Boot problem/load problem

  • Thread starter Pegasus \(MVP\)
  • Start date
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

Ken Krone said:
I had an installation of Win2000 which had been running flawlessly until
this AM.

I received a new SATA hard drive that I was going to use for mirroring
in RAID1. I moved my flawlessly functioning hdd to the RAID controller,
mirrored it with the new drive, enabled the RAID controller on my
motherboard and it did not work. I disabled the RAID and hooked up my
original hdd the way it had been, on the same primary connector, and
tried to boot. The boot only goes through finding the PCI assignments,
then stops at a flashing cursor. I set the CD-Rom as the boot device,
booted the Win2000 CD-Rom and selected the Repair option.

The first option was to repair with the console, which basically gave me
a boot into what appears and functions like DOS. I DIR'd my way through
the various logical partitions and all of my data is there. I TYPE'd
the boot.ini file and it has the standard command of
multit(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1):\WINNT etc.

I then ran through the boot and chose the option that allows the
operating system to repair itself but when that was finished I could
still not boot into Win2K.

So I am baffled as to how to get this disk, which is operable, to boot.
I would not mind doing an install if someone can tell me which files to
back up in a different partition so that I could regain all of my
settings and registered programs but I must be missing something simple.

Many thanks in advance,
Ken K
Feel free to email me at the above corrected address...

As a first step I would determine if the Win2000 installation is still
intact, if it is just the boot process that fails. You can do this by
booting off a Win2000 boot diskette. Here is how to make one:

- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your Win2000 CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Copy c:\boot.ini from your own hard disk to a:\.
- Boot the machine with this floppy
 
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

Ken Krone said:
I had an installation of Win2000 which had been running flawlessly until
this AM.

I received a new SATA hard drive that I was going to use for mirroring
in RAID1. I moved my flawlessly functioning hdd to the RAID controller,
mirrored it with the new drive, enabled the RAID controller on my
motherboard and it did not work. I disabled the RAID and hooked up my
original hdd the way it had been, on the same primary connector, and
tried to boot. The boot only goes through finding the PCI assignments,
then stops at a flashing cursor. I set the CD-Rom as the boot device,
booted the Win2000 CD-Rom and selected the Repair option.

The first option was to repair with the console, which basically gave me
a boot into what appears and functions like DOS. I DIR'd my way through
the various logical partitions and all of my data is there. I TYPE'd
the boot.ini file and it has the standard command of
multit(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1):\WINNT etc.

I then ran through the boot and chose the option that allows the
operating system to repair itself but when that was finished I could
still not boot into Win2K.

So I am baffled as to how to get this disk, which is operable, to boot.
I would not mind doing an install if someone can tell me which files to
back up in a different partition so that I could regain all of my
settings and registered programs but I must be missing something simple.

Many thanks in advance,
Ken K
Feel free to email me at the above corrected address...

By the way, how come your post appears under "August 2004"?
 
K

Ken Krone

Pegasus said:
As a first step I would determine if the Win2000 installation is still
intact, if it is just the boot process that fails. You can do this by
booting off a Win2000 boot diskette. Here is how to make one:

- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your Win2000 CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Copy c:\boot.ini from your own hard disk to a:\.
- Boot the machine with this floppy
I booted into Repair Console mode but when I tried to write files onto
my A: drive, I received a message that said Access denied with the
command copy ntldetect.com a:\. I will have to go to a neighbor's house
and use his system. I have the same problem with boot.ini, so I suppose
I can create a wordpad file of that and add it to the floppy. Any idea
why I should receive that error message?
 
K

Ken Krone

Pegasus said:
By the way, how come your post appears under "August 2004"?
I resurrected an old laptop so that I could post to the newsgroup and
did not see the date until after the post. I have changed it.

I am going to try to use my wife's computer that uses Win2K but only has
a CD-Rom. I have typed out my boot.ini file and will add that to the
CD-Rom. Here is the present boot.ini (includes the command console).
Should I delete that before I burn it?

[boot loader]
timeout=4
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
c:\cmdcons\bootsect.dat="Microsoft Windows 2000 Recovery Console" /cmdcons

Thanks
Ken K
 
D

DL

I dont quite follow how you managed to mirror yr hd's, then enabled the raid controler, did you really mean that??
Assuming yr origonal hd was the o/s disk, when you connected this to the raid controler along with yr new sata drive I believe you would have had to undertake a repair installation of win2k, using the F6 option to install third party drivers,the raid drivers, from floppy.
 
