system hangs at blue NT4 boot screen
I have an old Duron 800Mhz Via chipset motherboard with NT 4.0 SP6 operating system. The motherboard is actually embedded in a 2004 kyocera copy machine with a PCI riser card that runs the copier.
As the board boots up it hangs on the blue NT boot screen after displaying 4 or 5 dots.
I've not worked with NT much and it has been a long time anyway. I would appreciate any advice on the best way to revive the OS. I can buy an old copy of NT4 if necessary.
I think I might need to take care when reinstalling the OS since the Kyocera riser card probably requires a driver located on the hard drive.
In the meantime I am going to try to hook up an ide hard drive with an OS (98 or XP) to see if it will boot.
Thanks in advance. Sorry if I'm rambling.
As the board boots up it hangs on the blue NT boot screen after displaying 4 or 5 dots.
I've not worked with NT much and it has been a long time anyway. I would appreciate any advice on the best way to revive the OS. I can buy an old copy of NT4 if necessary.
I think I might need to take care when reinstalling the OS since the Kyocera riser card probably requires a driver located on the hard drive.
In the meantime I am going to try to hook up an ide hard drive with an OS (98 or XP) to see if it will boot.
Thanks in advance. Sorry if I'm rambling.
SOLUTION
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ASKER
Spacebar brings up last known good menu or original configuration but F8 doesn't seem to do anything during bootup. Does that mean that VGA mode is not available?
Neither spacebar option gets me past the blue NT boot screen and about 5 or 6 dots.
Thanks again.
Neither spacebar option gets me past the blue NT boot screen and about 5 or 6 dots.
Thanks again.
ASKER
It looks like the problem is a corrupted boot file or maybe a bad sector. I can boot the motherboard to XP using another IDE drive so i don't think there are any other hardware issues. Also if I attach the original hard drive to an xp machine I can see and copy the files.
How might I go about repairing the installation? The version of NT that I obtained is Workstation SP1. Can I use that to reinstall or repair the SP6 installation? I tried to repair last night and had some difficulty. The repair did not recognize some of the files. I think the NT4 installation might be server not workstation.
Thanks.
How might I go about repairing the installation? The version of NT that I obtained is Workstation SP1. Can I use that to reinstall or repair the SP6 installation? I tried to repair last night and had some difficulty. The repair did not recognize some of the files. I think the NT4 installation might be server not workstation.
Thanks.
Do you still have the driver for 2004 kyocera copy machine with a PCI riser card? If not, there is no use of NT os if you buy it.
ASKER
It is possible that I have access to the drivers. The drives second partition has a lot of setup.exe files and drivers and utilities that look like they were put there when the system was configured in the factory.
So reinstalling the OS will overwrite the drivers for the Kyocera PCI riser card? That's unfortunate. That means that I will have to hope a repair works. The only other option is to see if I can get the driver from Kyocera or just replace the whole board. Shouldn't all the drivers be in the system32 folder? Do you think I could direct the wizard to a temporary folder with the old system32 files and see if it recognizes any of the drivers?
So reinstalling the OS will overwrite the drivers for the Kyocera PCI riser card? That's unfortunate. That means that I will have to hope a repair works. The only other option is to see if I can get the driver from Kyocera or just replace the whole board. Shouldn't all the drivers be in the system32 folder? Do you think I could direct the wizard to a temporary folder with the old system32 files and see if it recognizes any of the drivers?
ASKER
Also, the installation is NT4.0 Workstation SP6
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ASKER
Thanks Punky, I'll try to image the drive using DIXML or one of Seagate's Acronis based utilities. I'm really disappointed with Ghost 10. It is really just a backup program now and doesn't do imaging anymore unless you buy the enterprise version.
The boxed version of Ghost 10 also came with the older 2003 Ghost DOS based version. I'm not sure if that will do images or not.
Thanks.
The boxed version of Ghost 10 also came with the older 2003 Ghost DOS based version. I'm not sure if that will do images or not.
Thanks.
The clone software from hard drive manufacturing (Maxtor, Seagate) is good but I dont know it would support the old version like NT 4.0. Actually, Ghost 10 or 2003 could do the job just fine, but please do in old fashion way:
- create floppy boot ghost disk (using ghost wizard to create it)
- boot system from floppy (make sure boot order in bios set to it)
- copy disk to disk (NO partition to partition)
- Copy MBR
- set active
- DO NOT ASSIGN DRIVER LETTER (sorry for cap but this is important step).
- create floppy boot ghost disk (using ghost wizard to create it)
- boot system from floppy (make sure boot order in bios set to it)
- copy disk to disk (NO partition to partition)
- Copy MBR
- set active
- DO NOT ASSIGN DRIVER LETTER (sorry for cap but this is important step).
ASKER
Hmmm, maybe G10 will do this under the windows environment too. it just calls it backup. it gives me the option to copy the MBR and set active and other options too but then when it asked me where to put the backup it wanted to delete the destination partition/drive. i was expecting it to create an ISO or something of the old disk.
Anyway I'll follow your instructions and use the DOS method.
Thanks.
Anyway I'll follow your instructions and use the DOS method.
Thanks.
Good luck.
ASKER
Thanks to everyone for all the help. Now that I've got the drive cloned I'm going to close this question out and start a new one related to the repair of the OS. This topic ended up getting a little off subject but I think I got my monies worth. Thanks again.
The question is here:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/23112750/Repair-NT-4-0-Workstation-SP6.html
The question is here:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/23112750/Repair-NT-4-0-Workstation-SP6.html
ASKER
The dealer provided IMG file that I can ghost back onto the hard drive. This should solve the problem.
Thanks again all.
Thanks again all.
ASKER
I haven't been able to go to F8 boot yet so I'm looking at buying the OS. I'm wondering whether I should buy Workstation or Server.
Thanks.