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Windows Server Forum / Windows NT / Setup / May 2004Install NT4 Wks On 2nd HDD - Update
Thanks to the info given about FAT16 partition on first disk / sharing with an OS, etc., I managed to get further. But sadly I can't quite make that last step. Here's the setup: HDD 1: 2 Gb primary FAT32 (hidden) 2 Gb primary FAT32 (hidden) 2 Gb primary FAT16 (active) X Gb extended + logical HDD 2: 2 Gb primary (active) X Gb unpartitioned space Now, as shown above, for the purposes of these installations the first two FAT32 partitions are hidden, so that the FAT16 partition looks like the C: drive. This allows Win95 to be installed on it; that part works fine. When I try to install NT4 from Win95, it asks where to find the I386 dir; it copies some files across, then asks to reboot. When I do this, the NT boot CD takes over. So far so good. It then sorts out what partition to install on, bla bla bla, and copies over the key files, and then asks to remove any disks, including CD, and reboot again. This is now where it goes wrong; presumably it has installed its bootloader by now, and since we've taken the CD out it clearly wants to finish installation from the hard drive. This all makes sense. But it does nothing. It realises it has no floppy or CD to boot from, so boots from "IDE-0"... and that's it, it just sits there forever. It seems unable to work from the bootloader. If I had to make a guess, I'd say it can't handle the fact that although it's the first visible partition, it's not the first partition on the disk - maybe it assumes it should be, even though the other partitions are hidden until otherwise made active. It HAS installed the contents of the WINNT folder on HDD 2 as expected. It HAS installed stuff on C: (first visible partition on HDD 1): A file called $ldr$ A directory called $WIN_NT$.~BT A directory called $WIN_NT$.~LS Is there anything I can do to get this to work? Or is my theory about partition position accurate? As you can see from the setup, it's within the 8 Gb boundary by plenty... -- Jason Teagle jason@teagster.co.uk Check which partition is active on HDD-1/IDE-0 and post boot.ini file content. There is one known problem with FAT16 partitions - standard FAT16 partition boot code is not able to load OS if partition is located far than 2016MB from begin of disk. Boot procedure hangs due division by zero fault. NT setup is replacing boot code of non NT based operating system by standard NT based OS boot code and it could be your problem. It is good practice to have oldest systems partitions on begin of disk and newer system partition after. Do you have any tool able to move your partitions around? At past there was patch available on web able to go over this limitation, but I tried to find it and found that link I have is now broken :(. Do you have any other NT based OS machine around? I mean Win NT, Win 2000 or Win XP. In such case you can create NT boot floppy - format floppy under any NT based OS (to get correct boot code) and copy following files from root of C: drive to it: NTLDR., NTDETECT.COM, BOOT.INI and, if exist, also optional NTBOOTDD.SYS disk driver file. NTLDR. and NTDETECT.COM can be from any machine or even from installation media and should be of the same or higher version of the highest NT based operating system installed on machine. But BOOT.INI and NTBOOTDD.SYS are machine specific and should be copied from target machine (or manually prepared to be used on it). Such floppy can help you to finish installation and to run system. With patched boot code and newer versions of NTLDR. and NTDETECT.COM it is possible to launch system from disk even with your current partition configuration. luck > Thanks to the info given about FAT16 partition on first disk / sharing with > an OS, etc., I managed to get further. But sadly I can't quite make that [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] > Jason Teagle > jason@teagster.co.uk > There is one known problem with FAT16 partitions - standard FAT16 partition > boot code is not able to load OS if partition is located far than 2016MB > from begin of disk. Boot procedure hangs due division by zero fault. NT I see. > setup is replacing boot code of non NT based operating system by standard NT > based OS boot code and it could be your problem. It is good practice to have > oldest systems partitions on begin of disk and newer system partition after. > Do you have any tool able to move your partitions around? I have PartitionMagic, but I'm not sure it can swap them around - all primary partitions available on that disk are used, so it has no "spare" to be able to make the swap. I will probably simply have to wipe the other partitions and start over. > At past there was patch available on web able to go over this limitation, > but I tried to find it and found that link I have is now broken :(. Well, thanks for trying anyway. > Such floppy can help you to finish installation and to run system. With > patched boot code and newer versions of NTLDR. and NTDETECT.COM it is > possible to launch system from disk even with your current partition > configuration. To compound my problem the floppy drive doesn't work on that machine currently, I will have to take it apart to fix it {:v( Would an XP boot CD do the same job? I'm guessing yes... I am able to get into the FAT16 partition still to replace files, I have an old Win98 SE boot CD that has been gold dust when it comes to rescuing setup failures. So I should copy NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM (from later NT source) over the ones now in C:\, then reboot from hard disk? Sounds like a plan to me!  Signature-- Jason Teagle jason@teagster.co.uk Repair console of WinXP (one option while booting from setup CD) has some interesting commands. I think that FIXBOOT command can be useful for you. Before you try to do any repairs, backup all NT loader files from root of C: drive especially file BOOTSECT.DOS. I did not mentioned this file before, because it has nothing to do with booting to NT OS, it is, in fact, file with original content of your C: drive boot sector - ie. code able to load your original win9x system. It is very important to do not lost this file if you want to start your win9x system at future. Even there is method how to recreate win9x bootsector code, I am not sure it will be functional for you due your partition configuration. > > There is one known problem with FAT16 partitions - standard FAT16 > partition [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] > Jason Teagle > jason@teagster.co.uk > Repair console of WinXP (one option while booting from setup CD) has some > interesting commands. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > recreate win9x bootsector code, I am not sure it will be functional for you > due your partition configuration. Interesting stuff... I also tried installing NT to my laptop, but darn it, that wouldn't work either; blue-screened, complaining of not detecting boot device or something (laptop does ot have floppy disk drive, but has a CD drive of course!). So frustrating! Signature-- Jason Teagle jason@teagster.co.uk Yes, notebooks often contain proprietary designed parts and most of notebook hardware require PnP or PnP like support from operating system side to be functional. Installation of Windows NT without proper support disk from notebook manufacturer is real pain. Unfortunately NT setup need floppy drive to load special drivers during manual setup, so eventual NT drivers downloaded from laptop manufacturer will not help you. You can, however, prepare unattended setup script and copy all files to laptop disk and install using it, but preparation of correct installation script, correct driver files and folder structure is not easy task. > > Repair console of WinXP (one option while booting from setup CD) has some > > interesting commands. [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > Jason Teagle > jason@teagster.co.uk > Yes, notebooks often contain proprietary designed parts and most of notebook > hardware require PnP or PnP like support from operating system side to be [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > install using it, but preparation of correct installation script, correct > driver files and folder structure is not easy task. Wow... think I'll forget that one then {;v) I think my only sensible option is to bite the bullet and rearrange the partitions on the first HDD on the test machine - a pain, but probably necessary. For just a silly test setup this is far too much hassle! Signature-- Jason Teagle jason@teagster.co.uk |
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