K

Ken Krone

DL said:
I dont quite follow how you managed to mirror yr hd's, then enabled
the raid controler, did you really mean that??
Assuming yr origonal hd was the o/s disk, when you connected this to
the raid controler along with yr new sata drive I believe you would
have had to undertake a repair installation of win2k, using the F6
option to install third party drivers,the raid drivers, from floppy.

I was apparently not clear or I did not remember the steps exactly. I
had the original drive on the PRI_RAID connector and tried to boot,
having moved it from a functional position on the Primary IDE connector
and having already enabled the RAID controller. After the primary drive
did not boot, I shut the system down, attached the SATA drive to the
SATA 1 connector, enabled the RAID controller in BIOS, enabled ATA first
in the BIOS, then booted into the BIOS of the RAID controller. I then
deleted the array that I had and chose to set up a mirrored array. That
was completed successfully after an hour, and I then tried to boot.
During boot I was not asked for additional drivers (a few weeks ago I
had installed the drivers for the Promise RAID that I had downloaded
from ASUS), but the boot hung after the PCI devices were displayed. I
only see the list of PCI devices and there is a a blinking cursor.

Sorry if I was inaccurate in my earlier description..

Thanks
Ken K
 
K

Ken Krone

Pegasus said:
As a first step I would determine if the Win2000 installation is still
intact, if it is just the boot process that fails. You can do this by
booting off a Win2000 boot diskette. Here is how to make one:

- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your Win2000 CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Copy c:\boot.ini from your own hard disk to a:\.
- Boot the machine with this floppy
Well, that did it! The system booted as if nothing had happened. Do I
just copy these three files to the C: drive to replace the others, or is
there something else that must be done? Any idea what might have caused
the corropted files? Norton says I am virus-free.

Thanks,
A very relieved Ken K
 
K

Ken Krone

Ken said:
Well, that did it! The system booted as if nothing had happened. Do
I just copy these three files to the C: drive to replace the others,
or is there something else that must be done? Any idea what might
have caused the corropted files? Norton says I am virus-free.

Thanks,
A very relieved Ken K


By the way, why is it that the above does not work with a CD-Rom disk,
only with the floppy? I set the BIOS to boot with either prior to
looking for the hdd but it only works with the floppy? Also, wouldn't
these files have been rebuilt with the Repair mode? It is all confusing
to my little brain... One additional question: do I need to reapply the
service packs, having used the fixmbr and fixboot commands?
 
K

Ken Krone

Ken said:
By the way, why is it that the above does not work with a CD-Rom disk,
only with the floppy? I set the BIOS to boot with either prior to
looking for the hdd but it only works with the floppy? Also, wouldn't
these files have been rebuilt with the Repair mode? It is all
confusing to my little brain... One additional question: do I need to
reapply the service packs, having used the fixmbr and fixboot commands?

I replaced the three files in succession, attempting to reboot after
each. I could not get the program to load from the hdd after replacing
any of the files, although Win2K will load with the floppy in place.

Where do we go from here?
 
D

DL

Assuming yr disks are connected to the raid controler, and this is enabled in the bios, both being jumpered to Master, if applicable, and the o/s disk is connected to controller connection 1.
Disconnect any other hd's, and any cd/dvd drives other than the one in use.
Copy yr Promise Raid drivers to floppy.
Use the win cd to perform an inplace upgrade, ie repair, taking care to F6 at the appropriate warning, then installing the raid drivers from floppy, when instructed by the win install.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=292175
Once completed, boot up, when sys has started and appears ok, then,
You will probably have to reboot in order to enter the Promise Raid setup, I use Silicon Image raid.
Rebuild mirror.
Once completed check sys, then sutdown,reconnect any other hd's , reboot and check if ok
shutdown reconnect any other hardware, reboot and check.
Just my penny's worth

DL wrote:

I dont quite follow how you managed to mirror yr hd's, then enabled the raid controler, did you really mean that??
Assuming yr origonal hd was the o/s disk, when you connected this to the raid controler along with yr new sata drive I believe you would have had to undertake a repair installation of win2k, using the F6 option to install third party drivers,the raid drivers, from floppy.
I was apparently not clear or I did not remember the steps exactly. I had the original drive on the PRI_RAID connector and tried to boot, having moved it from a functional position on the Primary IDE connector and having already enabled the RAID controller. After the primary drive did not boot, I shut the system down, attached the SATA drive to the SATA 1 connector, enabled the RAID controller in BIOS, enabled ATA first in the BIOS, then booted into the BIOS of the RAID controller. I then deleted the array that I had and chose to set up a mirrored array. That was completed successfully after an hour, and I then tried to boot. During boot I was not asked for additional drivers (a few weeks ago I had installed the drivers for the Promise RAID that I had downloaded from ASUS), but the boot hung after the PCI devices were displayed. I only see the list of PCI devices and there is a a blinking cursor.

