completely disconnecting the floppy drive before booting up with the W2K CD (as the W2K is bootable - you don't need your W2K setup floppies anyway) - sometimes a faulty floppy drive can cause weird problems.

What brand is your 10GB HD?

[judester]

Both hard drives are Maxtor.

Why would the large hard drive suddenly cause problems when it didn't before?

There is nothing wrong with the CD-ROM drive. It was working fine before I destroyed the operating system. It is even recognized during the initial power-on self-test. It is only when I am installing, trying to install, the new operating system that it suddenly fails to be found.

Also, the floppy drive has been working well and I was able to use it to get through the four win 2000 boot disks, all read fine. I doubt this is an issue here. I believe the issue is with the way the OS CDs and boot disks find the CD-ROM drive, which is why I think you may be onto something with the suggestion to re-install the promise card drivers.

[fudtone]

My 2k is bootable however early in instalation it porompts you for the 4 floppys (no work around) I have been told it is a early version of 2k.

I also had a hard time installing it with SCSI controller even in my system. I would try removing it but then again im no SCSI master.

[judester]

There's nothing to remove in my case because it doesn't install.

I created the boot disks from the CD because my Maxtor instructions said there would be a problem getting the CD to be read if I didn't, installing from a freshly-formatted drive. And yet, when I put the CD into the drive and start the system it asks if I want to boot from the CD. I say yes, it starts loading stuff, then the error message comes and all is for naught.