win2k problems, someone know anything about this?

[Aharami]

My system is giving me a lotta problems. Need some help. I have been using my quantum fireball lp LM30 hd from my old computer. I reformatted it, intalled win98se to flash bios...worked flawlessly. After i flashed my bios to the latest one, i booted up with the win2k cd, deleted all my old partitions, partitioned my HD into 2 15 gig ones, formatted C to NTFS and installed win2k on it. After installing win2k, i intalled the onboard lan driver. Then on my first (or second reboot) i got an option saying "Choose your operating system" but both the options said windows 2000. NOW, when i choose the 1st selection, i get a black screen for a couple of seconds then the following 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 Windows 2000(TM) documentation about hardware configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information."
BUT if i choose the second option, win2k starts up ok (but taskbar freezes once in a while and i have to log out of my username to activate it again). Has anyone ever experienced this before? Is this really a problem with my harddisk? if it is, shouldnt it affect both selections of win2k rather than just the first one? is this a software problem? need help. really regretting deciding to build my comp rather than buying retail! 🙁

-AniL

PS. i should mention....this installation of win2k wasnt my first on this comp. prior to this i installed win2k with all my periphrals...sblive value, iomagic pcpvr, geforce2pro, etc. but i had the same problem on that install. also my taskbar would freeze every now and then, and everytime i shut down, i woukd get a message saying "end program - creative launcher". if i didnt click on the end now button, comp woundnt shut down even after the progress bar was complete. also many other programs didnt work. i downloaded winzip self extractor and that wouldnt even open...rather gave me a error message. hmm maybe i have a bad win2k disk?

 

[MacaroneePenguin]

So you've tried doing it from scratch at least two times right? If so, try making two FAT32 partitions instead or one partition of NTFS. If that works, then I don't know why it wont let you install one NTFS & one FAT32

 

[Aharami]

actually 3 times!! Ya! believe it or not. first time i didnt get that "Windows 2000 could not start because ...." error message. but my taskbar froze (jus annoying). second time i got that "Windows 2000 could not start because " message AND my taskbar would freeze, "end now" BS, winzip woulnt open....just didnt feel right..ya know. just reinstalled it third time around ( this time i deleted all the old partitions...created new ones...all that BS) but still that darn "Windows 2000 could not start because ..." message. finally i jus gave up and came here for help!. so far on my third time around i'm running on my bare minimums....vid card...detonator driver, lan driver. no sblive or tv tuner. taskbar hasnt frozen yet. but then again maybe thats cuz i'm keppin my distance from that comp!

 

[Kartajan]

sounds to me like your OS beleives that you have installed 2 copies on the HDD. Maybe an issue with the way that your partitioned your HDD?

My recommendation:
1. Create a "DOS" floppy to boot from, for whenever you need to flash BIOS again. Make a second copy, just in case.

2. FDISK your HDD, completely wipe it out.
3. Use the Win2k CD to make ONE partition (NTFS or FAT32)
4. Install 2k; everything SHOULD work properly.

 

[Aharami]

hmmm...never thought of that. thanks Kartajan. But how do i make a DOS floopy from win2k? i thought win2k/NT/XP all has no DOS so to speak.

-AniL

 

[mryellow2]

If your motherboard supports it, I believe you can boot from your win2k install cd. As far as I know there is no way to make a floppy boot disk from win2k. If anyone knows otherwise...please! please! please! please! let me know!

 

[Woodie]

You can make W2K boot diskettes (set of 3). It's on the CD, under: \bootdisks\makeboot.exe

I installed from a Win98 boot diskette, then ran \i386\winnt from the cmdline. YMMV.

On the boot loader menu...if you're ok w/ your current install, just go into the the boot.ini and clean it up.
(My Computer - Properties - Advanced (tab) - Startup and Recovery Options -
Set the "Default operating system:" to the entry that works.
Either disable or set to 0-5 seconds, the "Display lis of operating systems for"
Click OK and OK.