Upgrade from ME

First there is no upgrade from ME to w2k, you have to do a clean install.
now is it a strange controller?
see here to see if it is supported
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q256/0/70.ASP

I don't mind doing a clean install.  I tried doing that.  All 3 drives are IDE.  It still didn't detect any of the drives.  I've installed it on here before, but for some reason it's not working now.

You have had w2k on the machine before?

Yea, but I forget how I installed it.  It wont boot from the CD, I made floppy disks that are in one of the directories and I tried to upgrade directly from ME by putting the disk in.

If you make the disks boot directly to the 1st disk and run set up from that, make sure the boot order in the bios is a:, c:
or try booting from the cd, by changing the boot order in the bios to cdrom, a:, c:

Ok one thing about Win 2000 is that it requires the jumpers on your disks to be set appropriately. I am not sure it I can explain this but here goes.

I was doing a full system backup from one disk to another. So I set up a master/slave relationship with the disks and the BIOS recognized the relationship the way I intended it to. Now I wanted to boot into Win 2000 so I could format the slave drive. Now here is where it gets weird, When Win 2000 booted up it thought the Slave drive was the Master, so it wouldn't let me format the Slave drive. I had no idea...at that time...why the OS was doing that. Well through trial and error I started fiddling around with the disks jumpers and found the combination the OS liked and have not encountered that problem since.

In my case I have one disk that is Cable Select aware and another that is not. The Cable Select aware disk is the master but instead of me having the jumpers set to be Cable Select I had it set the jumpers to be the Master and that is what confused the OS. I know this is a little confusing but try making changes to the disks jumpers or maybe just have only the disk that your trying to setup on plugged into the machine and then introduce the other disks after you have gotten the OS to install.


The Crazy One

1) Load default BIOS settings and make sure the BIOS can see the drives.

2) DO an fdisk /mbr  from a bootable floppy. If you do not have one, get one from www.bootdisk.com
Make sure that fdisk can see the drives, run it and choose option 4.

3) Make sure that there are no viruses on the machine  or floppies !

You may need to check the cables and or clear the CMOS if the drives are not detected by the BIOS.

I hope this helps !

I think when I moved, I might have changed the order of my drives, I will try both suggestions and let you guys know, thanks.

what a team!!

Darn

Tried fdisk /mbr, no luck

Switched the cables around, no luck.

The 2000 disk is from MSDN with the 3 OS's on one disk.  Does that help?  Still stuck.  Thanks

the msdn disk hasent expired has it?

Just a test comment for this question to test notifs on my end.  Did not mean to interupt all.

C101

try fdisk, option 4 and post the results here

Also, are you using any drive overlay software?

Thanks.

Glenn

Here are all the screen dumps from fdisk:






  Your computer has a disk larger than 512 MB. This version of Windows
  includes improved support for large disks, resulting in more efficient
  use of disk space on large drives, and allowing disks over 2 GB to be
  formatted as a single drive.

  IMPORTANT: If you enable large disk support and create any new drives on this
  disk, you will not be able to access the new drive(s) using other operating
  systems, including some versions of Windows 95 and Windows NT, as well as
  earlier versions of Windows and MS-DOS. In addition, disk utilities that
  were not designed explicitly for the FAT32 file system will not be able
  to work with this disk. If you need to access this disk with other operating
  systems or older disk utilities, do not enable large drive support.

  Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)...........? [Y]


                        Change Current Fixed Disk Drive

 Disk   Drv   Mbytes   Free   Usage
   1          27196   22191     18%
         C:    5005
   2           9766            100%
         D:    9766
   3          42932       1    100%
         E:   42931











   (1 MByte = 1048576 bytes)
   Enter Fixed Disk Drive Number (1-3).......................[1]


   Press Esc to return to FDISK Options





                                 FDISK Options

    Current fixed disk drive: 2

    Choose one of the following:

    1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive
    2. Set active partition
    3. Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
    4. Display partition information
    5. Change current fixed disk drive


    Enter choice: [1]






    Press Esc to exit FDISK





                          Display Partition Information

    Current fixed disk drive: 2

    Partition  Status   Type    Volume Label  Mbytes   System   Usage
     D: 1         A    PRI DOS   DISK3_VOL1    9766   FAT32      100%




    Total disk space is  9766 Mbytes (1 Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)









    Press Esc to continue



----------------------------

I was assuming to work off of the 10 gig so in case of an error, i can still boot to ME.

