[danmar]

bttt!

[Tennessee_Bob]

Are the drives and partitions set up as FAT32? If so, boot from a floppy and run F-disk and kill all the partitions and then create a new one using the entire drive and reinstall from that point (make sure you have a floppy that will boot the CD Rom as well). If the drive is in NTFS, then you'll need more than just a regular F-Disk to kill the drives and partitions...more along the lines of using Debug to run a low-level format...the more advanced techies here can help with that.

[Keith in Iowa]

You need to run fdisk, recreate partitions, reformat, and reinstall Win2K & software.

[hos46]

Do what I did. Buy a new computer with Windows 2000 already installed and save yourself a lot of grief.

[Schnucki]

Just boot it with a SuSE Linux installation CD. ;)

[rightisright]

If the Windows 2000 CD is bootable, just Set your system BIOS to boot off the CD. Once you get into the Disk Manager, just delete all existing partitions, create one nice partition, and format it NTFS.

[paul544]

When you installed Win2k, did you set it up for dual boot? Do you want to save what is on your Win98 drive? If not your best bet is to wipe out the whole thing and create a new drive in NTFS. The only reasonable way you could have lost all that space is if you set it up for a dual boot with the Win98 OS running FAT32 and your Win2k running NTFS.

Just wipe the sucker.

[gatorgriz]

Funny you should ask about this... Just tonight I upgraded my PC here at home from NT 4.0 to 2000 Professional. What I did was hit the F2 key to get into system setup and changed which drive boots first, from the hard drive to the CD, where I had my new 2000 disk... Rebooted and voila I'm operating off the CD and was able to get rid of every single one of those nasty partions and install 2000. It was a snap! Good Luck!

[ProudGOP]

the new OS was installed right on top of my existing OS.

It's always a good idea to reformat before you upgrade and as other posters have commented, removing the partitions (and adding at least 1 back) is the best way to do this.

But since you have already installed Win 2k, you may want to run system file checker (sfc). It is a command line utility that tells you whether the OS files have been changed and can restore them if necessary (you need your installation media).

So out of 10G hard drive, it showed, I have only 1.8G hard drive, because I have installed three 2000's on top of each other.

This is pretty odd. In Win2k, you need to run the disk Manager before you can see a partition. I would bet you have multiple partitions on that disk but you haven't run Disk Manager yet. Of course if you remove the partitions and re-add only 1, you won't have this problem.

[RaceBannon]

You are in for a surprise with other items, too. I had to get a new CD rom because it didnt like WIN2000. Also, I had to re-install all my core goodies, like WINFAX, my CAD programs, I needed a new modem...

Remember, WIN2000 is based on WINDOWS NT software, so all your regular windows stuff may not run on it! It was an eye-opener for me!

[TheLooseThread]

The machine started to reboot itself with no stopping in sight

Depending on what you mean by this, I would say the problem is your keyboard, or it is plugged in wrong.

A keyboard problem during boot can cause a reboot.

[dglang]

Restart the install of WIN2K, your partition is still there, saved by the win2K install routine. Even partition magic cannot delete or resize it. Just do an install and WIN2k will remember what the old partition was. You can not touch it with anything until the install completes.

I have built several machines and ran into a simular problem. I even thought that I lost the partition that I was installing into. I also tried partition magic to delete the old partition and install from scratch, but WIN2K knew what it origionally tried to install into and went ahead and loaded into that partition even though it doesn't show up with FDISK or anything else.

It seems that WIN2k somehow knows what it tried to install into and protects that partition from anything elses attempts to change it.

[vbmoneyspender]

before you wipe your Win98 install, trying boot into the command prompt (i.e. hit the 'F8' key immediately as you boot into Win98 - the best bet on this is to simply hold down the Win98 key as you boot into Win98). When you get to the command prompt (i.e. 'C:\>') - type in 'scanreg /fix'. This will fix any problems that might exist with your Win98 registry entries. If this does not fix the problem, go into your control settings (i.e. Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager) and see if any errors exist with any of your devices. If any errors are showing, try removing the device that is causing the problem and then reboot the computer and reinstall the device. If this doesn't work, then reinstall the operating systems that you want on the disk (i.e. Win 2000 and Win98.

In this regard, if you have Windows 2000 already installed, create a Windows 2000 bootdisk and copy fdisk.exe and format.com onto the disk so that you can reformat your entire drive. Then reinstall Windows 2000. Once you have done this, I think Windows 2000 has a partition manager and boot program that should allow you to install multiple Windows OS' so that you can reinstall your Win98 OS. If you can't find it, there is a free partition manager called Ranish Partition Manger that will enable you to partition your hard drive with multiple OS's on it. Once a new partition has been created and another OS installed, Windows 2000 should allow you to boot to either OS. If not, you can either get a copy of BootMagic (which comes with Partition Magic and which works very well) or you can get a freeware boot manager. I think BootIt has one, but I am not sure on this.

[Jimbaugh]

1. You will need to make (4) boot floppy disks for Windows 2000
   1. Some how you will need to get to director named  boot/ on your Windows 2000 CD.  A Windows 98 SE Full Install boot disk will work for this purpose.  Email me if you need one of these. Use the programs in this director to make the boot disks for Windows 2000
2. After you have these disks use disk number one to boot your computer and follow the instructions.

