win2000 install problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter h.stroph
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H

h.stroph

I was given a Toshiba Satellite 305CDS laptop with a 2GB disk and 32MB of
memory that had a bunch of personal data on a win2000 installation, so I
wiped the disk and tried to install my own licensed win2000 from CD after
booting from the 4 boot floppies.

At about 51% of files copied, it is unable to copy several dll files from
the CD for some reason, even when I choose to skip a problem file.

Is the 2GB disk too small? It formats cleanly with the NTFS filesystem and
no errors, and the low-level formatter I used to wipe the disk also reported
no errors. memtest86 shows no errors with any of the memory.

What might be the problem with this win2000 install please?
 
Hello h.stroph,

Can be the installation disk or the cd-rom drive, do you have another one?

Best regards

Meinolf Weber
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
no rights.
** Please do NOT email, only reply to Newsgroups
** HELP us help YOU!!! http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
 
In
DL said:
Did you prepare / partition / format the hd with the installation cd
or did you use a third party utility?
Click to expand...

The disk was "wiped" using Maxtor's maxllf.exe low-level formatter from a
win98 boot floppy. Then, win2000 was booted from the 4 boot floppies created
on another machine from the installation CD with the makeboot.exe program,
which then read the remainder of the installtion from the CD after it caused
a reboot. The win2000 setup saw the disk with no partition table and offered
a choice of NTFS or FAT32, and I chose NTFS on a single partition. No
problems were encountered until 51% of the files from the CD were copied, at
which time dll file copies were failing.
 
In
Meinolf Weber said:
Can be the installation disk or the cd-rom drive, do you have another
one?
Click to expand...

The CD installs successfully on a "regular" desktop box, and the Toshiba
drive always quits at the same 51% into the file copy, so I have confidence
that both the CD and the drive are functional, otherwise it would quit at
various intervals into the install..

How much space does a basic win2000 install take, please? Is a 2 GB disk
large enough?
 
Seems like somewhere ~1 gB The installation routine checks the available
space before beginning.


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
 
h.stroph said:
I was given a Toshiba Satellite 305CDS laptop with a 2GB disk and 32MB of
memory that had a bunch of personal data on a win2000 installation, so I
wiped the disk and tried to install my own licensed win2000 from CD after
booting from the 4 boot floppies.
At about 51% of files copied, it is unable to copy several dll files from
the CD for some reason, even when I choose to skip a problem file.
Is the 2GB disk too small? It formats cleanly with the NTFS filesystem and
no errors, and the low-level formatter I used to wipe the disk also reported
no errors. memtest86 shows no errors with any of the memory.
What might be the problem with this win2000 install please?
Click to expand...

You may need to update the BIOS.

http://tinyurl.com/46k7xv

Ben
 
In
Ben Myers said:
You may need to update the BIOS.
http://tinyurl.com/46k7xv
Click to expand...

Thank you. I upgraded the BIOS with the information found at the above URL,
and the boot floppy created as a result reported a successful BIOS upgrade
when the Toshiba was booted from it.

Unfortunetly, the installation still fails at 51% of files copied, this time
while copying nbf.sys. If I <esc> to skip the file, then the same happens on
52% ndis.sys and all subsequent files.

The only other thing I can think of trying is to format the filesystem as
FAT32, although I can't really see why it would affect things ... sort of
desperation mode, I guess.
 
h.stroph said:
In


Thank you. I upgraded the BIOS with the information found at the above URL,
and the boot floppy created as a result reported a successful BIOS upgrade
when the Toshiba was booted from it.

Unfortunetly, the installation still fails at 51% of files copied, this time
while copying nbf.sys. If I <esc> to skip the file, then the same happens on
52% ndis.sys and all subsequent files.

The only other thing I can think of trying is to format the filesystem as
FAT32, although I can't really see why it would affect things ... sort of
desperation mode, I guess.
Click to expand...

Make sure the cd is clean. You may have better luck trying to install
from a flat folder. Boot with a Windows 98 startup disk and try copying
the 1386 folder to the hard drive, that entails of course that the drive
will be formated FAT32. Make sure that you have smartdrv.exe on the W98
startup floppy.

After you copy the i386 folder to the hard disk you can then start the
Windows 2000 installation from MS-DOS by executing WINNT from the i386
folder on the hard disk.

See here for typical instructions:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315349

The instructions are for XP but it's the same thing for Windows 2000.

