XP install problem

[JosephKK]

Target platform Gigabyte GA-M55Plus-S3G (3.0) with Athlon64-X2 4600, 2x
1GB DDR2 RAM (800 MHz 128-bit), Linksys 10/100 NIC, on-board NIC (not
used), ATI 9250, on board sound, normal kbd and mouse, home network, WD
320 GB HD as IDE primary master (only), two DVD recorders on secondary
IDE, speakers, 17" display. Installed WinXP, install seemed to go OK,
but installed system would not boot without install CD in a DVD drive.
Tried several installs with both NTFS and FAT host partitions at the
beginning of the HD (no other partitions), still will not boot without
install CD. Downloaded bootable WD DataLifeGuard, and it found no
problems with HD. Ran memtest86 for hours, no problem found. Does not
matter if i install drivers from the driver disk. Installing Video
driver only improves performance. Installed Suse Linux 10.2, does not
boot that either. Here is the kicker, with the Suse install disk in a
DVD drive XP will boot. I sure would like to know what is going on.
Any suggestions?

JosephKK

 

[nesredep egrob]

Target platform Gigabyte GA-M55Plus-S3G (3.0) with Athlon64-X2 4600, 2x
1GB DDR2 RAM (800 MHz 128-bit), Linksys 10/100 NIC, on-board NIC (not
used), ATI 9250, on board sound, normal kbd and mouse, home network, WD
320 GB HD as IDE primary master (only), two DVD recorders on secondary
IDE, speakers, 17" display. Installed WinXP, install seemed to go OK,
but installed system would not boot without install CD in a DVD drive.
Tried several installs with both NTFS and FAT host partitions at the
beginning of the HD (no other partitions), still will not boot without
install CD. Downloaded bootable WD DataLifeGuard, and it found no
problems with HD. Ran memtest86 for hours, no problem found. Does not
matter if i install drivers from the driver disk. Installing Video
driver only improves performance. Installed Suse Linux 10.2, does not
boot that either. Here is the kicker, with the Suse install disk in a
DVD drive XP will boot. I sure would like to know what is going on.
Any suggestions?

JosephKK

Have you remembered to reset BIOS so that the comp will boot off the hard disk
and not the CD - indeed is the hard disk there in the list of drives for boot.


Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

 

[joseph2k]

Have you remembered to reset BIOS so that the comp will boot off the hard
disk and not the CD - indeed is the hard disk there in the list of drives
for boot.


Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

It sure is. the boot order is floppy (yes there is one), CDROM (includes
DVD), Hard disk, other devices. Overwrote suse 10 with fedora core 6, same
problem, but with a new twist with either suse or fedora install disk it
now boots to fedora.
Got to try the XP install disk with this.
Also tried writing zeros to the first 80 MB of hard disk (should wipe out
MBR, ontrack and similar, FAT tables (if applicable), root directory, and
prevent any recovery of most partition types) and tried again, same results
(and i did have to create and format new partitions as expected).

 

[nesredep egrob]

It sure is. the boot order is floppy (yes there is one), CDROM (includes
DVD), Hard disk, other devices. Overwrote suse 10 with fedora core 6, same
problem, but with a new twist with either suse or fedora install disk it
now boots to fedora.
Got to try the XP install disk with this.
Also tried writing zeros to the first 80 MB of hard disk (should wipe out
MBR, ontrack and similar, FAT tables (if applicable), root directory, and
prevent any recovery of most partition types) and tried again, same results
(and i did have to create and format new partitions as expected).

AS you say they are all there - I would then reset the boot order so Hard Disk
is first on line.
If that does not work I should get hold of the disk Manufacturers diagnostic
disk and run that over the hard disk - for starters.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

 

[joseph2k]

AS you say they are all there - I would then reset the boot order so Hard
Disk is first on line.
If that does not work I should get hold of the disk Manufacturers
diagnostic disk and run that over the hard disk - for starters.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

Thank you, i did just that (WD DataLifeGuard tools) after my last post. It
reports that disk is fine, there are no remapped sectors since manufacture,
has SMART and it reports no errors. Up next for testing, check for BIOS
update, reflash as needed; try XP 64-bit; try openSuse 64-bit; try Solaris
32-bit and 64-bit; try freeBSD 32-bit and 64-bit (if i can find it). Any
other ideas?

