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Failure installing NT

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by ltop

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Hi all,

I replaced a PC that was doing some low level stuff. I have plenty of spare NT w/station licences, so I tried to load one onto the new PC.

PC is a white box - Celeron 2.6, 512Mb PC3200 ram, foxconn 661fx4mres mobo w/- onboard vid/lan/snd, 40gb WD hdd, s/sung cdrw. All new parts.
No PCI cards.

Created a partition using fdisk and formatted.

HDD = prim master / CDRW = prim slave

Checked the boot sequence to boot from winnt cd, everything starts as normal, but during load of initial files, while copying cd-rom file system, the install stops, screen fills with zero's, and im not too sure what else, before disappearing really quickly and re-booting.

If left alone, just continually loops thru this install failure.

Checked all cables - re-seated the RAM - no change.

(changed boot seq)Tried install using the winnt floppies - similar result , but at a slightly different point of the loading of the files.

Moved the cdrw onto the secondary ide - same result. swapped out the cdrw for a cdrom - no change. Removed the cdrw/cdrom completely and used the floppy install - same result.

Tried installing XPPro Sp2 - no problems whatsoever - smooth as.

I know I should prob upgrade in any case from NT to XP, but it has me pissed as to why I cant load NT.

Any thoughts/ideas appreciated.

cheers

North Queensland Cowboys to Win the NRL Final this Sunday 2nd October.

23 replies

by toivo talikka

Old NT may be running out of tricks with the latest motherboards. The XP approach may be the only viable option you have, but here is my 2 cents worth:

I saw almost a similar problem a few years ago with a new PC. I checked that the hardware itself was all right by installing W2K server without any problems. I ended up sending the box (it was a name brand) to the dealer and it came back with the Windows NT operating system installed. When I noticed that the hard drive was dangling free inside the case, my conclusion was that the technicians moved the disk first to a slower PC to do the installation and then moved it back to the original case.

You could try to move your hard drive temporarily to a PC which already runs NT. Do the installation and move the disk back and then install the motherboard specific drivers.

by toivo talikka

As pointed out in Answer 5, there is a maximum size for a boot partition in NT, which is slightly less than 8GB, around 7.8GB. If you connect the hard drive to another PC running NT Workstation, you can create the partition and format it using Windisk. If you clone the disk so that the boot partition is e.g. 40GB and then have to re-apply SP6, the chances are that the server will not be able to boot and needs to be rebuilt.

Otherwise, if you install from the CD, the maximum size you can create is 4GB. WinNT creates a FAT partition first and then converts it to NTFS.

by ltop

Thanks Toivo, I agree with most of what you say.

Regards install on another PC and moving the hdd to the target PC, I have always thought that was fraught with problems, and maybe the Xp option could be the only one left.

cheers

by newitguy

This may be a simple overlook. Are you sure the cd isn't damaged? Do you have another NT disk?

by ltop

Thanks anyway - I have tried multiple cd's, all which have worked fine in the past.

regards

by hal 9000

Well a couple of things spring to mind I've used NT4 on CPU's faster than 2.6 but never with a Celeron and with the on-board Vid that may be the problem as there are no drivers to support the Vid.

But the biggest problem that I've had with installing NT onto new hardware is the Cylinder Limit of the HDD's which is 1022 and if you have already formatted up the HDD and then tried to install NT on a drive with more than 1022 cylinders you would get all types of problems.

Now days I use the Format function in the Install utility when installing NT onto new hardware and so far haven't had much of a problem as the installer just ignores the extra drive capacity. Of course that is with the Server version of NT I've haven't used the W'Station version for a very long time now but it should work the same.

Col

by ltop

Thanks Col - a compatability issue with the motherboard and NT - I installed XP and works fine

by sue t

I had a similar problem and found that I had to boot to the NT boot floppies that came with the CD to do the install. If you don't have the floppies you should be able to download them.

by ltop

Thanks Sue, I mentioned above I have tried using the NT boot floppies with no success,

regards

by thechas

Just another 2 cents here.

First, 40GB is too large a primary partition for NT.

There is a maximum size limit for the boot partition.

One work-around is to create a small boot partition and load NT into a secondary partition or drive.

Second, I suspect that your new motherboard has a drive controller that is not supported by NT's default set of drivers.

Download or extract the NT driver for the IDE controller and make sure to load it when the NT installer asks if you need to load a 3rd party storage controller.

Chas

by ltop

Thanks Chas,
Your right about the partition size. NT won't generally allow installation on a partition bigger than 4Gb, which is my default when using the format utility during the NT CD install.

Regards the drive controller, the install fails way before the option to install additional devices/controllers.

The work around - create a small boot and load NT onto a secondary partition?

I created a 400Mb primary dos partition but unfortunately it failed during the install and re-booted again, and again

by ltop

Thanks Col,

Ive installed on PCs that I haven't had vid drivers for, but never had it fail during NT install and re-boot, but then again I've not seen everything.

I also normally use the format function from the install utility, and agree with your comments.

I'll hunt around for a vid/card that I can test this on.

regards

by ltop

In case anyone was wondering, Ive run the Datalifeguard diagnostics on the HDD, from Western Digital, and the HDD passed without problems

by sgt_shultz

wonder what kind of disk controller, hd model numbers.
wonder if you have real time cd drivers loading via config.sys

by ltop

Thanks Sarge - a compatability issue with the motherboard I found out - installed Xp fine

by allthegoodnamesweregone

is the RAM one stick or two? if it's just one, do you have another stick or another system to put it in to verify it is good?

if the memory is good, it's most likely a compatibility issue with the motherboard. just install xp and let it be.

by ltop

Thanks for taking the time to answer - RAM is fine - In the end I installed Xp and worked fine.

by p.j.hutchison

A few tweaks you can use. In the BIOS:
Turn off Plug n Play OS option.
Turn off USB ports.

Also make sure boot partition does not exceed 7.8GB (with a
service pack installed)
Also do not exceed 2GB of RAM (needs SP installed for more RAM).

by ltop

Thanks for taking the time to answer - boot part 4Gb - RAM 512Mb.

I didnt get to try the bios tweaks but will file in case I get a similar prob at a later date.

by winterfrost

What "low level stuff" was this system doing previously? Was it running another OS?

I only ask because it sounds similar to some problems I've had installing to systems with "unrecognized" partitions. Have you tried "fdisk /mbr"? Or even better, use something like Ranish partition manager (http://www.ranish.com/part/) to check the partitions and make sure the installation partition isn't appearing as "unrecognized" or something which NT might choke on.

by ltop

Thanks for taking the time to answer - A compatability issue with the motherboard and NT - I installed Xp and all works fine

by ltop

Thanks to all who took the time to answer and my apology's for not responding as quickly as I should have to your answers.

regards

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