inaccessible_boot_device on clean install on clean drive

[Zootal]

This one has me stumped. I have a 10GB Maxtor drive. Ran fdisk/mbr just to
make sure there was nothing left over from some previous OS. Ran fdisk,
created one 10GB partition. Ran format and formatted drive. Insert Win2k cd.
Boot from CD. Install Win2000 on drive. Win2k installs but when it reboots,
I get inacessible_boot_device. Repeat process, make sure that drive really
is partitioned and formatted. Looks fine to me. Run extended diags on drive.
No problem. Can't be virus - it's a cleanly formatted drive. Drive passes
diags and extended read/write test.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this. I can install Win98 on it, I can
install Linux, but if I try to install W2K I get this blue screen. Does this
sound familiar to anyone?

Sempron 2400+
1GB Ram
Maxtor 10GB IDE drive.
generic CD drive that has been in the box for years.

 

[Dave Patrick]

To do a clean install, either boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom or setup
disks. The set of four install disks can be created from your Windows 2000
CD-Rom; change to the \bootdisk directory on the CD-Rom and execute
makeboot.exe (from dos) or makebt32.exe (from 32 bit) and follow the
prompts.

(Note: If your drive controller is not natively supported then you'll want
to boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom. Then *F6* very early and very
important (at setup is inspecting your system) in the setup to prevent drive
controller detection, and select S to specify additional drivers. Then later
you'll be prompted to insert the manufacturer supplied Windows 2000 driver
for your drive controller in drive "A")

Setup inspects your computer's hardware configuration and then begins to
install the Setup and driver files. When the Windows 2000 Professional
screen appears, press ENTER to set up Windows 2000 Professional.

Read the license agreement, and then press the F8 key to accept the terms of
the license agreement and continue the installation.

When the Windows 2000 Professional Setup screen appears, all the existing
partitions and the unpartitioned spaces are listed for each physical hard
disk. Use the ARROW keys to select the partitions Press D to delete an
existing partition, If you press D to delete an existing partition, you must
then press L (or press ENTER, and then press L if it is the System
partition) to confirm that you want to delete the partition. Repeat this
step for each of the existing partitions When all the partitions are deleted
press F3 to exit setup, (to avoid unexpected drive letter assignments with
your new install) then restart the pc then when you get to this point in
setup again select the unpartitioned space, and then press C to create a new
partition and specify the size (if required). Windows will by default use
all available space.

Be sure to apply SP4 and these two below to your new install before
connecting to any network. Internet included. (sasser, msblast)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-241BFECD095E/W2KSP4_EN.EXE
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx


Then

Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en
and
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS08-067.mspx


--

Regards,

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

 

[someone watching]

Sounds similar to a problem I'm having too, W98 runs fine, XP or W2K
yield BSOD. I 'think' it's because the MBR and partition tables have
errant data. I've done a LOT of repartitioning, rewriting MBR etc and
found DOS FDISK /MBR does NOT entirely clean the MBR!

Just started a new approach using debug to wipe the disk and have it
look like new (supposedly). In the process of re-partitioning it now.
Will report back, if possible, with results. In the mean-time you may
want to try Andy's suggestion, i.e. use W2K to COMPLETELY partition and
reformat the disk.

 

[Zootal]

The only thing I can think of is using W2K to wipe and partition and format
the disk. I've done everything else I can think of. I even used mbrtool to
wipe the mbr, thought fdisk/mbr was supposed to do that. Did a semi-low
level format using Maxtors low level format tool. Used DOS fdisk/format.
Tried partition magic to do the format.

I even tried Win2000 original install disk, Win2000 w/sp4 install disk, and
even Win2000 advanced server. All of them do it. I put Win2003 on it
yesterday, and it installed just fine. This is a Winfast k7s board with sis
chipset, but I would not think that I would need additional ide driver just
for this - I've never need them before for these boards, and I have used
several of them.

I'm going to try using W2K to wipe/part/format disk. Then I'll see if I can
even find a set of SIS ide drivers....

 

[Zootal]

So after many hours of frustration, annoyance, saying words I don't want my
children to overhear, etc....

I finally go snooping through the bios, and find that for some odd reason
HDD-1 is set as the boot device, not HDD-0. Change it to HDD-0, and now
everything works fine.

Interesting enough, Linux, Win98, and Server 2003 ran just fine and booted
just fine, but Win2000 didn't like it. Weird....so thanks for all those that
responded with help and advice. This one was just too weird to be in the
books.

 

[someone watching]

Zootal, sounds like you are knowledgeable of HDD's and have experience
with drive tools etc.; perhaps you'll want to consider this; partition,
format etc. as you would normally but then place disk in another pc and
do a full surface scan. What I'm thinking is PERHAPS there are bad
sectors and a separate surface scan would pick them up. What I'm
thinking is sometimes if bad sectors are in the wrong place (beginning
of HDD), some OS's will throw a fit and not boot.
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[someone watching]

LOL, wish mine was so easy to fix.
Glad you found the solution!!
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