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2000 server not booting in diff hardware

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by shanghai sam 1 view

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i have win 2000 advanced server with service pack 2 and tried to connect the hard disk to another p.c. both are p IV and intel machines having 256 MB Ram but different VGA cards and mother boards. While booting in a new machine,inaccessible_boot_device error appears. It is not starting in safe mode also. Can anyone help me how to activate a working hard disk with windows 2000 advanced server in another machine.
Thanks in advance.

3 replies

by timwalsh

The probable problem is that the motherboards have chipsets from different manufacturers. When you insert the disk in the second computer, the IDE drivers residing on the disk do not match the IDE controller on the motherboard. Therefore, windows has no way of actually "reading" the hard drive. When you install Windows, it detects the chipset residing on the MB and installs the correct drivers.

You therefore have two choices:

1. Fdisk/reformat/reinstall - probably not the way you wantto go or you wouldn't be asking this question.
2. Place the drive back in the original computer and follow the directions in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 314082. Basically, what you will do is make some load some files generic drivers for MOST coomon chipsets) from the Win2K installation CDs and make some registry changes that will cause Windows to detect the chipset and use the appropriate drivers upon boot.
(NOTE: If the reason you changed computers is because the first one was kaput, you may have no choice but to use choice 1.)

Hope this helps.

by iofs

Yes. The steps specified in article 314082 has really helped me in bringing up of server in another P IV Machine. I will try this in P III machine and hope that it will work.
Thanks a lot for your response.
With warm regards.

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