Installing win 2000 Pro problem

[Justone]

I want to install w2k pro as a single OS on a WD 80 gb 7200 8mb buffer and this is my Rig:
HARDWARE
Asus A7N8X De LuXE
AMD ATHLON XP 2600+ 208 FSB 333
PAIR OF KINGSTON DDR 256MB PC2700-333 MHZ
pSU- THERMALTAKE WOOO9R 420WATTS DUAL FAN
VGA ATI RADEON 9500 128 MB -128DDR
HDD-2 WESTERN DIGITAL 80 GB 8MB CASHE
SONY DRU510A DVD BURNER
SONY CRX 220E CD R-RW
SONY DDU1621 DVD READER
CONTROLLER-PROMISE ULTRA 133 TX2
I've everything ready, w98 boot disk, WD utility disk, brand new w2k pro, the rig is open, the drive is ready, the only thing I need is a step by step tutorial on how to install this OS propery, help is needed as soon as possible, I've already formatted the disk with the WD utility :) :cool:

[Direct1]

First, use the WD utility and do a low-level format of the hdd. You want to let W2K format it. Then, put your W2K CD in re-boot (make sure the BIOS is set to boot from CD-ROM). You can create your partitons and format from there.

How to install W2K (http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/win2k/installw2k/page1.htm)

Good luck! :D

[Midknyte]

you can just boot off the win2k cd. you can remove the existing partition and create a new one. don't forget to press f6 when prompted to install the promise controller drivers if your hard drive is on that.

[Justone]

I've tryied this and w2k want to format the disk to ntfs and I want fat 32 plus it shows as drive G why is that? What is neede here is a correct step by step instruction

[Justone]

Direct 1 I need a link that will let me print or download free on your link I they won't let you

[Midknyte]

if the partition is larger than 32GB, then win2k and xp will default to ntfs. that is by design. up to you.

where did you place the hdd? if it's on the promise card, that might be why it's coming up as G:. do you have any memory card readers? those will come up as drives also.

[Direct1]

To make things easy for you, I would put the hdd you are going to put W2K on (C: drive) at the end of the ribbon cable on your primary IDE channel (as Master). That should make it show up as C: drive. And, as Midknyte pointed out, if you want to use FAT32, you will need to make your C: partition ( or whatever drive you are gong to install 2K to) less than 32 GB. Maybe this will help...

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/textonly/install2k.htm

Good luck! :D

[Justone]

I've found a 4gb drive and have formatted already what do you think of this do as you said on your last post , install (if I can) win 2k on it then copy migrate the win 2k to my 80 gb disk this should give me the fat 32 instead of ntfs

[Justone]

Midnyte it's on the mobo IDE and not on the promise card, and no mem reader maybe it's because the firt time I've formatted with PM and it was installed as a slave, it was done in windows

[Direct1]

You can create partitons on the hdd as you start the 2K installation. See attachment. I would create an 8 GB partition for your OS (that is 8000 MB). Just hit "C" at the screen you'll see in the attachment and type 8000 for size. Let W2K install to that new partition and you can create the rest of the partitions once you're up-and-running. Good Luck! :D

[Justone]

I'm getting a disk I/0 error: status=00002000 what is that?

[Direct1]

You probably still have the WD over-lay junk on the hdd. Do a low-level format with the WD utility. Then, create and format your partiton with the W2K CD and re-install. Good luck! :D

[Justone]

w2k insisted on formatting to ntfs and furthermore the c key as suggested didn't work so I gave in and formatted to ntfs will I have a problem to revert to fat32 or can I reformat the drive with PM to fat 32 if I wanted to WD utility will only work if the drive is connoted as a slave on my 2 hd Rig, all the reformatting that I can do is by connecting the 2 drives and rebooting to win xp which is on the primary cable as a master of course and then accessing the drive in question and do the business of formatting and partitioning, BUT I've been thinking this what about just installing win 98 se first and I would have no problem right! and then just upgrading to win 2000 pro. doing this way would give me fat 32 and the full drive capacity no!