 

[nesredep egrob]

I look through idea from people better than I and sometimes I record what I have
seen. Here is one:
Your first step should be to determine what you have on your
PC. Once you know this, you can take steps to fix it. I suggest
you boot it with a boot diskette that you can make like so:

- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000/XP 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
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with these lines
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="1 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="2 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="3 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="4 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="5 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINNT="6 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy and report the resolt.

It means that your Windows installation is intact
and that only the boot environment needs fixing. You should now
do this:
1. Edit a:\boot.ini and remove the 5 lines that are incorrect.
2. Unhide c:\boot.ini, then copy a:\boot.ini to c:\boot.ini.
3. Unhide c:\ntldr and c:\ntdetect.com, then copy these same
files from A:\ to C:\.
4. Run diskmgmt.msc and mark drive C: as an active partition.
5. Reboot the machine from drive C:.
6. If this does not work, boot the machine with your Win2000
CD, get into the Recovery Console and run these commands:
fixboot
fixmbr

Unfortunately this one has not got a name to it as I should have quoted that -
it is not my writing, just something that appeared and I found usefull - try it.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

 

[joseph2k]

I look through idea from people better than I and sometimes I record what
I have seen. Here is one:
Your first step should be to determine what you have on your
PC. Once you know this, you can take steps to fix it. I suggest
you boot it with a boot diskette that you can make like so:

- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000/XP 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
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with these lines
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="1 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="2 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="3 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="4 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="5 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINNT="6 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy and report the resolt.

It means that your Windows installation is intact
and that only the boot environment needs fixing. You should now
do this:
1. Edit a:\boot.ini and remove the 5 lines that are incorrect.
2. Unhide c:\boot.ini, then copy a:\boot.ini to c:\boot.ini.
3. Unhide c:\ntldr and c:\ntdetect.com, then copy these same
files from A:\ to C:\.
4. Run diskmgmt.msc and mark drive C: as an active partition.
5. Reboot the machine from drive C:.
6. If this does not work, boot the machine with your Win2000
CD, get into the Recovery Console and run these commands:
fixboot
fixmbr

Unfortunately this one has not got a name to it as I should have quoted
that - it is not my writing, just something that appeared and I found
usefull - try it.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

I agree that it is something about the boot environment and not the
installation, once started it runs great.

The above is a method that i have not seen before, i will give it a look /
try. Except for the recovery console step, i have been all over that
twice.

The freeBSD install DVD does not support chainloader, no non-bootable disc
results in a boot.

 

[joseph2k]

drives for boot.

I look through idea from people better than I and sometimes I record what
I have seen. Here is one:
Your first step should be to determine what you have on your
PC. Once you know this, you can take steps to fix it. I suggest
you boot it with a boot diskette that you can make like so:

- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000/XP 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
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with these lines
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="1 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="2 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="3 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="4 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="5 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINNT="6 Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy and report the resolt.

It means that your Windows installation is intact
and that only the boot environment needs fixing. You should now
do this:
1. Edit a:\boot.ini and remove the 5 lines that are incorrect.
2. Unhide c:\boot.ini, then copy a:\boot.ini to c:\boot.ini.
3. Unhide c:\ntldr and c:\ntdetect.com, then copy these same
files from A:\ to C:\.
4. Run diskmgmt.msc and mark drive C: as an active partition.
5. Reboot the machine from drive C:.
6. If this does not work, boot the machine with your Win2000
CD, get into the Recovery Console and run these commands:
fixboot
fixmbr

Unfortunately this one has not got a name to it as I should have quoted
that - it is not my writing, just something that appeared and I found
usefull - try it.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

I agree that it is something about the boot environment and not the
installation, once started it runs great.

The above is a method that i have not seen before, i will give it a look /
try. Except for the recovery console step, i have been all over that
twice.

The freeBSD install DVD does not support chainloader, no non-bootable disc
results in a boot.

Well, i ran that method into the ground, no help. Reflashed BIOS; went from
rev 3 to rev 6, no help.

I think i am going to completely flatten the HD again, after a full
randomize on the first 1 GB.