Sorry if I was inaccurate in my earlier description..

Thanks
Ken K
 
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

Ken Krone wrote:

Ken Krone wrote:

Pegasus (MVP) wrote:


I had an installation of Win2000 which had been running flawlessly until
this AM.

I received a new SATA hard drive that I was going to use for mirroring
in RAID1. I moved my flawlessly functioning hdd to the RAID controller,
mirrored it with the new drive, enabled the RAID controller on my
motherboard and it did not work. I disabled the RAID and hooked up my
original hdd the way it had been, on the same primary connector, and
tried to boot. The boot only goes through finding the PCI assignments,
then stops at a flashing cursor. I set the CD-Rom as the boot device,
booted the Win2000 CD-Rom and selected the Repair option.

The first option was to repair with the console, which basically gave me
a boot into what appears and functions like DOS. I DIR'd my way through
the various logical partitions and all of my data is there. I TYPE'd
the boot.ini file and it has the standard command of
multit(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1):\WINNT etc.

I then ran through the boot and chose the option that allows the
operating system to repair itself but when that was finished I could
still not boot into Win2K.

So I am baffled as to how to get this disk, which is operable, to boot.
I would not mind doing an install if someone can tell me which files to
back up in a different partition so that I could regain all of my
settings and registered programs but I must be missing something simple.

Many thanks in advance,
Ken K
Feel free to email me at the above corrected address...



As a first step I would determine if the Win2000 installation is still
intact, if it is just the boot process that fails. You can do this by
booting off a Win2000 boot diskette. Here is how to make one:

- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your Win2000 CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Copy c:\boot.ini from your own hard disk to a:\.
- Boot the machine with this floppy
Well, that did it! The system booted as if nothing had happened. Do I just
copy these three files to the C: drive to replace the others, or is there
something else that must be done? Any idea what might have caused the
corropted files? Norton says I am virus-free.

Thanks,
A very relieved Ken K

By the way, why is it that the above does not work with a CD-Rom disk, only
with the floppy? I set the BIOS to boot with either prior to looking for
the hdd but it only works with the floppy? Also, wouldn't these files have
been rebuilt with the Repair mode? It is all confusing to my little
brain... One additional question: do I need to reapply the service packs,
having used the fixmbr and fixboot commands?
I replaced the three files in succession, attempting to reboot after each.
I could not get the program to load from the hdd after replacing any of the
files, although Win2K will load with the floppy in place.

Where do we go from here?

====================

It is now obvious that your Win2000 installation is intact but
that the boot environment is disturbed. Here are the steps
usually taken to fix this:

- Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com,
then run fdisk to check and, if necessary to set the correct active
partition. This works for NTFS partitions too.

Reboot to see if this fixes your problem.

- Boot into the Command Console, then run these commands:
fixmbr
fixboot
They will repair your Master Boot Record, and fix the Win2000
boot sector.

If you want to be able to access your whole hard disk and the
floppy disk while in Command Console mode then you must
run gpedit.msc while Win2000 is up and running, then wade
through the many settings until you find the one that relates
to Command Console restrictions.
 
K

Ken K

Pegasus said:
Ken Krone wrote:

Ken Krone wrote:

Pegasus (MVP) wrote:


I had an installation of Win2000 which had been running flawlessly until
this AM.

I received a new SATA hard drive that I was going to use for mirroring
in RAID1. I moved my flawlessly functioning hdd to the RAID controller,
mirrored it with the new drive, enabled the RAID controller on my
motherboard and it did not work. I disabled the RAID and hooked up my
original hdd the way it had been, on the same primary connector, and
tried to boot. The boot only goes through finding the PCI assignments,
then stops at a flashing cursor. I set the CD-Rom as the boot device,
booted the Win2000 CD-Rom and selected the Repair option.

The first option was to repair with the console, which basically gave me
a boot into what appears and functions like DOS. I DIR'd my way through
the various logical partitions and all of my data is there. I TYPE'd
the boot.ini file and it has the standard command of
multit(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1):\WINNT etc.

I then ran through the boot and chose the option that allows the
operating system to repair itself but when that was finished I could
still not boot into Win2K.

So I am baffled as to how to get this disk, which is operable, to boot.
I would not mind doing an install if someone can tell me which files to
back up in a different partition so that I could regain all of my
settings and registered programs but I must be missing something simple.

Many thanks in advance,
Ken K
Feel free to email me at the above corrected address...