I did try to install my seagate disk, but that didn't help.

The 27 and 10 gigs are Seagate and the 45 is WD.  The 45 has all my MP3's and web programming code, so i need to save that.  The 27 has this current OS on it (ME)

what is the exact error message you get when trying to install w2k?
if we have the exact message it will help

It's says 2 errors:  When I install from ME directly, it goes through with all the settings and then it gets the blue screen of death saying what I believe it can't do anything because of NTFS.  I remember the fdisk /mbr.

When I boot from the boot disk, it says it can not find any drives.

I assume they are the same errors.

Your drive C: is messed up. I would remove all partitons, create a new one and then set it active and format it..This should fix your problem.

I hope this helps !

we need the stop screen numbers from the blue screen
for example
STOP 0x000000A5

Thunder, explain the exact procedure you're using to install from the MSDN CD. The MSDN CD's are not time limited, but you need to follow a specific procedure to perform the installation. Although you cannot upgrade ME, you can dual-boot ME and Win2k. Is this what you're trying to accomplish?

Dennis

Sorry, went to dinner.  ME sucks as a development.  I have no problem wiping out any drive and set as my main one.  I tried the boot disks from the MSDN, and it said it couldn't find any drives.

I've tried a new partition from scratch and no luck.  Here's another 50 points.

Listening, your in good hands, do not want too confuse the issue! Dave

Thunder, telling us that you tried a new partition and no luck doesn't help us. We need to know whether you removed and reinstalled the new partition and formatted it, as well as the exact procedure you are following to try and load 2000.

Ok, currently my Windows ME is installed on the 27gig partition (C:).  I am currently using it.  I only want 2000 as my primary.  I don't want to blow up the C: drive until I know it works, so I'll use the E: (10gig) drive for 2000 until I know it works.  Then I'll go through and re-do C:

I tried on both of those drives before and to no luck.  I've Fdisked both of them and also used Seagate's software, no luck.  I am under the impression they need to be in NTFS before I can install, but again, I'm at a loss.

As long as you have 120 or so MB of free space on your C: drive, it should work, unless you are using some kind of BIOS overlay.
My suggestions for now.

Remove all drives except your empty E: drive.
Then try to install win2k from the CD.

If it still does not work, do an fdisk /mbr to clean any viruses out and try again.

Your BIOS should have the drive as auto or LBA.

I hope this helps !

I think I know why now:

There is a built in ATA100 controller card, that must be why it can't find it.  My motherboard came with a CD, but when I go to the W2k install, it asks for a floppy.  How do I set that up?

I would copy the driver directory from the CD to a floppy. You may even be able to use the browse button to point at the CD.

Other options are copy the driver CD to your hard drive.

I hope this helps !

It did that and it said it couldn't find a file on the D:\nt\blah\blah

Also, I can only access the floppy drive.  It didn't give me an option to specify additional drivers.  Aaaargh.

Copy just the win2k drivers to a floppy and try that.

Did that  :(

I think you need to get the correct drivers for the ata 100 and press f6 when it says to to use third party drivers for the ide (scsi or raid is what it will say)

did you check the compatability
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q256/0/70.ASP

You also have to point the win2k install to the correct directory that has the correct win2k *.inf file. It will not be sufficient to have it look in a:\ usually.

just trying to cover all the bases.

Steve hit the nail on the head. Thunder, add the drivers for the ATA100 card when asked for 3rd party drivers.

I have the CD that came with it, but when I put it on the floppy it gave an error about D:\NT blah blah, which doesn't make a bit of sense, since i never referenced D:\

An exact error message would be helpful. It may provide a clue.

Okay, let's try and straighten out this machine.

Is the ATA100 bus support part of the motherboard or is it via an add-on card you installed?

If you boot to a Win98 boot floppy, can you access all of the hard drives?

When you installed the 27 gig drive, did you have to use any form of drive overlay in order for your system to see the large drive?

How are your hard drives and CD mounted? Where are they on the IDE bus? Obviously "C" is the master on the primary IDE bus, but what about the other 2 hard drives and the CD?

