XP upgrade can't find HD, maybe OT?

[Mike Warnke]

At the risk of being OT:
I was doing an upgrade from WIN98SE to XP on a freshly fdisk'd
drive and after the first reboot I get:

Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
NTLDR: Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

I have tried it numerous times with the same result. Before the attemp at
the upgrade WIN98SE runs fine.

Any help appreciated, even go away (if you suggest an alternate NG)!
TIA Mike

 

[Michael Cecil]

At the risk of being OT:
I was doing an upgrade from WIN98SE to XP on a freshly fdisk'd
drive and after the first reboot I get:

Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
NTLDR: Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

I have tried it numerous times with the same result. Before the attemp at
the upgrade WIN98SE runs fine.

Any help appreciated, even go away (if you suggest an alternate NG)!
TIA Mike

Upgrading is not really the best thing to do. It's virtually always
better to do a clean install.

Is your drive connected to a standard IDE controller or some kind of
add-in controller card? Were you using some kind of Dynamic Drive Overlay
(Disk Manager or EZ-Bios) or something like GoBack?

 

[Mike Warnke]

Upgrading is not really the best thing to do. It's virtually always
better to do a clean install.

Is your drive connected to a standard IDE controller or some kind of
add-in controller card? Were you using some kind of Dynamic Drive Overlay
(Disk Manager or EZ-Bios) or something like GoBack?

--
Michael Cecil
(e-mail address removed)
http://home.comcast.net/~macecil/howto/
http://home.comcast.net/~antiviruscd/

Standard 40G IDE HD
no disk manager software
no other harddrives present
I just plugged it in, BIOS saw it,
ran FDISK from a BOOT floppy, formatted,
installed WIN98SE and then XP as an upgrade
I think I rmember trying it from a DOS prompt
also, with the exact same result.
Mike

 

[Michael Cecil]

Standard 40G IDE HD
no disk manager software
no other harddrives present
I just plugged it in, BIOS saw it,
ran FDISK from a BOOT floppy, formatted,
installed WIN98SE and then XP as an upgrade
I think I rmember trying it from a DOS prompt
also, with the exact same result.
Mike

Instead of actually installing W98 first, try booting off the XP CD and
doing your partitioning with it. When it looks for a previous version of
Windows you can just put the 98 disc in to verify that.

 

[Mike Warnke]

Instead of actually installing W98 first, try booting off the XP CD and
doing your partitioning with it. When it looks for a previous version of
Windows you can just put the 98 disc in to verify that.

--
Michael Cecil
(e-mail address removed)
http://home.comcast.net/~macecil/howto/
http://home.comcast.net/~antiviruscd/

Nice website.
Should I start from scratch again (FDISK, etc)?
Mike

 

[Eric Gisin]

You should not use fdisk at all. Delete all partitions, then boot the CD and
create a new one.

 

[Michael Cecil]

Nice website.
Thanks.

Should I start from scratch again (FDISK, etc)?

Yes, but try doing it from the XP CD. During the install it should
provide you with the chance to partition the drive.

 

[RWL]

Standard 40G IDE HD
no disk manager software
no other harddrives present
I just plugged it in, BIOS saw it,
ran FDISK from a BOOT floppy, formatted,
installed WIN98SE and then XP as an upgrade
I think I rmember trying it from a DOS prompt
also, with the exact same result.
Mike

The advice about booting from the WinXP CD that others gave would be
the next reasonable step, but out of curiosity, that boot disk that
you used - was it a MS DOS disk, or was it another flavor of DOS?
Your description has a vague ring of familiarity. I think I had a
similar experience using one of the boot floppies from a web site that
specialized in those - bootdisk.com possibly.

RWL

******* Remove NOSPAM to reply *******

 

[Mike Warnke]

The advice about booting from the WinXP CD that others gave would be
the next reasonable step, but out of curiosity, that boot disk that
you used - was it a MS DOS disk, or was it another flavor of DOS?
Your description has a vague ring of familiarity. I think I had a
similar experience using one of the boot floppies from a web site that
specialized in those - bootdisk.com possibly.

RWL

******* Remove NOSPAM to reply *******

I am familiar with bootdisk.com. However, this was created from WIN98SE.

I fdisk'd again and blew away the existing partition. Booted from the XP
CD,
partitioned NTFS, it copied all of the files, rebooted and ...
same result. Bummer.

Although, I know there are success stories, I am beginning to go back to my
original opinion (fear) that with my luck, XP is best acquired as an OEM
install
in a new machine. All existing machines are stuck with WIN98SE.....
(or where did I stick that LINUX distro ....)

Mike

 

[Michael Hawes]

At the risk of being OT:
I was doing an upgrade from WIN98SE to XP on a freshly fdisk'd
drive and after the first reboot I get:

Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
NTLDR: Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

I have tried it numerous times with the same result. Before the attemp at
the upgrade WIN98SE runs fine.

Any help appreciated, even go away (if you suggest an alternate NG)!
TIA Mike

Can be faulty hard drive. NT and above load in 2 stages, if the drive is
not ready at the second stage you get this error. Is drive under warranty?
Have you over clocked? You could try 'Safe' settings in BIOS, if that works,
may be 'iffy' memory.

Mike.

 

[Mike Warnke]

Thanks everyone for the advice. The bad harddrive was
the closest correct answer. The actual problem was a
loose Master/Slave jumper!
Mike