Win2k Setup says the hard disk is not present.

Using Western Digital 30-Gig hard disk with one primary and two other logical drives in the extended DOS partition. All are freshly formatted.

C=2-Gigs
D=11 Gigs
E=16-Gigs

After copying the initial files, Windows 2000 Setup reboots and reports INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. I went into the BIOS and set it for failsafe defaults and started over. I then got a message that either the hard disk is not present or it is running an OS that is incompatible with Windows 2000.

Main board is an Asus K7M.

Any suggestions?

 

Whack the drive into another 2k box and run your prefered hard drive checking prog, you could have corrupted sectors on it.

Where did you partition and format it? Its best to partition it using 2k's own partitioning deely.

Dizz-E

 

I FDisked (FAT32) and formatted it with a standard Windows 98 Startup disk in the machine where it is now running--rather, not running.

As for a hard disk checking program, I have run Scandisk /Surface and Norton Disk Doctor /Auto /Complete.

Both report no problems with the drive.

I am not a Win2k expert so where is this Win2k partitioning deely you write about and, briefly, how do I use it?

By the way, I have set up a lot of Windows 2000 boxes and used the Windows 98 Startup disk to set up the partitions before; but, this is the first time I have ever seen this business of the OS not seeing the hard disk after it copied a lot of files to it.

 

Alex,

At the point you choose which partition you want to install to, you can also delete/add partitions. If i remember rightly the options are quoted at the bottom of the screen. They are fairly self explanatory. Just delete all of the partitions that are there and add the new ones as required.

Dizz-E

 

Using standard IDE33 controller, or ATA66/100?

 

Alex - a question.

Since you do set up lots of systems, I am curious why you don't just do the partitioning as part of the standard W2K setup process. Partition, pick file system, format, and continue on with setup.

It would seem that doing this piece with a Win98 disk would just add overhead to your setup.

 

Yea I was courious about that too. Why don't you set up your BIOS to boot from CD ROM first and hard drive second. Then throw the win2K disk in the CD ROM and fire the machine up.
Simple as pie.
Unless you are going to do dual boot create an NTFS partition and throw that 98 boot disk out with 98.

 

Obenton asked a very relevant question here. Are you using a regular DMA33 controller for the drives ore are you using a DMA66/100/133 controller?

Win2k is very picky about that, you might need to prepare a diskette with the driver for the controller card, and during the early part of setup you press F6 in order to load drivers for controllers not included on the CD, it might seem as if pressing F6 does nothing, but when the installation quits loading it's own drivers it will ask you to insert the diskette with the driver on it - and it will only accept diskettes, no CD-roms.

I believe that the Intel controllers do not need this procedure, but controllers using the Promise chipset do need it.

As an aside I will agree with some of the other posters here... it is infinitely much easier running install and partitioning at once during the install rather than doing the partitioning beforehand.

 

If he needs controller drivers

The system will just not find the harddrive. He is already into the setup process.


Use the utilities included with 2000 to setup your partitions and format.

 

Asus K7M

is a slot A motherboard. They predate promise ide raid controllers. They also use ata66 I believe. This is an older motherboard. There should be no issues with it until the os is completely installed. You may need the via 4 in 1 drivers but that is not till the OS is completely installed. Check you cables (ide) it sounds like an IO controller or a cable issue. The mobo could have gone south...


All this is relative to the fact that using the 2000 tools on the cd have failed.


Tek