Update: boot problem/load problem--imporved but not solved

[Ken K]

(problem in thread posted earlier today but dated 8/4/04 by mistake)

I developed a problem with being unable to initiate loading of the Win2K
operating system earlier today. I was helped by Pegasus, who asked me
to test whether I could load the OS with a floppy that contained my
boot.ini (from my hdd), ntldr, and ntdetect.com (both copied from my
Win2000 disk) . It worked. I tried copying those files back to my hard
drive c:\ drive but I still require the floppy to be present in order
for the loading to take place. If it is not there, I hang right after
the PCI assignements are displayed during boot.

Does anyone have any ideas where I can go from here to be able to load
from the hard drive without having to have the floppy in place? Are
there any BIOS settings that may have been tweaked that I should check?
(ASUS P4PE mb)

Thanks
Ken K

 

[Dave Patrick]

You can boot the recovery console and from a command prompt issue the
command;
fixboot
to replace the bootsector. To start the Recovery Console, start the computer
from the Windows 2000 Setup CD or the Windows 2000 Setup floppy disks. If
you do not have Setup floppy disks and your computer cannot start from the
Windows 2000 Setup CD, use another Windows 2000-based computer to create the
Setup floppy disks. Press ENTER at the "Setup Notification" screen. Press R
to repair a Windows 2000 installation, and then press C to use the Recovery
Console. The Recovery Console then prompts you for the administrator
password. If you do not have the correct password, Recovery Console does
not allow access to the computer. If an incorrect password is entered three
times, the Recovery Console quits and restarts the computer. Once the
password has been validated, you have full access to the Recovery Console,
but limited access to the hard disk. You can only access the following
folders on your computer: %systemroot% and %windir%

Cross-post when necessary, but never multi-post. Cross-posting is when you
include two or more groups in the "Newsgroups:" section. In this scenario
the message and all responses are seen in all groups that the message was
cross-posted to. In other words any replies will automatically propagate to
the other newsgroup posts.

Multi-posting is when you post the same message to two or more groups
individually. In this scenario the message is seen in the groups it is
posted to, but the responses are only seen attached to the message (unless
you cross-post the reply) in which the response was made. So those that
frequent these groups then need to deal with or re-read the posts. It may
seem like a small thing to keep track of. But some of us actively traverse
50 or more groups. The poster also then must search out all of the posts to
see if there was a response.

--
Regards,

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


| (problem in thread posted earlier today but dated 8/4/04 by mistake)
|
| I developed a problem with being unable to initiate loading of the Win2K
| operating system earlier today. I was helped by Pegasus, who asked me
| to test whether I could load the OS with a floppy that contained my
| boot.ini (from my hdd), ntldr, and ntdetect.com (both copied from my
| Win2000 disk) . It worked. I tried copying those files back to my hard
| drive c:\ drive but I still require the floppy to be present in order
| for the loading to take place. If it is not there, I hang right after
| the PCI assignements are displayed during boot.
|
| Does anyone have any ideas where I can go from here to be able to load
| from the hard drive without having to have the floppy in place? Are
| there any BIOS settings that may have been tweaked that I should check?
| (ASUS P4PE mb)
|
| Thanks
| Ken K
|

 

[Ken K]

1, apologies for the multiple posts. I am not sure which forum received
more attention. I am also not sure how I can cross-post with Netscape
7.1---any ideas how to do it?

2, I had tried using fixboot yesterday but to no avail. I repeated
again today, but no luck. I can still boot only with the floppy in
place. Is there a BIOS setting that might have been tweaked? On POST,
I can see that the hdd is identified correctly as the primary. Somehow
I am wondering if the c: drive is just not being seen by the computer
until directed there by the floppy files...

3. I had planned on an upgrade to WinXP early next week or so. Any
chance that might fix the problem or should I wait until there is a fix
for this?

4. I would not mind doing a fresh install of Win2K if I could have all
of my setting preserved. If someone can tell me how to do that, I am
all ears.

Thanks
Ken K

 

[Dave Patrick]

I don't know the details here. Might it be the primary active partition was
removed?