You can convert the file system to NTFS after the installation but make
sure that the partition is aligned to a 4K boundary or else you will end
up with 512 byte clusters. http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php

John
 
h.stroph said:
The only other thing I can think of trying is to format the filesystem as
FAT32, although I can't really see why it would affect things ... sort of
desperation mode, I guess.
Click to expand...

I see John beat me to it on suggesting that, if you format FAT32 and
still have the problem, then copy the install directory from the CD to
the HD.

If that copy process doesn't work then the problem is nothing to do
with the install ... it indicates a hardware problem. On the other hand,
if the copy works but the install from the HD still doesn't, you have a
questionable set of installation files ... at least for this machine.

Is the CD you are using an original CD or CDR copy? I vaguely recall
having a similar problem once myself and finding that if I recopied the
CD it solved the problem.
 
In
John John (MVP) said:
Make sure the cd is clean.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I verified that the optical surface of the CD is clean.
You may have better luck trying to install
from a flat folder. Boot with a Windows 98 startup disk and try
copying the 1386 folder to the hard drive, that entails of course
that the drive will be formated FAT32. Make sure that you have
smartdrv.exe on the W98 startup floppy. ....
See here for typical instructions:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315349
Click to expand...

Here's what's on the boot floppy (dir a: > junk.txt and copied/pasted here;
the MAXLLF.EXE is the Maxtor low-level formatter that I placed on the floppy
to wipe hard disks):

Volume in drive A is BOOTABLE98
Volume Serial Number is 1EE5-2535

Directory of A:\

04/23/1999 22:22 93,890 COMMAND.COM
04/23/1999 22:22 49,575 FORMAT.COM
04/23/1999 22:22 63,916 FDISK.EXE
04/23/1999 15:22 45,379 SMARTDRV.EXE
12/16/1996 11:34 64,888 MAXLLF.EXE
04/23/1999 22:22 3,878 xcopy.exe
04/23/1999 22:22 3,878 xcopy32.exe
04/23/1999 22:22 41,472 xcopy32.mod
8 File(s) 366,876 bytes
0 Dir(s) 797,696 bytes free

I followed the instructions explicitly, but am unable to address the CD-ROM
drive after running smartdrv; it only recognizes a:, b: (same drive as a:)
and c:.

A:\> smartdrv
Microsoft SMARTDrive Disk Cache version 5.02
Copyright 1991,1993 Microsoft Corp.

Cache size: 2,097,152 bytes
Cache size while running Windows: 2,097,152 bytes

Disk Caching Status
drive read cache write cache buffering
--------------------------------------------
A: yes no no
B: yes no no
C: yes yes no
Write behind data will be committed before command prompt returns.
For help, type "Smartdrv /?".
===============

"dir d:" states "Invalid drive specification", so I won't be able to xcopy
the I386 directory until I can address the CD-ROM drive containing the
win2000 installation somehow.

Additional suggestions are welcomed.
 
In
Sid Elbow said:
I see John beat me to it on suggesting that, if you format FAT32 and
still have the problem, then copy the install directory from the CD to
the HD.

If that copy process doesn't work then the problem is nothing to do
with the install ... it indicates a hardware problem.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I downloaded and created the the bootdisk image
http://files.frashii.com/~bootdisk/tennessee/boot98c.exe as suggested, and
booted into win98 then executed smartdrv.exe, which recognized the CD-ROM as
"Drive R: = BANANA unit 0". The C: drive was previously formatted as FAT32.

Following the xcopy instruction from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315349
causes a successful copy until the filenames reach the seconf b* entry, at
which it fails with the report of failing to access the BANANA drive while
copying filename banana.an_, so then your assessment of a hardware problem
comes into consideration.
Is the CD you are using an original CD or CDR copy? I vaguely recall
having a similar problem once myself and finding that if I recopied
the CD it solved the problem.
Click to expand...

It is a CDR copy from the original. Yesterday I got a free Dell 500MHz tower
from Craigslist, and the win2000 CD installed flawlessly on it by way of
testing, so I have confidence that the win2000 CD is still entirely
functional.

This raises the issue of whether the CD drive is the problem, but I was able
to xcopy an entire CD of jpg photos to the C: drive with no problem
whatsoever, and was also able to boot from 2 different live Linux CDs
(Knoppix and Damn Small Linux, a Knoppix variant) and have a fully
functional Linux OS on the Toshiba laptop.