[Direct1]

If the "C" thing didn't work it is because you used the WD utility to format the drive. Low-level format and re-install. That has worked for others with that error message. Good luck! :D

[Justone]

As I'm writing this the other Rig is formatting to NTFS but I think I'm doing this all wrong if I use the w98 boot disk and do a low lever format do what is the command line to do is it c: format c: /cs I don't remember exactly , or just do a format with PM

[Direct1]

You cannot format NTFS with Win98. You said you had the WD utilities disk? Use that to do a low-level format. That will make the hdd like it came from the factory.

[Justone]

No I'm not saying that What I intended to say is to start with a clean install of w98 se after formatting the drive to fat32 of course, and then upgrading to win 2000, and if be need be I'll use the WD utility

[Direct1]

*I* would not do that. If you cannot install W2K, there may be something wrong with some of your hardware? Why won't you do a low-level format? THAT WILL WORK( probably ).

Also, go back to basics... Put the hdd you want to use at the end of the ribbon cable on the primary IDE channel. Put one of the Optical drives on the secondary IDE channel (either Master or Slave -- doesn't matter). Do not add any other hdd's or optical drives -- they can be added later. Then, try and instal W2K. Good luck! :D

[Justone]

I'm confused if I do a low level format using the WD utility I'll get the error massage and I am "sure" that it's noting wrong with my hardware (as far as I know) the low level format that you're talking about are you saying using the WD utility or regular w98 boot disk and since I'm going around in circles with this set up, I wanted to install win 98se to expedite matters

[Direct1]

The reason I want you to remove all hdd's and optical drives except for 1 hdd and 1 optical is because you are confused. Make it simple for everyone. The reason I want you to do a low-level format on that hdd because it seems its messed up? You cannot do a low-level format with Win98 (or any other Windows format utility).

If you boot from the WD floppy, isn't there an option to do a low-level format? That's what you should do. Then boot from the W2K CD... Create your partition (32 GB or less for FAT 32)... Format it... Install... Good luck! :D

[Justone]

Doing the way you've suggested using the WD thing but now I'm getting this when I try to install the EZ drive from WD :....... BIOS read error20 on drive 80 and the nest po-pup I get also this: Drive for int 13h.drive number 80H this maybe because of scsi drive or some of the drive connections or the bios settings........... I took a look in the BIOS and the drive is showing up as the drive that is connected as a Master however I also have a Iomega SCSI card but just to make things even more easy I've disconnected it but it may be done if I connect the drive as a slave as it would normally be so it reads like this drive 1 master wxp, drive 2 slave. And then I can format to low level format , EZ drive will do this: erase and format to fat 32 and if I want it also partition the drive as well ......;)

[Direct1]

The "EZ" software is the problem. Also, remove any controller cards and just 1 hdd and 1 CD drive.

Lets go in a different direction. Download Active@ KillDisk FREE version (http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm). Put your Windows 98 Boot disk in the A: drive. Copy KILLDISK.EXE from the download to the 98 boot disk. Boot the computer from the 98 boot disk. Run Active@ KILLDISK by typing in command line:

KILLDISK.EXE

You will see the list of detected hard disk drives and partitions.
When you move cursor through them, you'll see their system information.

3.2.1 Start data erasing on the particular HDD or partition

- Using arrows select hard disk drive or partition you want to erase
at the left side. Configuration dialog appears.
- Using arrows and [F10] key choose configuration options (see Configuration
Options section) or leave defaults and press F10 to continue
- To confirm the erasing action, please type: ERASE-ALL-DATA
Erasing process will start.

3.2.2. Erasing Progress

See the progress and stop the operation if you want to.

- Wait until operation is complete

After operation is completed successfully you'll see erasing report.
If there are any errors, for example due to bad clusters, you'll see them
on the screen and will be able to continue or cancel the operation.

