Win2k BOOT question

[centauri4]

I have two computers, an older IBM Aptiva E24
(really old) and a new(er) Dell Dimension XPS T450.
The IBM has Acer BIOS and the Dell Phoenix BIOS
(as far as I can tell).

I am trying to move two hard drives from the old
box to the new box, but really having a problem.
While everything is detected and boots fine on
the IBM, all I get on the Dell is:
"0x0000007B" and INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

Early troubleshooting was a waste because I was
using the wrong drive in attempts to boot the Dell
(duh!).
Turns out, by paying better attention, I learned
my Quantum Bigfoot (2 Gb) drive is the Master and
the Maxtor 71260 (1 Gb) is the Slave. But the MAIN
PROBLEM appears to be a boot sector/file detection
issue, and that is where I am stumped!

IBM drive config.:
Bigfoot - Master - Jumper ON
Maxtor - Slave - Jumper OFF

Dell drive config.:
Bigfoot - Master - Jumper ON = Blue screen w/error
above.
Bigfoot - Master - Jumper OFF = Drive not listed
during boot detection sequence.

In either configuration, the Dell is giving "NTLDR
is missing" or "Operating System not found" error
messages. I checked for the file "ntldr" and
located it in C:\WINNT\ServicePackFiles\i386 but
do not know if it needs to be located somewhere
else on the drive as well.

I am spending to much time on this problem AND
could really use some help! I do not have any
manuals for the Dell or the Aptiva, so I have been
relying on Support sites and older postings for
information and trying to approach the issue
methodically (just like the old days in tech. support).

I just noticed the Bigfoot drive is "FAT" and not
"NTFS"! Could the Dell be "to smart" for its own
good? I betcha.

Next I am going to run "chkdsk /f" on the Bigfoot
Master volume and check for the files mentioned in
the following Microsoft Knowledgebase document:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=311073

Any better ideas would be greatly appreciated!!

~ Dennis in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(former InfiNet, LLC of Norfolk, Virginia Sr. Tech.)
* giving a shout out to Brian Bresina, Chris Kepler,
Dave Kidd, Reo Maynard, John Lambert, Dave McKay
Dave Nash and our fearless leader Carl Eichhorn! *

 

[dc]

Unless the two motherboards are virtually identical, you must "format"
both to move from the old box to the new.

don


I have two computers, an older IBM Aptiva E24
(really old) and a new(er) Dell Dimension XPS T450.
The IBM has Acer BIOS and the Dell Phoenix BIOS
(as far as I can tell).

I am trying to move two hard drives from the old
box to the new box, but really having a problem.
While everything is detected and boots fine on
the IBM, all I get on the Dell is:
"0x0000007B" and INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

Early troubleshooting was a waste because I was
using the wrong drive in attempts to boot the Dell
(duh!).
Turns out, by paying better attention, I learned
my Quantum Bigfoot (2 Gb) drive is the Master and
the Maxtor 71260 (1 Gb) is the Slave. But the MAIN
PROBLEM appears to be a boot sector/file detection
issue, and that is where I am stumped!

IBM drive config.:
Bigfoot - Master - Jumper ON
Maxtor - Slave - Jumper OFF

Dell drive config.:
Bigfoot - Master - Jumper ON = Blue screen w/error
above.
Bigfoot - Master - Jumper OFF = Drive not listed
during boot detection sequence.

In either configuration, the Dell is giving "NTLDR
is missing" or "Operating System not found" error
messages. I checked for the file "ntldr" and
located it in C:\WINNT\ServicePackFiles\i386 but
do not know if it needs to be located somewhere
else on the drive as well.

I am spending to much time on this problem AND
could really use some help! I do not have any
manuals for the Dell or the Aptiva, so I have been
relying on Support sites and older postings for
information and trying to approach the issue
methodically (just like the old days in tech. support).

I just noticed the Bigfoot drive is "FAT" and not
"NTFS"! Could the Dell be "to smart" for its own
good? I betcha.

Next I am going to run "chkdsk /f" on the Bigfoot
Master volume and check for the files mentioned in
the following Microsoft Knowledgebase document:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=311073

Any better ideas would be greatly appreciated!!

~ Dennis in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(former InfiNet, LLC of Norfolk, Virginia Sr. Tech.)
* giving a shout out to Brian Bresina, Chris Kepler,
Dave Kidd, Reo Maynard, John Lambert, Dave McKay
Dave Nash and our fearless leader Carl Eichhorn! *

 

[John John]

What are you trying to do? Get the Windows 2000 drive from the Aptiva
to boot the Dell PC? Does the Dell not have an Operating System
installed on it?

You can't take a Windows 2000 drive and stick it in another computer and
expect it to boot up! The computer onto which you move the drive would
have to be nearly identical to the one where the drive came from for a
scheme like that to work. Look here for more information:

How to move a Windows 2000 installation to different hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;249694

Maybe I misunderstand what you are trying to acheive, please elaborate.
Are you trying to slave the Aptiva drives to a working Windows 2000 on
the Dell or are you indeed trying to boot the Dell with the Aptiva drive?

John

 

[Bob I]

OEM vs Retail issues aside:
How to move a Windows 2000 installation to different hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;249694

 

[centauri4]

Thanks Don! I didn't think it was that complicated!

The old Aptiva came with a minimal load of Win2k
from my brother. Where he got it is anybody's
guess! I was amazed it ran VERY WELL on this
old 200 Mhz box; one that's only supposed to
support 64 Mb RAM but currently has 256 Mb
installed! The IBM case is awesome too! I just
noticed a swing-out 3.5" drivebay frame which
is so easy to work on.