As a first step I would determine if the Win2000 installation is still
intact, if it is just the boot process that fails. You can do this by
booting off a Win2000 boot diskette. Here is how to make one:

- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your Win2000 CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Copy c:\boot.ini from your own hard disk to a:\.
- Boot the machine with this floppy
Well, that did it! The system booted as if nothing had happened. Do I just
copy these three files to the C: drive to replace the others, or is there
something else that must be done? Any idea what might have caused the
corropted files? Norton says I am virus-free.

Thanks,
A very relieved Ken K

By the way, why is it that the above does not work with a CD-Rom disk, only
with the floppy? I set the BIOS to boot with either prior to looking for
the hdd but it only works with the floppy? Also, wouldn't these files have
been rebuilt with the Repair mode? It is all confusing to my little
brain... One additional question: do I need to reapply the service packs,
having used the fixmbr and fixboot commands?
I replaced the three files in succession, attempting to reboot after each.
I could not get the program to load from the hdd after replacing any of the
files, although Win2K will load with the floppy in place.

Where do we go from here?

====================

It is now obvious that your Win2000 installation is intact but
that the boot environment is disturbed. Here are the steps
usually taken to fix this:

- Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com,
then run fdisk to check and, if necessary to set the correct active
partition. This works for NTFS partitions too.

Reboot to see if this fixes your problem.

- Boot into the Command Console, then run these commands:
fixmbr
fixboot
They will repair your Master Boot Record, and fix the Win2000
boot sector.

If you want to be able to access your whole hard disk and the
floppy disk while in Command Console mode then you must
run gpedit.msc while Win2000 is up and running, then wade
through the many settings until you find the one that relates
to Command Console restrictions.
Well, I have done both processes. I booted with my daughter's Win98
emergency startup disk and confirmed that my c: partition was listed as
the active partition, which it was. I then ran the Command Console from
the Repair portion of my Win2000 install disk, ran fixmbr and fixboot
(in that order) but I am still able to only start up with the floppy in
place. Pretty crazy, huh?

Anyway, I am not sure where to go from here. I was thinking about
upgrading to XP in the next couple of weeks. If I do that, is it likely
that it would repair the boot sector or is it probable that there is
physical damage to the boot sector?

Thanks
Ken K
 
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

Ken K said:
Well, I have done both processes. I booted with my daughter's Win98
emergency startup disk and confirmed that my c: partition was listed as
the active partition, which it was. I then ran the Command Console from
the Repair portion of my Win2000 install disk, ran fixmbr and fixboot
(in that order) but I am still able to only start up with the floppy in
place. Pretty crazy, huh?

Anyway, I am not sure where to go from here. I was thinking about
upgrading to XP in the next couple of weeks. If I do that, is it likely
that it would repair the boot sector or is it probable that there is
physical damage to the boot sector?

Thanks
Ken K

Seeing that you started another thread on this same subject,
I will now stop monitoring this particular thread as it obviously
leads to duplication of effort. As you can see, Dave Patrick
gave you much the same advice as I did.
 
K

Ken K

Pegasus said:
Seeing that you started another thread on this same subject,
I will now stop monitoring this particular thread as it obviously
leads to duplication of effort. As you can see, Dave Patrick
gave you much the same advice as I did.
Thanks for your efforts. I had not seen any posts from you in a while
over the weekend and thought that I had been abandoned! In my freaked
state of mind, I reposted the issue, hoping to get some continuation.
Anyway, thanks for your help.

Ken K
 
K

Ken Krone

I had an installation of Win2000 which had been running flawlessly until
this AM.

I received a new SATA hard drive that I was going to use for mirroring
in RAID1. I moved my flawlessly functioning hdd to the RAID controller,
mirrored it with the new drive, enabled the RAID controller on my
motherboard and it did not work. I disabled the RAID and hooked up my
original hdd the way it had been, on the same primary connector, and
tried to boot. The boot only goes through finding the PCI assignments,
then stops at a flashing cursor. I set the CD-Rom as the boot device,
booted the Win2000 CD-Rom and selected the Repair option.

The first option was to repair with the console, which basically gave me
a boot into what appears and functions like DOS. I DIR'd my way through
the various logical partitions and all of my data is there. I TYPE'd
the boot.ini file and it has the standard command of
multit(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1):\WINNT etc.

I then ran through the boot and chose the option that allows the
operating system to repair itself but when that was finished I could
still not boot into Win2K.

So I am baffled as to how to get this disk, which is operable, to boot.
I would not mind doing an install if someone can tell me which files to
back up in a different partition so that I could regain all of my
settings and registered programs but I must be missing something simple.

Many thanks in advance,
Ken K
Feel free to email me at the above corrected address...
 

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