Then, put your W2K CD in, re-boot (from the CD) and start the installation. Good luck! :D

[Direct1]

If KILLDISK.EXE doesn't fit on the boot floppy, copy it to another loppy and put that floppy in *after* you get to the A: prompt from the Win98 boot disk... :D

[Justone]

Direct 1 I just got back to work on this issue I've downloaded Kill disk and I'll try and see how it works but I also want to thank you for your good and patient help, it's almost 4 pm and I'll be on this until it's resolved, I'll post the result of kill disk.Thx :) :)

[Justone]

For some reason fdisk show my drive\partition as a 10 gb when I use the create a new partition switch what is that, this is a 80 gb drive.......... also last night I did try the method of installing win 98se first ,and then installing W2K pro,
and it installed just fine but the glitch is\was, that it installed (for reason unknown to me) on a 2.45 or something like that partition,
and the rest was unallocated space,
just after w2k install I also installed Partition Magic and took a look and yeah I had only 4.or 500 MB of free space I did try to increase the size of this miserable drive situation,
but PM will allow only a few MB increase, no even a GB I thought that PM would do a large space increase for me.
I did uninstall w2k and cleaned the drive with fdisk and that's when I discovered the 10 gb situation, and I've disconnected all the cards, as you suggested now it only the video card, 1 optical ,and 1 disk (unjumped) that's WD for single drive without a slave,
I used the Kill disk as you've suggested and it worked OK but it didn't delete the problem partition, just the data I'm tempted to use and delete\erase the whole drive, this thing just delete data and not the the whole partition, I'm writing too much stuff I hope it's not boring

[elleon30033]

Just one i have had the exact same problem. The EZ software is like a partition software and is causing all of your problems. A low level (zero fill) writes zeros over all and i mean all of your drive. That was the only way i was able to overcome the partition done by Ez drive which is why you are showing the small drive space.... The WD software surely has a zero fill program, check closely, if not, do a google search for zero fill, then download, place the utility on a floppy, boot using the 98 boot disk, zero fill all of drive C:, only after this will you see all of your drive space...then make 3 partition 32 gig, 32gig, and what ever is left over using fdisk...format c:, format D: etc through the 98 disk, look at your motherboard schematic and make sure the disk is not on the promise controller before format.......that should do it, good luck

[elleon30033]

oops, i just realized the program i had the prob with was called ez bios and i had to remove it first. Is there a way you can delete ezdrive before the zero fill? check the options in the software you used to load the ez program...God, i know how you feel, let us know how it unfolds....all the best

[Direct1]

Originally posted by Justone
For some reason fdisk show my drive\partition as a 10 gb when I use the create a new partition switch what is that, this is a 80 gb drive.......... I used the Kill disk as you've suggested and it worked OK but it didn't delete the problem partition, just the data I'm tempted to use and delete\erase the whole drive, this thing just delete data and not the the whole partition, I'm writing too much stuff I hope it's not boring
Yes, run KillDisk and ERASE THE WHOLE DRIVE. Then boot from the W2k CD. Create your partitons (under 32GB for FAT32). Good luck! :D

[Midknyte]

you could also use zap:
http://service.boulder.ibm.com/storage/hddtech/zap.exe

are you sure that your system can support the larger drive? that might be why ezbios got installed in the first place. there is a special key combination (I think ctrl+a) to boot after ezbios has detected the drive.

you are also using the old version of fdisk. that's why it doesn't see the larger drives properly. If you are hellbent on using fat32 partitions, get the updated fdisk:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q263044

[Justone]

Hi Direct 1 and and all of you thx for the help. I was able to install win 2k but I took a different approach, I discarded the fdisk and WD utility ideas totally, I first, deleted the problematic 2gb ntfs partition...( that in a early attempt I created with w2k pro or WD I'm not sure which one did it)..anyway I did this by using kill disk. ( It's a nice find to keep for possible future use,)
then hooked up the disk in question as a slave,
and using my master disk to boot up, then I just formatted the disk with PM and partitioned the 80 gb to 30 + with fat 32 in one part, and the a second part to about 45+ gb,
then disconnected the master and hooked up the 80gb (this time unjumped) and booted with w2k pro CD in the bay,
and bingo, all I had to do was to choose where to install, and setup started and w2k pro installed perfectly and, fast too! After installing some hardware and drivers etc etc, I started installing wxp pro and that's it, I'm writing this from my w2k pro Rig,
I think wxp is good , but w2k pro is a gem of a OS and when it's tweaked properly, which I haven't done yet, the boot up time is really only a few seconds slower than wxp pro, thx again