 

 

[Nyralthotep]

Here is what you do. Put the Win 2000 disk in your CD rom then re-boot and access your bios. Change the first boot device to the CD-Rom, then save changes and exit. When the PC rebotts it will start Win 2k and go throgh the prompts until you get to a screen where it shows you how much space you have on your drive(s) and delete the old ones and the create new ones and format them using NTFS and proceed with the installation. This all assumes that your motherboard actually supports Win 2k because not all do, you'll need to look on their web site for more info.

I know what you mean by the continous reboot sequence. On my PC at work I have to use PC anywhere to administer some of my servers, but when I use the 9.0 full install with Win2k it almost gets to the login screen and then reboots continually. Hope this helps.

[doomtrooper99]

I fight with Windows every day. I know this stuff from personal, painful experience. Here is what I think.

When you installed Windows 2000, you asked installer to install Windows on Win NT file system partition. Installer created Win NT partition that was about 90% the available size. Drive C: is small and is used only to do the initial boot. Win NT partition is hidden from DOS and can't be accessed from DOS.

This is what you should do.

0-BACK UP ALL YOUR DATA!!! THE FOLLOWING PROCESS DESTROYS ALL THE DATA ON THE DISK!!!

1-make a Windows startup floppy disk. I don't remember how to do it under Windows 2000 but under Win 98 go to the control panel, Add/Remove programs, Startup Disk.

2-get Partition Magic. It costs $60. It's NOT that expensive considering that this is A GREAT PRODUCT. Don't install Partition Magic on your hard drive. Make Partition Magic bootable disks. Instruction tells you how to do it.

3-Boot with Partition Magic disks and use partition magic to delete ALL PARTITIONS. Then make one big FAT32 partition that fills the entire hard disk.

4-boot with Windows startup floppy and FORMAT C: 5-remove floppy and insert Windows 2000 CD and start the PC. On MOST PC's CD drive is bootable. You might want to make sure of that first before you do anything. When the Win 2000 CD boots, follow the prompts to do a CLEAN INSTALL. I also recommend that you keep your hard drive in FAT32 format.

6-Windows 2000 has a vast library of drivers and Windows installer should install them. However, there is a chance that Windows 2000 will lack the driver you need for your modem, sound card, graphics card, etc. You might have to locate them and install them separately. If your PC is a well known brand name like HP, SONY, Compaq, visit them on the web and download the drivers.

7-Restore your data.

Happy computing.

[MarkL]

Do you still have a Win98 boot disk, and the Win98 utilities? If so, I'd suggest "wiping" the hard drive with a "debug script," that for all intents and purposes, restores the drive to "factory fresh" condition, i.e. it fills the master boot record, the boot sector, and the partition table with binary zeros. It's the best way to really prepare a drive for an OS installation that I've found over the years. It removes all traces of the former partitioning schemes, as well as taking care of any virus problems, including boot sector virus infections.

Send me a private email if you'd like me to email the files to you.

Mark

[Myrddin]

I had a nasty problem with Win2K on a new Asus motherboard. The BIOS support for ACPI is not a good match for the way Win2K fiddles with the hardware. The fix is to hit F5 at the beginning of the installation (at the time one would ordinarily hit F6 to install a new disk driver). This converts the ACPI compliant machine into a "Standard PC". Win2K will stop mucking with the ACPI features and everything becomes much more stable. I went through 5 complete installations in ACPI mode before making this simple change. It has been rock solid since.

Another source of instability is the UDMA66 drivers. Win2K doesn't always do this right. The fix is to slow the hard disk down using PIO mode. Some installations of Windows NT 4.0 require this on fast drives to remain stable. The clue that this is necessary occurs when the OS starts to boot and stops because it can't locate the ntoskernel.exe. Switching from UDMA mode to PIO mode can usually rescue your bacon in this case. If your motherboard comes with chip drivers for Win2K, go to the manufacturer's website and get the current release. It may be critical to get Win2K to properly manipulate your motherboard chipsets. Check for BIOS updates too. There may be patches necessary to the BIOS to fix Win2K incompatibilities.

If you choose NTFS, select a cluster size of 1024 or larger. Don't go for the 512 byte cluster size. The MFT entries are 1024. Using 512 permits the MFT to fragment...this destroys your filesystem performance.

I find it useful to make a small FAT filesystem on the C: drive (about 200 megabytes). Install the bulk of the NT code on a 3 GB D: partition using NTFS in 1024 byte cluster. Place a 128 MB pagefile.sys on the C: partition using the min/max sizes set to 128 MB. This prevents fragmenting of your primary swap partition. The small C: partition ensures that the NTLDR and other critical startup files don't get relocated to a block that the BIOS boot code can not access. Ditto for keeping the D: partition under 3 GB. Partition the rest of the drive as you see fit. Try to keep the partitions in a size range that you can backup with the tools you have available. BTW, the placement of the pagefile.sys on the C: drive is accomplished AFTER all the rest of the installation is complete.