A Win2003 ?

[George Hester]

I tried to set up Windows 2003 Server. The way my Windows 2000 is set up is like this. Windows 2000 is on the Master drive on the same cable as my CD-ROM. The CD-ROM is slave. This is on the secondary IDE cable. On the primary IDE cable I have a master drive and a slave drive. The master drive has a small FAT12 bootable partion. It is 7 MB. This partition is what I use to boot my operating systems for they are NOT on the Master drive on the Primary IDE cable.

When I tried to install Windows 2003 it could not see this small partition on the Master drive on the Primary IDE cable. So it looks to me Windows 2003 needs a larger boot partition on the Master drive on the Primary IDE cable so I can install this operating system. Windows 2000 actually only needs room for 3 files:

boot.ini
NTDETECT.COM
ntldr

which use about 300KB.

So my question is what is the minimum size I can make this boot partition on the Master drive on the Primary IDE cable so that I can install Windows 2003 on the Master drive of the secondary IDE cable? Thanks.

 

[Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP]

Damn good question, George! I assumed W2K3 would work the same way as
all the other preceding NTx OS's. I'd love to know the answer if you
get it.

I have a copy of W2K3 here, but haven't had a chance to install it yet.

 

[Mark V]

George Hester wrote in

I tried to set up Windows 2003 Server. The way my Windows 2000 is
set up is like this. Windows 2000 is on the Master drive on the
same cable as my CD-ROM. The CD-ROM is slave. This is on the
secondary IDE cable. On the primary IDE cable I have a master
drive and a slave drive. The master drive has a small FAT12
bootable partion. It is 7 MB. This partition is what I use to
boot my operating systems for they are NOT on the Master drive on
the Primary IDE cable.

When I tried to install Windows 2003 it could not see this small
partition on the Master drive on the Primary IDE cable. So it
looks to me Windows 2003 needs a larger boot partition on the
Master drive on the Primary IDE cable so I can install this
operating system. Windows 2000 actually only needs room for 3
files:

boot.ini
NTDETECT.COM
ntldr

which use about 300KB.

So my question is what is the minimum size I can make this boot
partition on the Master drive on the Primary IDE cable so that I
can install Windows 2003 on the Master drive of the secondary IDE
cable? Thanks.

No answer but I suspect that 7MB FAT12 Primary is the culprit. And
maybe not even so much that it is 7MB but that it is FAT12. If you
have Partition Magic I wonder if it can be converted in situ to
FAT16... (all speculative )

 

[George Hester]

Well don't think that can be done and I suspect you are right about it being FAT12 may be the issue. Know why? Well get this.

We all know that a drive can have a maximum of four primary partitions on a drive. One of these can be extended but that takes the place of a primary. Anyway my Master drive on the Primary IDE cable has three primaries. 2 are each 7MB and the last is NTFS about 10MB. When I install an operating system I will take one of these 7 MB partitions wipe it out and then install the operating system. Windows 2000 will put its boot files in the unpartitioned 7MB and then I install the operating system into any other disk I want. Then once everything works correctly, I force Windows 2000 to boot from the other 7MB'r hence I only really run with one. The other I just forget about until I need it again like NOW.

But when Windows 2003 was to be installed it could not see these 7MB'ers. The problem is, I need to know the minimum size that a FAT16 partion can be. Actually I believe it's probably somewhere around 15MB because that is the minimum size we can install DOS on. PC-DOS 7 anyway.

Well thanks for listening I think I know what to do. Let's here it for the blind Windows 2003. (clap!) (clap!) (rah!) (rah!)

Oh let me finish what I was going to tell you. I removed one of the 7MB partition so there were only 2 primaries on the master drive on the primary IDE cable. I told Windows 2003 to create the 7MB partition in the unpartitioned space so I could install Windows 2003 on the master drive of the secondary IDE cable. It choked. It said there was no room to install a partion on the drive it was using all available primary partitions. Which was an outright lie. I made another just fine not using Windows 2003. So that's why I think you are right, Masrk V.

 

[Bob I]

George, I believe the the "smallest" partition is determined by what the
BIOS sees as one cylinder on the drive. You also will see the partion
size increment by cylinders as you make larger partitions.

 

[George Hester]

Well it turns out that Windows 2003 needs a boot partion of just over 7MB. It puts a lot of files in the boot partion. Windows 2000 does about 3 or 4 while Windows 2003 has about 100+. So I have to use a FAT16 partition. But even then Windows 2003 cannot create the partiotion. It chokes. I left 50MB free space on Master drive of the primary IDE cable. Unpartitioned. Asked Windows 2003 to create the partition. It refused saying, there was no more available space to make the partiton. In essence what it was saying was that the max primary partitions on the drive had already been reached. This is a bug in Windows 2003.

I was able to workaround this bug in this way. I installed Windows 2000 Server using the unformatted 50MB partition on the Master drive of the Primary IDE cable. Windows 2000 had no problem making this 50MB bootable partion as FAT16 and putting its 3 or 4 boot files in there. I then upgraded Windows 2003. Guess where Windows 2003 boot its boot files? That's right; right in the place Windows 2000 had put its boot files. That's how I found out the size that it needed and the number of files it put in there. Unfortunately Windows 2003 could not do this on its own. It needs Windows 2000'ds help.

Always something!!!

 

[Mark V]

George Hester wrote in

Well it turns out that Windows 2003 needs a boot partion of just
over 7MB. It puts a lot of files in the boot partion. Windows
2000 does about 3 or 4 while Windows 2003 has about 100+. So I
have to use a FAT16 partition. But even then Windows 2003 cannot
create the partiotion. It chokes. I left 50MB free space on
Master drive of the primary IDE cable. Unpartitioned. Asked
Windows 2003 to create the partition. It refused saying, there
was no more available space to make the partiton. In essence what
it was saying was that the max primary partitions on the drive had
already been reached. This is a bug in Windows 2003.

I was able to workaround this bug in this way. I installed
Windows 2000 Server using the unformatted 50MB partition on the
Master drive of the Primary IDE cable. Windows 2000 had no
problem making this 50MB bootable partion as FAT16 and putting its
3 or 4 boot files in there. I then upgraded Windows 2003. Guess
where Windows 2003 boot its boot files? That's right; right in
the place Windows 2000 had put its boot files. That's how I found
out the size that it needed and the number of files it put in
there. Unfortunately Windows 2003 could not do this on its own.
It needs Windows 2000'ds help.

Always something!!!

Thanks for the follow-up George!