Help Please! Cannot format hard drive with standard MS boot disk in win 2000

[Thegman240]

Hi everyone,

Mabye there is help for me. I currently put together an Athlon 1.2GHZ t-bird system using an enlight 7237 300watt case, Iwill kk266r MB, 256MB Crucial Ram cl-2, Maxtor 30Gb dioamondmax plus ata 100/7200 RPM Hard Drive, Aopen 12x10x32x CDRW and Windows 2000.

My problem tis that I have everything all set up and I cannot use the standard Windows boot disk to format the hard drive. I can Partition it though using Fdisk. ZThere was also maxblast software that came wityh the drive to do the partitioning and formatting for me but it only works if you use it on the regular IDE channels and not on the Raid channels like I would like. I also cannot format the drive with the Ms boot disk on the regular Ide Channels either. What is going on? Do I need to buy special software like Partition Magic to do this procedure?


Also, when I partition the drive, is it better to have a NTFS partition or a FAt32?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.


Thank you!

Greg

 

[Dyngoe]

Hi,

Sounds like you've got real trouble. What you are saying is:
Win98 bootdisk will not format your HD on either IDE or RAID controller
Win98 bootdisk can partition the HDs on either controller?
MaxBlast software can format on IDE but not RAID
If this is true, then why not try the win2K bootdisks. Personally I don't like them, but they work real well with ATA66/100 and RAID controllers. Simply make sure you have the OEM version of your drivers on a separate floppy and boot using the win2K bootdisks. This should eliminate your problems, but I am concerned on why you can't format on the IDE controller. Make sure your jumpers are correct is all I can suggest, but I don't believe that is the problem. If the Win2K bootdisks don't work, get back to me and I'll try to help more.
As Always,
D

 

[Thegman240]

Hey D,

Thank you very much for your advice. The only thing is that I do not have a copy of the Win2000 boot disks I need to do the formatting! Is there a website that you can go to that I can get them perhaps?. I received a copy of Win2000 pro. from a friend at work but he's on vacation all this week and I can't even ask him for the disks. I checked all the jumpers and made sure everything was tight. What happens with the Win98 boot diak is that when I go to format the drive after I partition it, it starts to format and then stops and hangs at about 37% complete. I've tried this on 3 occasions and it still happens. Very unusual. I even made another win98 boot disk from my other computer and that didn't work either. Mabye I should switch the IDE Cable over to the regular Ports for the partition and format with the maxblast software and then swithch the cable back rto the raid port and see if that takes. Still no gurantees though. Mabye I am doing something wrong?


What do you think.

P.s Is there any advantage to the NTFS file format as opposed to the Fat32 Format that I was planning on using?

Thanks very much, Greg

 

[cpufast]

You will not be able to load W2K in DOS. Do like Dyngoe said and copy the W2K ATA/Raid drivers from the CD that came with your board to a disk. Then partition and format accordingly. Before trying to load W2K go into bios and disable the Floppy drive in the boot sequence and enable the CD Rom as the first boot device. Put the floopy with the drivers in and cd with the OS. Restart your computer. You will be prompted about adding the ATA/Raid driver. I think the sequence is F6 for the driver and S for the floppy then it will load the right driver and continue loading. You will also be prompted as to how you want the file system setup and where. I choose to have my FAT32 file system converted to the NTFS and it did so when it first loaded the OS. Also it is a good idea to make sure that you have all the W2K drivers for your PCI devices on a disk. Hope this helps!

 

[Dyngoe]

Hi,
Hope you figured it out, but if you didn't here's some more help:
First, the bootdisks for win2k can be made on any PC by simply running the makeboot.exe in the bootdisk folder of your cd. It will produce four disks. Yes, you need the ATA100 drivers on another floppy. Besides that, most hardware installs automatically. If you have a brand new video card, you may need the drivers for that, but probably nothing else. As for NTFS or fat32.... NTFS is the choice of most serious users. I have one NTFS partition on all my PCs for data storage and other stuff I like to keep secure. There is also a performance gain (ususally minimal) when you change to NTFS. I leave most stuff on fat32 because DOS(ie bootdisks) can't access NTFS. I also run win98 as a second os on some machines and 98 also cannot read NTFS partitions on the local computer. This all changes when in a network. Anyway, start with fat32. When you know how you want your partitions setup, just switch to NTFS then.
As Always,
D

 

[Thegman240]

Hi Guys,


I want to thank you for your help in setting up my Pc, but I still have the same problem and I thought i'd see if you have any other suggestions. Your assumptions are indeed correct in that I cannot format the hard drive when it is on either of the controllers, however I can partition them. This is of course after I set up the stripe for raif by pressing Control -M when it boots up. The Win 2000 boot disks do not let you partition or format the hard drive, they only let you repair or set up a new install. So i'm caught between a rock and a hard place. I have also tried to use the Maxblast software that come with the hard drive but again that only works on the regular IDE channel and not the raid. I can try to do that and then switch it back to the raid port but I don't know what woill happen then if anything. Does this sound unusual to you? How hard can it be to set up this system. As i'm typing i'm trying to format the drive again using the Win ME boot disk that I created from my other computer but no bets here.


Any suggestiom would be soooooooo helpful as I'm about to scream!!


Thanks always


Greg =)

 

[juiio]

<< Hi Guys,
The Win 2000 boot disks do not let you partition or format the hard drive, they only let you repair or set up a new install.

Greg =) >>



Choose install. You can now set up partitions, format, do whatever you want.

 

[Thegman240]

Ok this is what happens. I have everything hooked up properly with a cdrom drive on the regular primary ide controller and a cdrw drive on the reglar secondary ide controller. I'm able to access the raid setup by hitting Control M when booting up and I configure the array to stripe the one hard drive that I have hooked on the primary raid channel. It recognizes the hard drive just fine.

When I go to setup windows 2000 by leaving the cdrom in the drive, It boots up from the cdrom and begins setup. Then it asks me to hit F6 if I want to install any other drivers whick I do. I then hit &quot;S&quot; and insert the drivers disk into the floppy drive and then it comes up with 4 possibilities so I choose the one that says win2000 hpperdisk 100 raid driver and it continues to install its other drivers. When I get to the end where it asks me what i want to do, I choose &quot;install&quot; and then I get this bull message that says that no mass storage devices are present and setup cannot continue. WTF? The system then rebootrs and i'm back to the beginning.........OH GOD why did I buy this MB. Please HELP Guys !!! PLEASE

 

[Panther505]

I think that the problem that you are having is that you are trying to set up the drive as a Striped RAID drive. If you are doing Striping then you need 2 drives. (Striping is the process of writing a block to drive 0 then to drive 1). I would suggest not setting the drive up for RAID (ie no striping) then try to install on the RAID controller. Also if you are getting a &quot;No Mass Storage Device found&quot; error then I think that you may not be using the correct driver for the RAID card/chip. Go on the web and download the most recent for you MB.