> Is the ATA100 bus support part of the motherboard or is it via an add-on card you installed?

Integrated, sorry, don't have the manual for the exact model.

> If you boot to a Win98 boot floppy, can you access all of the hard drives?

Yes

> An exact error message would be helpful. It may provide a clue.

Variety of error messages depending on how i install it from (From boot or from ME)

> When you installed the 27 gig drive, did you have to use any form of drive overlay in order for your
system to see the large drive?

Just fdisk, format C:, Win98 boot and installed from CD

> How are your hard drives and CD mounted? Where are they on the IDE bus? Obviously "C" is the master
on the primary IDE bus, but what about the other 2 hard drives and the CD?

27gig, primary(1)
9Gig Primary(2), 45 Gig Slave(2)

CD-R's Primary, Secondary (3) (Non ATA)

I would say the first step you should do, is take the things out that you dont need for this installation....
leave 1 cd drive in and 1 HDD in
make sure your BIOS is reading your HDD as prim master, and your cd-rom drive as sec master....
fdisk the drive, removing and creating new prim DOS partition.... format the drive
boot off the win 2k cd/boot disk, if it still doesnt detect your HDD something is wrong... possibly relating to NTSF, but i cant say as i do not know too much about win 2k and NT....
what i do know is that if you have an ata100 card installed the drivers should not matter, the card should work similar to a scsi card, in that it would have its own BIOS...eg you can boot off a scsi drive without loading any drivers, and if the HDD is detected in BIOS and fdisk, it would not need drivers until the O/S environment is fully loaded, which in this case it obviously isnt as you are saying you cant get the O/S installed because it gives you this error...
What file exactly are you trying to run to load the installation of win 2k ? why cant you boot off the cd ?
look through all these paths and im sure we will be at the bottom of this very soon

Thunder, let's concentrate on the IDE bus. Fill in the blanks for me.

IDE Bus #1 Primary (Master) = "C" 27 Gig
IDE Bus #1 Secondary (Slave) =

IDE Bus #2 Primary (Master) =
IDE Bus #2 Secondary (Slave) =

also dont forget you cant boot off or install an O/S on a HDD thats not jumpered as master

Yeah I am thinking along the same lines as Dennis and start from the begining by answering Dennis's questions first and move on from there. Forget everything else right now and let's take it one step at a time. :>)

IDE Bus #1 Primary (Master) = "C" 27 Gig
IDE Bus #1 Secondary (Slave) =

IDE Bus #2 Primary (Master) = "D" 10 Gig
IDE Bus #2 Secondary (Slave) = "E" 45 Gig

Thanks Thunder.

How is your CD Rom drive connected to the system then?

4 IDE Plugins, 2 are ATA 100, 2 are generic

Do I presume that it is a slave to your "C" drive?

OK. Move the C: drive to the NON 100 ATA generic IDE and see if you can then install win2k. Aparently win2k does NOT like your ATA 100 controller during the install. It should work OK afterwards, but let's finish the install for now. Make sure that a CD drive is also on the same generic controller.

If it DOES not install, then DISABLE the ATA 100 in your BIOS and retry.

I hope this helps !

You know SysExpert, you may be very good at what you do, but your manners are seriously lacking. You leave the Q to do what it is you were doing and then jump right into the middle of someone elses diagnostic. The truth be told, you have no more clue about why there is an installation problem than anyone else, so why not standby and get the basics out of the way. And no it doesn't help, as you can't disable ATA100 support in the Bios!

thunderchicken are you still with us. Please answer dew_associates last question.

Is the CD Rom slaved to the "C" drive?

Hang in there I think we can get you through this. :>)

dew_associates : I thought this was a group effort !!
Strange, that was one of the principles at EE that I liked so much.

Regarding the IDE - ATA-100, I meant to disable that IDE completely in the BIOS = He has 4 controllers , he should disable both ATA-100 controllers( primary and secondary ).

Just my 2 cents.

SysExpert, yes that is one of the principles of the site, but when you see a multitude of posts trying to ascertain the facts, the basics if you will, and you go ahead an infere that all of that should be forgotten about and let's get on with the installation, that's not a group cooperative effort.

i still stand on my, remove what you dont need method :)
try what i said in my post

Thunder,

Boot to a Windows 98 floppy and use Fdisk to make the partition on "C" active. Now format "C" and then load Windows 2000.