--
Regards,

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


:
| 1, apologies for the multiple posts. I am not sure which forum received
| more attention. I am also not sure how I can cross-post with Netscape
| 7.1---any ideas how to do it?
|
| 2, I had tried using fixboot yesterday but to no avail. I repeated
| again today, but no luck. I can still boot only with the floppy in
| place. Is there a BIOS setting that might have been tweaked? On POST,
| I can see that the hdd is identified correctly as the primary. Somehow
| I am wondering if the c: drive is just not being seen by the computer
| until directed there by the floppy files...
|
| 3. I had planned on an upgrade to WinXP early next week or so. Any
| chance that might fix the problem or should I wait until there is a fix
| for this?
|
| 4. I would not mind doing a fresh install of Win2K if I could have all
| of my setting preserved. If someone can tell me how to do that, I am
| all ears.
|
| Thanks
| Ken K

 

[Ken K]

Dave, tell me how I check to see if the primary active partition was
removed. The partitions are all the same, at least I think they are, as
they were before: c:, d: and e: drive. I recall from fdisk'ing DOS
drives in the past that one can set a partition as being active, but I
don't know how to check that in Win2000.

Let me know how I can check that and I will do so.

Thanks
Ken

 

[Ken K]

OK, I right-clicked on the c: drive, which is listed as system, and the
option to set this to active is grayed out, which, I presume, means that
it is the active drive, or is that not correct?

Thanks

 

[Dave Patrick]

Boot with a win98 startup disk, run fdisk to check or set the correct
partition as active.

--
Regards,

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


:
| OK, I right-clicked on the c: drive, which is listed as system, and the
| option to set this to active is grayed out, which, I presume, means that
| it is the active drive, or is that not correct?
|
| Thanks

 

[Ken K]

OK, I created a Win98 startup disk on my daugther's computer and found
that the C: drive is set as active. I set it again, closed out, tried
to reboot, and no luck. I can only reboot with the floppy in place.

Shall I consider a reinstall inplace? I am beginning to understand that
there may be irreparable damage to the boot sector. Would a reinstall
solve that problem?

Thanks
KK

 

[Dave Patrick]

Try the recovery console again and from a command prompt issue the command;
fixboot C:
and possibly
fixmbr

Be sure to read these ones first.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;266745
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=166454

--
Regards,

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


:
| OK, I created a Win98 startup disk on my daugther's computer and found
| that the C: drive is set as active. I set it again, closed out, tried
| to reboot, and no luck. I can only reboot with the floppy in place.
|
| Shall I consider a reinstall inplace? I am beginning to understand that
| there may be irreparable damage to the boot sector. Would a reinstall
| solve that problem?
|
| Thanks
| KK

 

[Ken K]

Try the recovery console again and from a command prompt issue the command;
fixboot C:
and possibly
fixmbr

Be sure to read these ones first.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;266745
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=166454

Tried it but no luck.

Other options?

Thanks
KK

 

[Dave Patrick]

Time for a clean install.

--
Regards,

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


:
| Tried it but no luck.
|
| Other options?
|
| Thanks
| KK
|

 

[Ken K]

Time for a clean install.

Yes, I am resigning myself to that... The question is how to not have
to install about 50 programs. Can you suggest how to do that? I have
all of my data on e: drive, my programs on d: drive, and my OS on c:
drive. I have my ERD and I have my registry backup up.

If I do a clean install of the OS on c: drive after reformatting, do I
just reboot and then use the ERD? Will that preserve the majority of my
settings and installations? or is there another method?

Thanks
Ken K

 

[Dave Patrick]

I guess I don't know any of the details of why the pc doesn't start.
Possibly an older pc with a controller bios that doesn't support INT13
Extensions. Is the correct boot device set in controller bios?

