Installing windows 2000 on a new 250gb SATA hd

[Snuffed]

A couple days ago i got a new barebones system which I built with a 250gb SATA hard drive. Since SATA isn't supported straight away in the windows 2000 installation, on another computer, I slipstreamed the drivers for the SATA chipset into the windows installation so that it would detect the hard drive so I could install it.

So far so good.

I formatted the disk into one 250gb partition and then installed windows 2000 sp3 onto that partition.

I then restarted and took out the boot cd. Instead of windows loading, I get the error message:

"Windows 2000 could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows 2000(TM) documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information."

Any suggestions as to whats wrong would be helpful, as I've spent hours and hours on this trying to get it to work and I still can't use my brand new computer!

Thanks,

Paulg

 

[LiLithTecH]

Do you have the SATA Drive set as the 1st Bootable drive
in the BIOS?

It must be set to the 1st to boot the OS. If it wasn't and you
change it (if it is an option with your motherboard) you may
have to edit the BOOT.INI file for the correct drive path.

 

[Snuffed]

My 1st boot device is CDROM, followed by hard drive, as there is no option in the bios for SATA or SCSI, so I think it has to be hard drive.

My hunch is that theres something wrong with my boot.ini file, but 1. I don't know whats wrong with it, and 2. I can't edit it. I can get into the recovery console and view it with the type command, but how can I edit it?

Thanks for the reply

 

[LiLithTecH]

If there is NO OPTION for placing the SATA drive
first it may be that you motherboard does not support
booting from it.

The BOOT.INI file is normally hidden under the Windows GUI.
You can not edit it with the type command.

From the RECOVERY Console try typing 'map arc'.

 

[Snuffed]

Tried map arc and it told me the SATA hd is on scsi(0). My boot.ini file instead of scsi had signature(xxxxx) where xxxx is apparently the hd id stored in the MBR. So tried changing the signature() to scsi(0) but still no luck. Then I tried multi(0) just to see if anything happened......and it booted! Seems for an SATA hd, multi(0) should be used.

So had some luck, but didn't last. As setup continued just before it finished the computer blue screened, and repeatedly does now on each reboot just before setup finishes. Gonna try a full format and reinstall now, and see if it helps.

Thanks,
Paul

 

[MrChad]

Maybe this KB article can shed some light on the subject.

Have you tried a slipstreamed version of 2000 with SP4?