I just did that yesterday to load w2000 - just as Dew suggested in the post above this one - and it worked for me.  

I gotta sleep sometimes  :-)

> Do I presume that it is a slave to your "C" drive?

I suppose, the IDE has 4 plugins (so you can realistically have 8 drives hooked in).  Going from 0-3, here's how it's plugged in:

0 - C: (27 Gigs) Master
1 - D: (10 Gigs) Master, E: (45 Gigs) Slave
2 - E: CD Rom (Master) F: CD-R Slave
3 - Empty

Again, I know the normal is to have 2, but there are a total of 4 IDE plugins, where 0 and 1 are ATA-100 Compliant, and I guess 2 and 3 are not.


> OK. Move the C: drive to the NON 100 ATA generic IDE and see if you can then install win2k. Aparently
win2k does NOT like your ATA 100 controller during the install. It should work OK afterwards, but let's
finish the install for now. Make sure that a CD drive is also on the same generic controller.

If it DOES not install, then DISABLE the ATA 100 in your BIOS and retry.

I hope this helps !


If I do that (which I know will probably work) then what will happen when I move it back over?  Will I waste my time?

> Is the CD Rom slaved to the "C" drive?

No, Again, there are 4 IDE Plugin's.  The CD Roms are not on the same cable as the Hard Drives.

> Boot to a Windows 98 floppy and use Fdisk to make the partition on "C" active. Now format "C" and then
load Windows 2000.

I've tried that.  It says that it can't find the Hard Drive.

----------------------------------------------------------

This is what I think is happening:

Windows 2000 setup thinks there are no hard drives since when the BIOS boots, it says there are no hard drives.  When the ATA100 screen comes up, it sees all 3.  I tried the driver disk, but that didn't work, since I had some errors.  

Here's my motherboard I purchased (I think this is it or extremely similar) : http://www.microx-press.com/templates/micro/product.asp?sid=1536CE3006C343EC922540BE2B9216A6&prodid=MBRAS505

I just moved and my Motherboard manual is packed away.


Thanks again everyone, I appriciate your help.  I'll be at work for the next 8 hours so I wont be able to try out anything from home, but that's the latest.

Here's a side question:

Can I take the 10 gig, put it into the non-ATA IDE plug, install 2000 on there, then install it on the ATA100 Drive once the driver is installed?

Anyone think that will work out?

You may be able to do that, but its not advisable. The problem lays with your attempt to use 3 of the 4 IDE connectors. You can't do this with Windows 2000 in a non-server configuration. Here's the setup for you, rearrange your drives accordingly.

Put your "C" drive as the master of the Primary ATA100 controller with the 10 gig drive behind it as a slave. This will be "D". Make sure that the partition on "C" is the only active partition.

Put the 45G on the Secondary ATA100 bus as the master with your CD-RW behind it as a slave.

Verify the jumper configuration on all drives to make sure the correct drives are master and slave.

Now format "C" as necessary and then install Win2k.

I just want to make sure that before I do this, it wont wipe out my current ME config so I can still log on and ask questions.  I have before put just a CD-R and the C on one and tried it and it didn't work.

Thunder, you're not paying attention to what is going on here. You cannot upgrade Windows ME to Windows 2000. Therefore if ME is on drive "C", you will need to format "C" and do the installation.

If you want to test the installation first, leave the drive with ME on it out of the system and install to the 10 gig, just make it the master on the primary IDE ATA 100 controller with no slave.

I'll take out the 27 and 45 gig and just put the 10 Gig as Master and CDR as slave and see what that does on my lunch break and let you know.

Thanks

Er... without the CDR

thunderchicken>> Dennis is quite right, listen and follow his directions carefully.  If you want a dual boot system you will have to take out the drive that has ME on it and install 2K to a different drive, then you might be able to reinstall the ME drive and add it to the boot.ini of the 2K system or just get BootMagic.

I am listening.  I've tried installing directly from the 27 gig with only boot disks, I'll try it again.  I don't care about duel booting, I just want Windows 2000, but I do NOT want to delete the C: drive until I know it will work, that's why I'll try the 10 gig in a bit on my lunch break.

