Don't tell me that with the thousands of brilliant people using Tek-tips no one can seem to solve this issue:
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations TouchToneTommy on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
No one knows how to solve this W2K issue?
- Thread starter Firemyst
- Start date
This problem resembles what happens when you pull a rug when someone is standing on it.
When I build servers, I always create at least two boot partitions the second is usually a ghost of the final build, so in the event of a failure I just boot the second parition and sync with a DC.
It sounds like the problem here is that you have misconfigured one or more devices. IDE is such a tacky implementation and Windows so easily confused. From what you have said in your posts I assume that you rebuilt a new W2k and then added the second drive or you built a new W2k with the existing 2nd drive in place. Either way, it is easy to see why W2k could become confused because of the drive signatures.
Running two hard drives can often slow down a PC unless they are both configured as Masters on seperate channels, even then you need to configure the CD not to keep checking for an inserted CD as this slows down the hard disk on the same channel.
I assume your server is not in production as you would just buy a bigger drive and be done with.
So my advice would be as follows:
backup any data you want to keep
Create a W2k boot floppy (a floppy that includes:
boot.ini
NTDETECT.COM
ntldr
KERNEL32.DLL
Create multiple boot options in Boot.ini, e.g.
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="NT on Partition 1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="W2k on Partition 2"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="W2k on Partition 3"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINNT="W2k on Partition 4"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(5)\WINNT="W2k on Partition 5"
Make sure your data is backed up
Now before you do anything, boot your W2k without the second drive and run the W2k disk manager (RGT Click my computer, Manage, disk management). This may complain that there are no signatures, if so let it write them.
Then Right click on the CD drive and map it to drive X, then shutdown and restart the system. Shutdown again and add your second drive. If W2k gives the same error message, try to press F8 and load a safe mode that at least supports the GUI. If it loads, run disk management again and let it assign signatures to the new drive. If not chances are you have a dodgy registry setting due to the way you set up W2k after the crash. I am sure you do not want to depend on a dodgy install, so zap that W2k and start again. It is best to use tools like Partition magic and Gdisk32 (comes with Ghost) to zap and create your partitions (w2k will auto check them later).
So we are starting over, this time make sure you get the HW config right before you do a thing. This means the hard disk you wish to boot from it configured as Primary Master and the partition you wish to install to is the active partition on that Primary Master. If you have any other versions of W2k on the drive, hide those partitions.
Before you build the OS make sure that all IDE settings match. This means the jumpers on the Hard disks and CD disks must be explicitly set to Master and Slave on Primary and Secondary. (do not use cable select as it introduces another point of failure/confusion). Your BIOS settings must also match, be careful because these are sometime set in two different places in the bios. Then check the cabling and double check that the hard disk is the primary master.
Now build your W2k and once built, run disk manager as discussed before. W2k should have installed as C, you can change the drive letters of other partitions and CD drives as required.
Personally I would not use IDE and would avoid using two IDE drives, get a bigger drive and partition it. Otherwise use SCSI or SANS, also avoid the raid 5 of MS dynamic disks, they do not recover well from multiple disasters.
If you ever get stuck booting, use the boot floppy and choose the partition you wish to load (make sure it is not hidden).
Hope this helps
AJ
When I build servers, I always create at least two boot partitions the second is usually a ghost of the final build, so in the event of a failure I just boot the second parition and sync with a DC.
It sounds like the problem here is that you have misconfigured one or more devices. IDE is such a tacky implementation and Windows so easily confused. From what you have said in your posts I assume that you rebuilt a new W2k and then added the second drive or you built a new W2k with the existing 2nd drive in place. Either way, it is easy to see why W2k could become confused because of the drive signatures.
Running two hard drives can often slow down a PC unless they are both configured as Masters on seperate channels, even then you need to configure the CD not to keep checking for an inserted CD as this slows down the hard disk on the same channel.
I assume your server is not in production as you would just buy a bigger drive and be done with.
So my advice would be as follows:
backup any data you want to keep
Create a W2k boot floppy (a floppy that includes:
boot.ini
NTDETECT.COM
ntldr
KERNEL32.DLL
Create multiple boot options in Boot.ini, e.g.
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="NT on Partition 1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="W2k on Partition 2"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="W2k on Partition 3"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINNT="W2k on Partition 4"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(5)\WINNT="W2k on Partition 5"
Make sure your data is backed up
Now before you do anything, boot your W2k without the second drive and run the W2k disk manager (RGT Click my computer, Manage, disk management). This may complain that there are no signatures, if so let it write them.
Then Right click on the CD drive and map it to drive X, then shutdown and restart the system. Shutdown again and add your second drive. If W2k gives the same error message, try to press F8 and load a safe mode that at least supports the GUI. If it loads, run disk management again and let it assign signatures to the new drive. If not chances are you have a dodgy registry setting due to the way you set up W2k after the crash. I am sure you do not want to depend on a dodgy install, so zap that W2k and start again. It is best to use tools like Partition magic and Gdisk32 (comes with Ghost) to zap and create your partitions (w2k will auto check them later).
So we are starting over, this time make sure you get the HW config right before you do a thing. This means the hard disk you wish to boot from it configured as Primary Master and the partition you wish to install to is the active partition on that Primary Master. If you have any other versions of W2k on the drive, hide those partitions.
Before you build the OS make sure that all IDE settings match. This means the jumpers on the Hard disks and CD disks must be explicitly set to Master and Slave on Primary and Secondary. (do not use cable select as it introduces another point of failure/confusion). Your BIOS settings must also match, be careful because these are sometime set in two different places in the bios. Then check the cabling and double check that the hard disk is the primary master.
Now build your W2k and once built, run disk manager as discussed before. W2k should have installed as C, you can change the drive letters of other partitions and CD drives as required.
Personally I would not use IDE and would avoid using two IDE drives, get a bigger drive and partition it. Otherwise use SCSI or SANS, also avoid the raid 5 of MS dynamic disks, they do not recover well from multiple disasters.
If you ever get stuck booting, use the boot floppy and choose the partition you wish to load (make sure it is not hidden).
Hope this helps
AJ
- Status
Similar threads
