| Bruce - you are very thorough. I'll answer your questions, etc, below as
best I can.
|
| > Some BIOS's can only boot from the "Active" partition on the first hard
| > disk. In these BIOS's, this partition is often referred to as "C" in
the
| > BIOS startup settings. Other BIOS's can be configured to boot from the
| > "Active" partition on other than the first hard disk. Whichever
physical
| > disk the BIOS is set to boot from must have an appropriate Master Boot
| > Record and Partition Boot Record in the first partition plus an "OS" in
that
| > partition; the message you are getting says, that whatever disk the BIOS
is
| > attempting to boot from does not have appropriate information in the
Master
| > Boot Record or the "Active" partition. In this context, the Windows
Boot
| > Manager is an "OS". Windows setup will write the required information
in
| > the "Active" partition on the first physical disk. If you change the
BIOS
| > settings to actually boot from a different physical disk, Windows setup
| > won't know that and won't write the Master Boot record etc. on that
disk.
| >
| > The usual way that the Windows multi-boot works is to have ntldr,
| > ntdetect.com and boot.ini are in the root of the file system in the
"Active"
| > partition of whatever disk the BIOS is set to boot from. Most often,
but
| > not always, this is the first partition on the first physical disk
Then,
| > when you choose the particular OS installation you actually want to run,
the
| > Windows Boot Manager loads and executes that OS.
| >
| > The drive letter to partition association is an artifact of the
operating
| > system, not your computer's BIOS. Windows Setup enumerates the disks
and
| > partitions and associates drive letters with the partitions in a fixed
way.
| > If the physical arrangement of disks is modified, then Windows setup run
| > again, it will almost certainly show a different drive letter to
partition
| > association.
| >
| > To go further, it is necessary to understand exactly the physical disk
| > configuration in your computer and the corresponding BIOS settings.
| >
| > So, what physical disks do you have installed? Please list them in the
| > sequence that your BIOS reports them.
| > Which physical disk are you attempting to install Windows on to?
|
| I was worried about those points you made above so I removed all drives
except the one I want to instll
| the OS on. It has just one partition. Actually I never had more than one
drive in the computer - to
| keeps things as simple as possible.
| >
| > In the Windows setup, what physical disks and partitions are reported?
|
| Just the above drive with its single partition.
|
| > You mention something you see in Computer Managment, System Info. This
| > implies you have an operational OS on this computer.
|
| I have another drive with a working W2k OS that I'm writing this on. I
was looking at the drive with
| this OS's Computer Management. I tried to format the drive with Fat/Fat32
so I could run a DOS prompt to
| the WINNT.exe file (that I copied to the drive from the CD along with
everything else) but I can't even
| format this drive with anything except NTFS. Fdisk won't read NTFS. So
I'm stumped again. Perhaps your
| boot disk instruction below would facilitate that?
|
| > During the OS installation process - e.g. between booting from the CD
and
| > the restart after the first part of the setup, are you physically
| > re-arranging the disks or their cabling?
|
| No.
| I should mention that it is a newer drive that I've used many times before
as a slave. I have 3 other
| drives (80, 80 and 6gb) that I have tried the install process on with no
sucess. So its not the drive.
| Isn't it easier to install from the hard disk itself? Do I have to create
a seperate partitiion (D:?) to
| copy the files to so it can install them on C:? This sure is getting
complicated........
| I'll see how you respond to my responses to your questions above, before I
go further.
| --------------------------------------------------------------
| > If you have an operational Windows operating system, you can prepare a
boot
| > floppy that is sometimes useful to bypass the problem you are seeing.
To
| > create a boot floppy:
| >
| > 1. logon to a Windows NT 4, 2000, XP or 2003 computer
| > 2. put a floppy disk into the floppy disk drive
| > 3. in Windows Explorer, right click on the floppy drive (A) and select
| > Format
| > 4. DO NOT add a check mark to "Create an MS-DOS startup disk"
| > 5. a check mark in "Quick Format" is optional, but I suggest not adding
one
| > 6. click Start
| > 7. when the Format is complete, copy the following files from the root
of
| > the "System Partition" (usually C, but not necessarily)
| > ntldr
| > ntdetect.com
| > boot.ini
| >
| > Now, the boot.ini is specific to the particular computer's hard disk
| > configuration and OS installations, so you may need to adjust it. Open
it
| > in Notepad.