Thanks again! More replies to follow.

 

[centauri4]

Thanks John! The article you provided IS very
helpful.

Obviously I'm no Windows Guru, and I had searched
for instructions on getting the new computer to
recognize the drives and found
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=311073

I thought I could create a floppy disk with the four
(4) files mentioned and set the new PC to boot first
from removable media. I had no idea Win2k was this
nuts when it came to recognizing what hardware it
was installed on. So maybe I will just have to spend
a few dollars for a new harddrive and install Fedora
Linux on the new(er) box! Since I own no Windows
media installation disks of any sort. In 10 years of
using and supporting Microsoft OS products I have
never needed or used any myself! Imagine that!

I worked for an ISP with ~90,000 customers
nationwide and frequently had to tell them to "reload
Windows" but never had to do it myself. I guess that
is sort of a compliment to Microsoft in a way...

Thanks very much for your reply!

 

[centauri4]

Thanks to you also, Bob!

I was beginning to think the new computer was
broken in some way beyond anyones' ability to
repair. Like maybe its BIOS was wiped or some-
thing... Although I guess that's VERY unlikely or
I wouldn't have seen diddly when I pressed the
ON button!

A Pentium III computer with 16 Mb video card
would be the best computer I have ever owned,
and since it came to me FREE, really awesome!
Since the way things are going it seems unlikely
I will ever be able to afford brand new hardware,
I guess I will keep learning systems engineering
the hard way.

 

[centauri4]

Is there any chance the procedure outlined in
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=311073
"Creating a boot disk for an NTFS or FAT partition"
would (actually) work??

It would be great if Microsoft offered a "realtime
reconfiguration" mode or something of that
sort which would accomplish the types of
tasks described in
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;249694
"How to move a Windows 2000 installation to different hardware"

I suppose that might be asking a lot.

For a bit I thought the Dell computer had settings
stored in CMOS which were preventing it from
recognizing the "new" drives, but I guess that is
not the case. (Since the computer came from
someone else and I had no idea what type(s) of
hard drives had been previously installed in it.
Thought: What if it had a RAID array or this is
no oridnary (home use) Dell box... A corporate
cast-off maybe?...)

Re: 0x0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

The error message and Microsoft Knowledge-
base seemed to indicate recently installed hard
drives or drive controllers were at fault, but that
looks to have been only the FIRST LAYER of the
problem... With the advice posted above I now
know it is likely the Dell would have remained
inoperable even if I managed to make my way
past the (my) perceived hard drive issue.

Noted here for the future benefit of other Usenet
searchers and surfers.
~ Dennis in Las Vegas, Nevada.

 

[centauri4]

Postmortem:
The errors "NTLDR is missing" and
"Operating System not found" were misleading
because they first caused me to go looking
for the file "ntldr" needlessly. The file is present
on the old hard drive in
C:\WINNT\ServicePackFiles\i386

But from what I now understand there is
more to the problem of moving hard drives
from an old system to a new system
(unless neither are going be the Boot drives)

Search keywords:
ntldr._
ntdetect.com
boot.ini
ntstartupdd.sys
ntldr

 

[John John]

See inline:

Is there any chance the procedure outlined in
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=311073
"Creating a boot disk for an NTFS or FAT partition"
would (actually) work??

No, that won't work. That is a procedure to use for different startup
problems, not hardware changes.

It would be great if Microsoft offered a "realtime
reconfiguration" mode or something of that
sort which would accomplish the types of
tasks described in
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;249694
"How to move a Windows 2000 installation to different hardware"

Windows 2000 is very touchy about anyone fiddling with the hardware, it
goes into temper tantrums easily if you try to make changes it doesn't
like! That in a way is what makes it stable with the hardware. You can
easily add slaved drives, memory, expansion cards and even add
processors, but changing the motherboard to something completely
different is cause for a temper tantrum! And changing everything at
once is cause for convulsions.

I suppose that might be asking a lot.

For a bit I thought the Dell computer had settings
stored in CMOS which were preventing it from
recognizing the "new" drives, but I guess that is
not the case. (Since the computer came from
someone else and I had no idea what type(s) of
hard drives had been previously installed in it.
Thought: What if it had a RAID array or this is
no oridnary (home use) Dell box... A corporate
cast-off maybe?...)

Re: 0x0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

The message can be deceptive. The controllers on the board probably
caused the error, not the drive itself.

The error message and Microsoft Knowledge-
base seemed to indicate recently installed hard
drives or drive controllers were at fault, but that
looks to have been only the FIRST LAYER of the
problem... With the advice posted above I now
know it is likely the Dell would have remained
inoperable even if I managed to make my way
past the (my) perceived hard drive issue.

If not done properly and even if after 2 days of fiddling about to get
it to work it most likely would result in a near disaster if it ever
decided to start. The hardware is too different to even try something
like that. If you were to move it to another similar IBM or from a Dell
Intel board to another similar Dell there might be a faint hope but the
leap you tried is too big.

John

 

[John John]

The files NTDETECT.COM, NTLDR and boot.ini would most likely have been
in the root on C: The one(s) in the C:\WINNT\ServicePackFiles\i386 are
useless when it comes to booting the pc, you could completely remove the
ServicePackFiles folder and subfolders and Windows 2000 would still boot
and work properly, providing of course that it was booting up in the
first place. Also the terms "Boot" drive and "System" drive in Windows
parlance is a bit misleading. The System drive contains the boot files
NTDETECT.COM, NTLDR and boot.ini (and others if needed, for some scsi
devices) and the Boot drive/partition contains the operating system
files... The boot files could be on a diskette for all that matters.
Confusing isn't it...

John