Existing Win2k with new Epox 8k7a?? THIS IS SO STUPID, READ...

[AlGood]

i got an asus p3bf with a hardrive that has windows 2000 on it which runs fine. I am switching to an epox 8k7a.
When win2k boots on the 8k7a, during the second boot screen, a blue screen of death comes up with the "stop error" about "invalid boot device" or something. what the hell yo... i mean, its read the harddrive up until that point, it started booting win2k right? why does it all of the sudden crash?
When i installed win2k on a be6-II i had to make a floppy with the hpt366 IDE controller driver on it and specify "SCSI" device, worked fine. I tried it with this, but i cant get win2k setup to recognize the VIA drivers on the floppy (8k7a uses the VIA south bridge ide controller). so what can i do? right now i plugged the harddrive back into the asus p3bf system.
Can i maybe trick windows by installing the VIA drivers now, before i put it in the 8k7a system? I tried, but the VIA drivers wont install (something about a string not found). win2k is a cranky piece of crap when it comes to ide controllers.
please help. somebody, anybody....
thanks
(also, on the be6-II, win2k installations keep getting screwed up after a while: during the first black boot screen a msg saying missing or corrupted WINDOWS/CONFIG/blablabalba/SYSTEM32/SYSTEMd, win2k dies at that point. this a virus messing with me? if it is, i really hope some idiot sorry ass geek is getting a good geeky ass chuckle out of it.) :|

 

[SaigonK]

Ok quick tip:

The Asus is an Intel chipset/ide controller.... And the Epox is an AMD/VIA chipset/controller.

There is the problem, Windows isnt being setup for the first time, it is already configured.
When it boots up it thinks it is located on the Intel ide controller, it cant find it so it cant access the harddrive witht he current configuration it is using.

Here's a way to try and fix it:

1. Put th drive back in the original PC.
2. Go to the Device Manager and select "IDE/ATAPI Controllers"
3. Double click on the Intel based controller and then select update/change driver.
4. Select the option to "Display a list of known drivers for this device...."
5. When the list comes up, select "Standard dual channel PCI controller" instead of the Intel one.

6. Shut down the PC and then throw the drive into the machine with the new Epox board.
Voila it should work!

 

[AlGood]

Hey that worked. but whwen win2k started up again, it started to haphazardly, without my approval (damnit, windows should always ask before installing drivers), installing some some for the ide controller. not sure where they came from or anything. but anyway. they broke too. i could not change back to standard dual ide whatever, the system locked when i tried. i tried installing the latest via 4in1's, still could not do it, locked like before. now i cannot boot AT ALL. cannot even repair and boot. i get a blue screen of death no matter what i do . However it is no longer a stop error, just a plain error. cannot load pciide.sys or something like that. its just dead.
so unelss anybody has a fix, i haveno hope for my sin2k installation.
So i will reinstall. BUT HOW??? in the past when i have a broken win2k install and rerun setup, it installs a new win2k, then i have to choose which one to boot. i hate that crap. 3-4 unsuccessful installs and i have 4 windows 2000's to boot from. ridiculous. how do i run a setup that overwrites my old install?
thanks.

 

[SaigonK]

Ok ....try to go into safe mode and see if you can change the driver.
If you cannot then run setup from the CD and DO NOT do a repair.

It will ask you if you want to, select the option to do a new install.
Only problem is you are going to lose your data

If you have multiple options, fdisk your mbr to start from scratch before you do your 2k install.

 

[AlGood]

hmm, whats a "new install"? i get either win2k setup (just creates a new win2k install, leaves the old one) or a repair. and what does new install do? reformat the whole drive? whole partition? how will i lose my data? exactly what data? all the files on that drive or partition?
oh yea, and how do i do a new install if win2k can never (seems like) like my ide controller? i tried putting via drivers on floppy, win2k setup cant find them.
thanks saigon
(whats an mbr?)

 

[SaigonK]

When you select the "new install" you will be asked where you want to store it.
If you select the drive that is already installed with Win2k, this probably causes the multiple OS options.

If you select DELETE the pselected partition" it will do just that.
But you will lose ALL of your data, your OS, your files, email, everything...

This is a clean install, it will ask you to format the drive in either NTFS or FAT32 - choose NTFS of course.

MBR = Master Boot Record

Try this out to...Boot up on a Windows 98 floopy.
type this at the dos prompt FDISK /mbr it may clear that old list of OS's you have.

 

[AlGood]

hmmm ok, i'll try win98 thing. no other ideas how to save files? can i copy them to my d: drive in the recovery console? (dont think i can)

 

[SaigonK]

You could use NTFSDOS pro but it will cost you $$ to download it. Check out www.winternals.com for more info.