| >
| > You shoudl see something like this:
| >
| > [boot loader]
| > timeout=10
| > default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
| > [operating systems]
| > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Operational XP D1P1"
| > /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
| > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="2003 Ent R2"
/noexecute=optout
| > /fastdetect
| >
| > For normal X86 type computers with IDE drives, the multi and disk parts
are
| > not relevant; leave them as they are.
| >
| > The rdisk(n) specifies the physical disk number as enumerated by the
| > computer's BIOS - your BIOS will normally display the disks in the
| > enumeration order during POST. You should also be able to see this in
the
| > BIOS's configuration panels. Only actual hard disks are counted, CD/DVD
| > drives etc. don't get a number. The numbering starts at 0. The Windows
| > Computer Management, Disk Management will also show the drive numbers.
In
| > the bottom pane that shows the disks and partitions, the left most
partition
| > on each drive is number 1.
| >
| > The partition(n) refers to the partion number. Patition numbering
starts at
| > 1. The name after the "\" (e.g. WINDOWS in the above sample) is the
name of
| > the folder in the root of the partition's file system that holds the OS.
On
| > Windows NT 4 systems, this was typically WINNT. On Windows 2000 and
later
| > it is typically WINDOWS.
| >
| > The part inside the quote marks is the human readable stuff displayed by
the
| > Windows Boot Manager - you can make this whatever you like.
| >
| > The other strings (e.g. /fastdetect) are boot options. If in doubt, you
can
| > usually do without any of these.
| >
| > If you boot from a floppy built in this way, you will get the Windows
Boot
| > Manager menu showing the items in the [operating system] section of the
| > boot.ini. The content of the boot.ini is not validated by the Boot
| > Manager - it assumes it is correct.
| >
| > You can then select the OS you want to start. Naturally, if the info
(e.g.
| > multi(0)... ) is not correct, the selected OS won't load, but you will
get
| > a specific message for this situation (e.g. "ntoskrnl.exe is misssing or
| > invalid" means either there is no such file in the System32 folder in
the
| > partition\folder specified by the boot.ini record or its corrupted).
| >
| > One other possible thing - you mention you have a new hard drive; the
newer
| > faster IDE drivers might not work correctly unless you use an 80
conductor
| > cable, instead of the older 40 conductor cables.
| >
| > --
| > Bruce Sanderson MVP Printing
| >
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders
| >
| > It is perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.
| >
| >
| >
| > | > >I should mention that the exact error message when the system reboots
after
| > >copying files to the hard
| > > drive is:
| > > DISK BOOT FAILURE. INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.
| > >
| > >> Also I noticed in Computer Management, System Information,
| > >> Conflicts/Sharing that my Matrox Millennium
| > >> G450 video card and Creative SB Live! Basic (WDM) are both mentioned
on
| > >> IRQ 11. And my Intel
| > > 82371AB/EB
| > >> PCI to USB Universal Host Controller and Adaptec AHA-2940U2/U2W PCI
SCSI
| > >> Controlller are both mentioned
| > >> on IRQ 5.
| > >>
| > >> I can't find any info in W2K about the motherboard. On the mb
itself, it
| > >> just says Asus P2B rev.1.04.
| > > I
| > >> went to Asus.com (I wonder what brain surgeon designed that website)
and
| > >> there are lots of P2B models
| > >> (P2B98-XV, P2B-B, P2B-D2, etc) but only one that is P2B.
| > >>
| > >> I tried an old 6 gig drive - same thing.
| > >>
| > >> > There are 12 different model manuals for P2B. Do you know which
one?
| > >> > No, the
| > >> > drive shouldn't matter.
| > >>
| > >> > | ASUS P2B rev 1.04
| > >> > | Award Modular Bios v4.51 PG ACPI Bios Revision 1006
| > >> > 10/09/98
| > >> > i440BX
| > >> > |
| > >> > | I am using a much newer hard drive than the motherboard. Is it
| > >> > possible
| > >> > that there is some
| > >> > | incompatibility between the old motherboard and newer hard drive
that
| > >> > only
| > >> > arises when installing an
| > >> > | operating system? (But then I did also have that strange "E: is
not
| > >> > accessible. The parameter is
| > >> > | incorrect" message on 2 newer hard drives after moving them
around.
| > >>
| > >>
| > >
| > >
| >
| >
|
|
