Windows 2000 installation stalls

I have tried installing from CD and floppy, but always get to the same place. I cannot get beyond the text screen where the screen is blue and the status bar is white at the bottom. After all of the files that are on the floppies (the same ones come from the CD-ROM) go into memory, I get the message "Starting Windows 2000." Then it hangs.

I am currently running Windows ME and it runs fine on the drive.
The hard drive is a 20 gig Maxtor
The CD is a Sumsung SCR 3232
There are 128 meg of RAM
The processor is a Pentium II 400 mhz

Any suggestions?

Daniel

 

Clean install or upgrade of ME?

 

If anyone has info on this problem, I'm interested. I have a very
similar problem. Trying to install W2K as dual boot with Win Me, using a clean 60G Maxtor HD. Hangs with blue screen, requiring power off via UPS to shut down machine.

Some workstation data:
Current OS: Win Me
Bus: 66 MHz
Bios: Award v.4.51PG 11/20/2001
Processor: Intel Celeron 768 Mhz - v.6 Rev 8.6
RAM: 384M
HD Controller: Maxtor IDE Ultra ATA 133
Hardrives:
C: Maxtor 120G (FAT32)
D: Maxtor 60G (FAT32)
E: WD 80G (FAQT32)

Video: Radeon 32
Monitor: Korea Data Systems VS-7
Modem: US Robotics 56K
HP 9150i CDRW
EPO 52K CDR
generic 3.5 floppy

 

I did one install for a school that runs 4 OS on it. DOS 6.22, win 98 office 97, win 98 office 2000, and win 2K with office XP.

First you need to plan your drive layout oldest OS first to the newest Last. I then used partition magic to create the partitions, then set the partiotion that I want to install to as the active one. after every thing is installed I set the first partition as acative and loaded boot magic to it.

when you boot the machine a boot manager window comes up and you can select the os you want from there.

hope this helps

MIchael

 

Reading my first post, it's evident that I didn't make clear that the clean 60G drive on which I'm trying to install W2K is a secondary drive. I'm not trying to partition a single drive for both OS. Win Me is already operational on the primary drive. Not sure a partition manager would help in this case, though maybe it's worth experimenting with.

It sure would have been helpful if the W2K install software gave some clue as to what the problem is. To date, I've been looking for possible hardware issues.

I don't know whether wintondb's situation is different.

 

The boot sector is usally located in sector 0 of the primary drive.

another trick with win 2K is start the computer, the installed OS will start, pop in the 2000 CD and it should auto start, when it asks if want to upgrade tell it no, and under one of the adadvanced menus (I can't remeber which one) put a check in the check box that says something like " let me choose my own partition" in your case this would be your secondary drive, windows will format and install at that location and load a boot manager into sector 0 of the primary drive that will allow you to select the OS you would like to boot into.

Michael

 

Already ran the route past upgrade choice to partition selection check box. After that, install software loads temporary files and reboots. After reboot, OS selection menu shows, with W2K as default and Win Me as alternative. Whether or not an option is selected with F8, install checks hardware and loads some files, then hangs with blue screen. No choice of partition or drive for W2K offered - curious because that optiuon was requested.

I noticed the floppy dxrive light was on at hang point. Tried running from floppies created from W2K CDROM to see what happens. Same result.

BTW, I didn't mention that the chipset is Intel 82440LX/EX, for whatever it's worth.

 

This time, I tried a 3rd party partition manager (Acronis OS Selector 5.0) to create a second primary partition on the first hard drive (resulting size about 55 gigs, file form FAT32). Tried running W2K install under this arrrangement, guessing that maybe W2K must be installed on the first hard drive. Results exactly the same. Tried a second time with new partition set to active prior to install. Still same result.

I'm still guessing that maybe there's a hardware conflict causing the install to freeze as soon as drivers are loaded and startup occurs.