I have to conclude that the CD-ROM drive is only experiencing problems with
the win2000 install for some strange reason. I wish now that I would have
left the original win2000 installation on the laptop, but it was so highly
customized to the original owner's needs that it was heavily laced with
3rd-party programs that couldn't be uninstalled without the network shares
that it depended on.

Next step will be to check if smartdrv.exe will recognize a USB 2.0 external
HD, from which I'll copy the \i386 files from the installation CD to the C:
drive on the laptop. If it can't see the USB drive then I'll copy the \i386
directory to a different CD and see if that can be copied from the laptop CD
drive to the hard disk.
 
h.stroph said:
It is a CDR copy from the original. Yesterday I got a free Dell 500MHz tower
from Craigslist, and the win2000 CD installed flawlessly on it by way of
testing, so I have confidence that the win2000 CD is still entirely
functional.
Click to expand...

Strictly, all that tells you is that the CD is functional with that
particular CD-drive. If you have a weak burn in some spots on the CD,
it's perfectly possible for it to be read on one drive but not another.

And drives for laptops are engineered with different constraints than
AC-powered machines, the major emphasis for laptop use being power
consumption (reduction of it). Laptop drives are therefore likely to be
more "fussy" about the quality of the CD. Doubtless they'll be fine with
an original "pressed" CD but CD R's are weaker (harder to read) and you
might have problems with a borderline copy.
 
In
Sid Elbow said:
Doubtless they'll be
fine with an original "pressed" CD but CD R's are weaker (harder to
read) and you might have problems with a borderline copy.
Click to expand...

Is that a joke of some kind ... "pressed" CDs ... and "weaker (harder to
read)"? It sounds like material for http://snopes.com
 
h.stroph said:
Is that a joke of some kind ... "pressed" CDs ... and "weaker (harder to
read)"? It sounds like material for http://snopes.com
Click to expand...

No joke. Could it be that there are some things that you don't know?

Commercially-produced CD's are commonly referred to as "stamped" or
"pressed" as opposed to CDR's which are "burned". They produce a
stronger signal compared to CDR's which are "weaker".

In any event, asking for help then ridiculing the response is
counter-productive (really).
 
h.stroph said:
In Thank you. I downloaded and created the the bootdisk image
http://files.frashii.com/~bootdisk/tennessee/boot98c.exe as suggested, and
booted into win98 then executed smartdrv.exe, which recognized the CD-ROM as
"Drive R: = BANANA unit 0". The C: drive was previously formatted as FAT32.
Following the xcopy instruction from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315349
causes a successful copy until the filenames reach the seconf b* entry, at
which it fails with the report of failing to access the BANANA drive while
copying filename banana.an_, so then your assessment of a hardware problem
comes into consideration.
Click to expand...
<snip>

Put the boot floppy in the computer you are using now, open the "a:\autoexec.bat"
file with Notepad and change the line containing "banana" to
"MSCDEX.EXE /D:$CD$ /L:R". Then open "a:\config.sys" and change
"DEVICE=cd1.SYS /D:banana" to "DEVICE=cd1.SYS /D:$CD$". Be sure
to save the changes. Then start the laptop with the boot floppy and try xcopy
again.

Ben
 
In
Ben Myers said:
... open the "a:\autoexec.bat" file with Notepad and change the line
containing "banana" to "MSCDEX.EXE /D:$CD$ /L:R". Then
open "a:\config.sys" and change "DEVICE=cd1.SYS /D:banana"
to "DEVICE=cd1.SYS /D:$CD$". Be sure to save the changes.
Then start the laptop with the boot floppy and try xcopy again.
Click to expand...

A most excellent response, thank you. All \i386 files were successfully
xcopy'd, and win2000 is now successfully installed on the Toshiba 305CDS
laptop.

Thanks to all who replied.
 
Ben said:
<snip>

Put the boot floppy in the computer you are using now, open the "a:\autoexec.bat"
file with Notepad and change the line containing "banana" to
"MSCDEX.EXE /D:$CD$ /L:R". Then open "a:\config.sys" and change
"DEVICE=cd1.SYS /D:banana" to "DEVICE=cd1.SYS /D:$CD$". Be sure
to save the changes. Then start the laptop with the boot floppy and try xcopy
again.
Click to expand...

Very well done, Ben!

John
 
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