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Cannot load a OS on new machine

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by total geek

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HI,
I have recently installed a new motherboard with everything on board. I placed a new 40GB HDD, fdisk it, and formatted it. The board is spporting an AMD Duron 1300 with 256MB SDRAM. Originally the HDD had diskwizard installed so that it could be read on the previous motherboard. The Logo still comes up in CMOS even though it is not loaded on the new pc. I have even tried the old HDD that the machine had before the upgrade in motherboard and it keeps crashing on me.
At one point, I got an error like the following:
Memory Allocation Error,Cannot load COMMAND, system halted.

At this point I can do nothing than hold the power button in and wait for it to turn itself off.
I tried using the Windows 2000 Pro CD at start up but it keeps hanging when going through the setup files.
Can anyone help me on this please as I am supposed to have this pc ready for Friday afternoon.
Look forward to a response

Thanks
Mil

21 replies

by opatzg9

Cannot load command would imply you didn't format with the /s option to transfer the system files, either reformat
format c: /s
or do
sys c:
Both will put the necessary boot files onto the hard drive, as for the drive mastering software screenshowing up, that concerns me a little, you may need to remove that with the drive mastering software tools or you need to accept it as controlling disk access. Keep and eye out for Chas or Maxwell or the DR, they may have more ideas on removing that.
Good Luck

by rcom

The error you mentioned means, a software issue has corrupted the ram area in which DOS (COMMAND) keeps track of the available memory. Normally you could just sys the drive and that most of the time used to take care of this. But since it's windows 2000 and the disk manager software is still installed that probably won't work.

I don't know of any disk management software that comes up in the CMOS (BIOS)? A SCSI adapter BIOS loads before the devices are shown. That still wouldn't be in the CMOS. Since it's part of the boot process for the drive, the disk management software won't come up until just before command loads. If you boot to a disk the disk manager isn't started at all. I'd say the problem is, you need to uninstall the disk manager software from the drive. Or use it to setup the drive.

by bobho

If you're using DiskWizard I'm assuming you have a Seagate HDD. Try this:

- if this is the only hdd on the controller put the jumper in the park setting.
- it the above doesn't work remove the jumper entirely.

Seagate seems to have some problems with 40gb drives and certain mobos. And it doesn't help that their documentation isn't all that clear.

Let us know what happens.

Enjoy,

DrBob:>)

by lordinfidel

When you put the 2k cd in and boot off it,

When it get's to the install into partition part, how many partitions are there?

I would say delete them all, including the 8 meg partition. Then install it on the unpartitioned space and format it ntfs.

If though you do not even get that far and 2K can not see your HDD. Then either A upg the bios or B check to make sure that you are on the right controller and that it is not some weird controller that you have to install drivers for during set-up.

This would be similiar to loading up a scsi controller by pressing F6 during setup.

by cg it

You've stated that the 40GB HD had diskwizard installed on it so that you could use it with the old system. I believe that is the culprit. 3rd party disk management software, when installed, writes code to the MBR which can interfer with O/S installation [by write protecting boot sector files it installs]. You can use the 3rd party disk management software to load the O/S [much like using System Commander] but if you just try loading the O/S by CD the O/S requires access to the boot sector of the hard drive to install and is being denied this by the 3rd party software. Uninstall the Disk Management software and that should resolve your problem. If you have problems removing the software [including all files written to the MBR, the only wayto get rid of it is to delete the MBR [a command line function] and recreate it without 3rd party software.

Note: the Logo that you see that says "DISK Management or some other visual like a logo is from the disk management software that resideson the hard drive, not the CMOS table (I know of no disk management software that can flash program a BIOS.

by cg it

footnote: Using Fdisk utility probably won't remove the MBR write protected files the diskwizard has installed. Again, best chances of getting your computer going is the delete the MBR and start all over clean without using the Diskwizard software.

by cg it

Once you've deleted the MBR, insert your boot floppy disk that contains the fdisk utility. Create a primary partition, activate the partition, then format that partition. After you've accomplished that, insert your Windows O/S CD and reboot. You should be able to install your O/S.

by cg it

This is a little explanation for what's going on: When you create a partition, what happens is that a Master Boot Record is created at sector [cyl 0, Hd 0,] and contains the "master partition table" & the "master boot code". The master boot code is what's used by the BIOS to pass control of the system to the partition that's made active. If no partition is made active[even if you've created a C: drive] nothing will boot [no ACTIVE bootable partition exists]. 3rd party software such as System Commander or those supplied by hard drive manufacturers create this MBR with their own code which allows that software to be used to boot up the computer without the O/S present. This is for installing multiple O/S's on a computer. Corruption or any problems with the BIOS in reading the master boot code will result in not being able to pass control of the system (BIOS) to the hard drive where an O/S takes over control. To repair a MBR, use the fdisk/MBR command at the command line. This will have fdisk try to repair the MBR.

by chris willhoite

If fdisk /mbr doesn't work I'd suggest you use AEfdisk (http://www.aefdisk.com/) I've had problems removing strange partitions and disk managers with Microsoft's fdisk utility and AEfdisk has always worked on them. Be sure to read the documentation,it can be a little confusing without it.

by sonnguyen

To remove the soft controller ie the disk management programs that come with the disk such as Maxtor or Western Digital HDD, the best way is to use debug.exe that can be found in a win 95 boot disk.
Boot the system up with this win95 diskett then use debug.exe at the A promt. Further commands required but you can find them on the web or if you need them please let me know.

by aj_jacobs

I would try FDisk /mbr this will rewrite the master boot record (mbr) if this do not work then

To expand on sonnguyen@yahoo.com comments here is the debug command. !!!!! CAUTION USE WITH CARE !!!!! make sure that this is what you want to do. Itwill wipe the partition area of your hard drive. REMOVE ALL OTHER HARD DRIVE OTHER THAN THE ONE YOU WANT TO REFORMAT. MAKE IT THE C DRIVE BOOT FROM A DOS DISK AND RUN DEBUG.
IF YOU COPY THIS CODE TO A FILE AND NAME IT SAY
CLEANDSK.SCR FROM THE COMMAND LINE TYPE
DEBUG < CLEANDSK.SCR. Again make sure this is what you want to do and that no other hard drive is load.

Code -->
F 200 L1000 0
A cs:100
mov ax,301
mov bx,200
mov cx,1
mov dx,80 <-- c drive
int 13
int 20 (make sure this is a blank line)
g
q

by total geek

I found out what the problem was. My hubby had inserted the old Modem into the PCI slot. The new motherboard comes with a modem that you insert into special slot. When I removed the modem, it worked fine. I was able to install Windows 2000 without any probs. What a headache?

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