Setup Does Not Check for INT-13 Extensions Before Creating System Partition
(Q240672)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q240672

--
Regards,

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


:
| Yes, I am resigning myself to that... The question is how to not have
| to install about 50 programs. Can you suggest how to do that? I have
| all of my data on e: drive, my programs on d: drive, and my OS on c:
| drive. I have my ERD and I have my registry backup up.
|
| If I do a clean install of the OS on c: drive after reformatting, do I
| just reboot and then use the ERD? Will that preserve the majority of my
| settings and installations? or is there another method?
|
| Thanks
| Ken K
|

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I protect myself against this sort of disaster by creating
an image of the system partition, using an imaging product
from companies such as Acronis or PowerQuest. Once
every six months I renew the image, and I always keep
the two most recent versions.

Restoring an image takes five minutes of my time, and
around 30 minutes of elapsed time.

 

[Ken K]

I protect myself against this sort of disaster by creating
an image of the system partition, using an imaging product
from companies such as Acronis or PowerQuest. Once
every six months I renew the image, and I always keep
the two most recent versions.

Restoring an image takes five minutes of my time, and
around 30 minutes of elapsed time.

Hello again, Pegasus.

I had just purchased Acronis and made images of two identical laptops
(the hdd of one had died and I was able to place the image of the good
hdd on the new drive---very impressive program.) I decided to order
2-250GB SATA hdds (large enough for backups of my families computers on
rotation and large enough to hold all of the images) and a 120GB hdd to
mirror the 120GB hdd on my desktop (RAID1 on my ASUS P4PE md. The 120GB
hdd arrived first and I mirrored it "successfully". Unfortunately,
after the mirroring process, neither hdd will boot except with a
floppy. That is the issue that I have been trying to solve. So the
stimulus for this whole mess was the rush to do the backup of the hdd!
(I have a DDS-3 tape drive that has my data backed up but not the
system, I don't think. I was in the decision process of purchasing more
tapes when it occurred to me that hard drives would be much more
reasonable and I even have the removable media drawers here waiting for
my 250GB hdds...

I suppose the thing to do is to wait for a time when I have a couple of
days and then reinstall the system, then use the backup in the ERD that
I have, which should restore the registry pretty much. The only
problem, actually, has been the boot sector, and I can live temporarily
with the floppy disk that you had suggested a few days a ago.

Dave-- WRT to the computer, the mb is relatively recent vintage ASUS
P4PE with 1GB RAM and with onboard SATA (Promise RAID controller).

 

[Ken K]

I guess I don't know any of the details of why the pc doesn't start.
Possibly an older pc with a controller bios that doesn't support INT13
Extensions. Is the correct boot device set in controller bios?

Setup Does Not Check for INT-13 Extensions Before Creating System Partition
(Q240672)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q240672

Well, this is a new wrinkle. First, the system is an ASUS P4PE mb with
a Promise SATA controller, about 1 1/2 years old. I have been running
Win2000 since beta and have SP4 installed. My boot sequence is
floppy-->hdd. My active partition is C: drive, which it has always
been, and C: drive is 19.53GB with 12.13 free (7.4 in use). The hdd is
120GB Western Digital IDE drive. All was hunky dory until (see the
response to Pegasus in this same thread....)

I have to assume that there is no problem with the larger size of the
active partition in Win2000, as it has been working for such a long
period. Is there anything in a mb's BIOS that is a specific instruction
about INT-13?

Thanks
Ken

 

[Dave Patrick]

System and or controller bios vary, you'll just have to look for it. If the
controller is not an integrated one then you'll also need to enter
controller bios to check this and that the correct boot device is selected.

--
Regards,

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


:
| Well, this is a new wrinkle. First, the system is an ASUS P4PE mb with
| a Promise SATA controller, about 1 1/2 years old. I have been running
| Win2000 since beta and have SP4 installed. My boot sequence is
| floppy-->hdd. My active partition is C: drive, which it has always
| been, and C: drive is 19.53GB with 12.13 free (7.4 in use). The hdd is
| 120GB Western Digital IDE drive. All was hunky dory until (see the
| response to Pegasus in this same thread....)
|
| I have to assume that there is no problem with the larger size of the
| active partition in Win2000, as it has been working for such a long
| period. Is there anything in a mb's BIOS that is a specific instruction
| about INT-13?
|
| Thanks
| Ken
|