Thunder, you need to pay attention here or you will run into problems.

Place the 10G on the Primary ATA100 bus as the master with no slave.

Place the 45G and the CD-RW (or a CD-ROM drive) on the Secondary ATA100 bus as master and slave respectively and just test the installation. You will not be able to dual boot this configuration later with ME as Windows 2000 will not install the bootloader if it doesn't see the drive ME is on. All this is designed to do is allow you test the hardware and see if the installation proceeds smoothly. If it does, then you can put the ME drive back in as the master, with the 10G as the slave and install 2000 to it in dual boot.

Thanks Dennis, I'll try that and let you guys know.

Thanks for clarifying Dennis.  I thought that maybe, if thunderchicken gets BootMagic then by taking out the ME drive and putting it back in which BM would detect but since that is not an issue here.....nevermind.  LOL

Try the above comment from Dennis and you can't go wrong.  He's right about not being able to upgrade because these are 2 completely different operating systems and aren't very compatable.  You see, ME is an "End-user" type and 2K is "Professional".  Even the drivers aren't the same.  Sorry.

Sandi

I loaded ME because it's the only thing that runs.  I had no problem installing XP Beta2, but since it's a 180 day license, I don't want to get too comfy with it.  I hate ME because I work with IIS, which is why I need the 2k.  I'll be home in 30 minutes to try this out.

I don't have access to BootMagic and I have always been afraid of using 3rd party software that can mess up your whole computer.  Especially if 8,000 mp3's are at stake  :-)

You're as bad as me!  LOL  That's why I keep all my MP3s and docs on a separate drive so that no matter what I always have them.  Here's another option; why not just backup everything you don't want to lose on a separate drive and dump ME?  It might take some time to do but this way the installation of 2K will go much smoother and your drivers won't be bumping heads.  :-)

Sandi

Here's another thought to if this doesn't work, can i install the 9 gig on a non ATA port, install 2k Personal once it finds the 9 gig in the BIOS, Upgrade to 2k Professional after the drivers are installed.

Think that will work?  But I'm about to go try your suggestion.

I learned from experience to save everything on a CD since "accidents" can happen  :-)   Too bad CD's can't store 40 gigs.  Nothing on ME is important except my Networking strings to connect to my router, which are written down, but ME gets me on here and I have a useless drive to work with.  We'll find out in a few...

Keep us posted as best you can.  :-)

Plugged in 10 gig drive into Motherboard as Master on IDE Controller 0, unplugged the 45 and 27, put CD-Rom on Controller 2...

Error during setup:

When I tried to install the driver it said:

File \Win2000\Ultra.sys caused an unexpected error (18) at line 1211 in D:\nt\private\ntos\boot\setup\oemdisk.c

This is both for the NT or the 2000 driver which was supplied with the Motherboard CD.

.....


Then it goes through all the rest of the disks and goes to the Setup is starting Windows 2000 at the bottom...

Welcome to Setup.

To set up Windows 2000 now, press ENTER

To repair a Windows 2000 installation, press R

To quit Setup without installing Windows 2000, press F3.

I press ENTER

Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on your computer.

Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct.  This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.

Setup cannot continue.  To quit Setup, press F3.




And I'm stuck.

Is this 10G drive formatted in FAT32, 16 or NTFS?  I'll have to look but I think it has to be 16 or NTFS to work.

Tried FAT32 and FAT16.  Found a driver off the internet, trying it now.

Wooop, there it is.

The driver that came on the CD wasn't the right one.  I had to hit F6 for it and after i went to ASUS's homepage, it loaded right up.  I will go through and split the points as I see fit.

Thanks everyone for your help!

Glad to see you finally made it! <g>

Sometimes, all it takes is the right drivers !!
Have fun !!

Good for you thunderchicken!  :-)

No use in waiting for EE to split the points.  I have to be fair because stevenlewis was closest in resolving my conflict.  I am setting up another 100 for dew for helping me troubleshoot it one by one.  I parsed through everyone's comments but did not see any reason to give out points besides these.  If you disagree, feel free to post on here.

thunderchicken I'm glad you got it up and running
Steve

Good work Steve and glad your running thunderchicken! :>) Dave