OS installation on new components- BIOS Qs.

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Seum

Hello again Experts :-)

I have recently bought the internal components for a "new" computer: an
ASUS motherboard M4A88TD-V, an AMD CPU, a Corsier 750 PSU, and an older
empty 750GB Seagate HD. I have tried to install Win XP and failed, and
whether the reason is that the DVD or Win XP is faulty, or some problem
with the motherboard, I do not know.

So, I decided to try to install Win2k. Previous attempts led to the
conversion of a few SATA connectors to IDE in the BIOS and, other than
manipulating the sequence of the Boot menu, I have made no other changes
to the BOS. The Seagate has a partition of about 100GB and I want Win2K
to go there. Yesterday I tried to install Win2K and it seemed to go well
for about 2 hours and then crashed with "Error loading operating
system." I am not sure whether the crash was when formatting or
installing. I guess I could make another try and keep my eyeballs glued
to the screen.

Questions:

Should the BIOS items below be modified because Win2K or Win XP are to
be loaded?

1 ASUS Update: Would that work for Win2K, WinXP, etc or should it be
downdated?
2 ASUS EZ Flash 2: The ASUS EZ Flash 2 feature allows you to update
the BIOS without having to use a bootable floppy disk or an OS-based
utility.
3 ASUS CrashFree Bios 3 utility: The ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 utility is an
auto recovery tool that allows you to restore the BIOS file when it
fails or gets corrupted during the updating process. You can restore a
corrupted BIOS file using the motherboard support DVD or a USB flash
drive that contains the BIOS file.
4 ASUS BIOS Updater : The ASUS BIOS Updater allows you to update BIOS in
DOS environment. This utility also allows you to copy the current BIOS
file that you can use as a backup when the BIOS fails or
gets corrupted during the updating process.

Comments please.

TIA
 
Seum said:
Hello again Experts :-)

I have recently bought the internal components for a "new" computer: an
ASUS motherboard M4A88TD-V, an AMD CPU, a Corsier 750 PSU, and an older
empty 750GB Seagate HD. I have tried to install Win XP and failed, and
whether the reason is that the DVD or Win XP is faulty, or some problem
with the motherboard, I do not know.

So, I decided to try to install Win2k. Previous attempts led to the
conversion of a few SATA connectors to IDE in the BIOS and, other than
manipulating the sequence of the Boot menu, I have made no other changes
to the BOS. The Seagate has a partition of about 100GB and I want Win2K to
go there. Yesterday I tried to install Win2K and it seemed to go well for
about 2 hours and then crashed with "Error loading operating system." I am
not sure whether the crash was when formatting or installing. I guess I
could make another try and keep my eyeballs glued to the screen.

Questions:

Should the BIOS items below be modified because Win2K or Win XP are to be
loaded?

1 ASUS Update: Would that work for Win2K, WinXP, etc or should it be
downdated?
2 ASUS EZ Flash 2: The ASUS EZ Flash 2 feature allows you to update the
BIOS without having to use a bootable floppy disk or an OS-based utility.
3 ASUS CrashFree Bios 3 utility: The ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 utility is an
auto recovery tool that allows you to restore the BIOS file when it fails
or gets corrupted during the updating process. You can restore a corrupted
BIOS file using the motherboard support DVD or a USB flash drive that
contains the BIOS file.
4 ASUS BIOS Updater : The ASUS BIOS Updater allows you to update BIOS in
DOS environment. This utility also allows you to copy the current BIOS
file that you can use as a backup when the BIOS fails or
gets corrupted during the updating process.

Comments please.

TIA
Click to expand...
--

What exactly happened to make the XP installation fail? Could you
explain how you went about the installation? If you can give some details
that may be very helpful.
What version of XP were you trying to install? Was it the original with
no service packs, or XP with SP1 or SP2 or SP3?

What kind of RAM are you using? How much and how many sticks?

You mentioned the hdd is used. Have you tested that it's OK using the hdd
manufacturer's diagnostic utility ?


Checking out the Asus website indicates that this mb should be compatible
with Win2K on up without flashing the bios. Click on 'Downloads' to see the
OS's the mb would work.

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A88TDV_EVOUSB3


Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
 
Seum said:
I have tried to install Win XP and
failed, and whether the reason is that the DVD or Win XP is faulty, or
some problem with the motherboard, I do not know.
Click to expand...

So it sounds like you're not at all sure of the hardware
reliability. Make yourself a boot CD of some OS--I prefer Ubuntu, but
there are many Linux and Windows variants--which you'll use simply to
boot test machines to see if they'll even get that far.

After verifying the machine is good, that is, it will boot from a CD,
then post back here.
 
Seum said:
I have tried to install Win XP and
failed, and whether the reason is that the DVD or Win XP is faulty, or
some problem with the motherboard, I do not know.
Click to expand...

So it sounds like you're not at all sure of the hardware
reliability. Make yourself a boot CD of some OS--I prefer Ubuntu, but
there are many Linux and Windows variants--which you'll use simply to
boot test machines to see if they'll even get that far.

After verifying the machine is good, that is, it will boot from a CD,
then post back here.
 
Yesterday I tried to install Win2K and it seemed to go well
for about 2 hours and then crashed with "Error loading operating
system." I am not sure whether the crash was when formatting or
installing.
Click to expand...

Each OS writes to the MBR, with XP installed, you can't dual boot W2K
without a boot loader.

That's why when you dual boot windows you install the lower versions first
Dos/W2K/XP.

Saying make sure you fully format a hard drive if going from XP to W2K, insuring
the proper MBR for that OS.
I guess I could make another try and keep my eyeballs glued
to the screen.
Click to expand...

I've had to use a video camera to find what the problem was
as it flashed by so fast. Worked too.

My video card was incompatable with O/S2.
 
All the BIOS support software gets loaded and should work. Doesn't
mean you need the latest BIOS revisions - some MB support FAQs even
say don't load them unless needed - but that's severely discountable.
Think moving forward if anything when updating a BIOS - you're not
updating BIOS for glitches to install old operating systems. Apart
from glitches -- which is why someone buys quality gear from names
such as ASUS, it's mainly hardware support -- good things, mostly,
such as new HD releases and pin-socket compatible CPU support.

XP has a limit on memory at 4G, although there's a patch in one of the
service packs;- 32bit, 64bit doesn't have that limit. Not sure with
W2K, I've never ran it. You ...could... try to pull some out in case
you're maxed out with 32gig of system mem or something. I doubt XP is
faulty -- it's also going to be a given as supported by the MB. May
be feasible a dog was chewing on the install DVD when no one was
looking. If it copied ... what happens is newer DVD units may not
like an older CD media. All optical media are not created,
especially if it's media prone to disintegration. (There's forums and
software utilities for buying only the best discs -- keeping abreast
of what Pacific rim plants are putting out -- who's buying and re-
badging media "batches" and under what names). And check the DVD unit
- I threw out one of my old NEC 35xx series a few weeks ago after it
stumbled over disks Sony or Asus units were picking up.
 
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