I have an old 2000 system I'm trying to rebuild. It had two
partitions. My plan was to simply run the 2000 setup and delete both
partitions and create 1 larger one.

The problem is I CANNOT boot to either the floppy or the CD. I've
tried:

"Boot It" floppy (my normal disk utility of choice)
MS-DOS floppy
Win98SE floppy
WIN2000 CD
Compaq System Restore CD

Nothing will boot except the HD! The Floppy and CD are listed as #1 &
#2 in the boot order. I have verified that both devices work in the
existing 2000 installation.

I tried running the 2000 setup program from windows, but when you do
that you can't delete the 1st partition during setup.

Normally on these PC's I get a quick message saying press any key to
boot from CD, not getting that message on this one. BIOS seems to
work just fine (saving settings, etc...).

What else can I try? We've got about 20 of these exact PC's around
and I've never run into this before.

PC is a Compaq Deskpro EN Series PII 450.

You might find something here.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...SeriesId=96268

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

"Kevin_S" wrote:
>I have an old 2000 system I'm trying to rebuild. It had two
> partitions. My plan was to simply run the 2000 setup and delete both
> partitions and create 1 larger one.
>
> The problem is I CANNOT boot to either the floppy or the CD. I've
> tried:
>
> "Boot It" floppy (my normal disk utility of choice)
> MS-DOS floppy
> Win98SE floppy
> WIN2000 CD
> Compaq System Restore CD
>
> Nothing will boot except the HD! The Floppy and CD are listed as #1 &
> #2 in the boot order. I have verified that both devices work in the
> existing 2000 installation.
>
> I tried running the 2000 setup program from windows, but when you do
> that you can't delete the 1st partition during setup.
>
> Normally on these PC's I get a quick message saying press any key to
> boot from CD, not getting that message on this one. BIOS seems to
> work just fine (saving settings, etc...).
>
> What else can I try? We've got about 20 of these exact PC's around
> and I've never run into this before.
>
> PC is a Compaq Deskpro EN Series PII 450.
>

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:16:56 -0700, Kevin_S <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>The problem is I CANNOT boot to either the floppy or the CD.
>PC is a Compaq Deskpro EN Series PII 450.

Your problem is BIOS related. Browse through all the BIOS settings and
see if something seems relevant.

There could be a security setting that disables booting off certain
devices.

If you press F9 when prompted to press F10 for BIOS setup, you should
get the boot menu. If you don't that may also be disabled in BIOS.
--
RoRo

"Kevin_S" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I have an old 2000 system I'm trying to rebuild. It had two
> partitions. My plan was to simply run the 2000 setup and delete both
> partitions and create 1 larger one.
>
> The problem is I CANNOT boot to either the floppy or the CD. I've
> tried:
>
> "Boot It" floppy (my normal disk utility of choice)
> MS-DOS floppy
> Win98SE floppy
> WIN2000 CD
> Compaq System Restore CD
>
> Nothing will boot except the HD! The Floppy and CD are listed as #1 &
> #2 in the boot order. I have verified that both devices work in the
> existing 2000 installation.
>
> I tried running the 2000 setup program from windows, but when you do
> that you can't delete the 1st partition during setup.
>
> Normally on these PC's I get a quick message saying press any key to
> boot from CD, not getting that message on this one. BIOS seems to
> work just fine (saving settings, etc...).
>
> What else can I try? We've got about 20 of these exact PC's around
> and I've never run into this before.
>
> PC is a Compaq Deskpro EN Series PII 450.
>

Although not seen too often...I recently saw a bios that allowed one to
disable booting from floppy, CD or HD...
even though the device was detected by the bios...
check all your bios setting to see if that might be the case

I recently experienced this, transpired the mobo was failing

"Kevin_S" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have an old 2000 system I'm trying to rebuild. It had two
> partitions. My plan was to simply run the 2000 setup and delete both
> partitions and create 1 larger one.
>
> The problem is I CANNOT boot to either the floppy or the CD. I've
> tried:
>
> "Boot It" floppy (my normal disk utility of choice)
> MS-DOS floppy
> Win98SE floppy
> WIN2000 CD
> Compaq System Restore CD
>
> Nothing will boot except the HD! The Floppy and CD are listed as #1 &
> #2 in the boot order. I have verified that both devices work in the
> existing 2000 installation.
>
> I tried running the 2000 setup program from windows, but when you do
> that you can't delete the 1st partition during setup.
>
> Normally on these PC's I get a quick message saying press any key to
> boot from CD, not getting that message on this one. BIOS seems to
> work just fine (saving settings, etc...).
>
> What else can I try? We've got about 20 of these exact PC's around
> and I've never run into this before.
>
> PC is a Compaq Deskpro EN Series PII 450.
>