Win NT4 to Win2K Pro Upgrade - Help

[neonduck]

My organization is trying to upgrade all of our Windows NT
4.0 Workstations to Windows 2000 Professional. We are
running an upgrade because we would like to not have to
run a fresh install as that would mean reinstalling all
the apps and settings on all of our systems. We just
don't have the resources to do that.

The Problem...
When we perform the upgrade, all of our systems lock up at
the same spot, at about 60% on the Installing the
Devices. The only time it works is if we do a fresh
install where we format the drive. Why would the fresh
install work but an upgrade fail?

The Equipment...
MSI K7TPro2-A Socket A Motherboard
800 MHz Duron Processor
128 MB PC-133 SDRAM
20 GB Ultra ATA/100 WD Hard Drive
48X Sony IDE CD-Rom
8 MB XPERT 98 Rage XL PRO AGP ATI Graphics Card
3COM 10/100 PCI NIC (3C90x)
250 MB IDE Iomega Zip Drive

What we have tired...
Tried upgrading the BIOS.
Tried it with the BIOS set to Optimized Defaults
Tried it with the BIOS set to Fail Safe Defaults
Tried it with UDMA on the IDE Controllers disabled
Tried it with USB disabled in the BIOS
Tried it with an unattended upgrade over the network
Tried an upgrade using the CD in the system

Thank you.

Update: We've tried making sure the systems were updated fully, and it still crashes at same point on Install.

 

[iamwiz82]

did you use an image to create all the PCs with NT?

 

[neonduck]

Yes, they were all installed NT4 image, depending on their chipset.
But a vast majority are the MSI K7T-2A Pro.

They are virtually identical, with a few at different Mhz. and different chipsets,
which meant they got different images.

 

[neonduck]

Also, this may be of note.
We have only tried to upgrade through Win NT, rather than booting off CD and choosing upgrade.

 

[iamwiz82]

Next question: Was it an OEM copy of WinNT that you imaged originally. I know for a fact that imaging OEM OSes can cause VERY strange errors.

 

[neonduck]

It was a Distribution edition, as is the upgrade, that we receive as part of a Microsoft contract.
I'll double check for you in a minute though...

edit: yes, they are distribution editions...
we have had them running quite well as long as we have owned these systems, some up to a year.
(on NT4 that is)

 

[iamwiz82]

I would say your image is bad, and it spread to all the machines. That is the only reason i could come up with, short of a defect in a certain piece of hardware on all the machines.

 

[neonduck]

according to win2k check, it says there would be no driver issues if an upgrade was to occur.
they are upgrading from a share of the i386 directory from win2k on our main server.
we have also tried from the CD.

NT4 worked great, Win2K pro works great, just can't upgrade nt to 2k.
It doesn't seem like the original NT image we put on up to a year ago is bad.
All of these systems have been designed for Win2k compatibility as we had
always planned to go to 2k at some point.

Thanks for your insights, by the way.

 

[iamwiz82]

well, i can tell you if it is truely hardware or an issue with the image.

Get a PC, install a *fresh* copy of WinNT and upgrade to win2k.

Then, use the image on that same machine to recreate WinNT and then upgrade.

That should solve the mystery. We had an OEM image here once and it was a nightmare. It took us quite awhile to finally track it down. After talking to a licensing specialist from MS, we foudn out that OEM OSes are not made for imaging, and could do that for no reason.

 

[stash]

I'm not sure why you are hesitant to do clean installs...it would actually take much less time and headaches.

You build one clean system, install all patches, service packs, and apps. Get it exactly how you want it and make an image of it using your imaging software (such as Ghost). Then you can reimage the remaining machines in a very short amount of time.

 

[neonduck]

but then we'd have to back up the user's files and put it back on. Meaning we'd have to keep track of what they need, etc.
Outlook stuff, documents, and not everyone uses the same applications (ie, netscape vs. ie).
And if we were in a scenario where everyone's systems and software were identical, we would just make a clean install, but the time it takes to get their specific files, then put it back later, with our small staff, and the large amount of systems, is a last resort.
It'd great if you're doing it on your own system, but once you're talking about an entire building, in which many people will complain the second any of their files or settings are different, its a different ballgame.

 

[stash]

Sorry, didnt realize that applications were different for everyone.

Wish I could be more help...it has to be some kind of hardware issue, even tho the upgrade check says there should be no problem. Try upgrading a system that's as bare bones as you can make it...just processor, vid and ram...no zip drive or other pci cards.