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Cannot Install Windows 2000

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by adam

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We recently bought a a dozen computers, and have had NT4.0 installed on it. We were migrating to Windows 2000 and cannot install it on these machines. They will Take all other Window's operating systems including XP but not Windows 2000. The Compters have an ASUS cuv4xe motherboard with VIA chipset. Pentium 4 processor running at 667mhz. Memory is 128mb (Kingston) with a Western Digital WD200 Harddrive Rage 128 Video Card, and a 3com pci nic. All 12 computers will not take the Windows 2000, and Windows 2000 server Operating system. However they will Take All other Windows operating systems.

10 replies

by saihib

You might want to tell us more than "All 12 computers will not take the Windows 2000" What is that supposed to mean? What, exactly, happens when you try to install? What kind of error messages do you get? Post a comment.

by adam

Poster rated this answer.
Well that was not the answer I wanted. I might want to tell you more. I thought I listed it all. What is happening, is that the operating system looks like it's going through it's normal installing routine. Only it takes less time going thru the installation. When the computer restarts to run the error message display's is that there is no operating system. I might want to ad that after the bios boot sequence the windows .ini file does display for a brief moment. ONly to come up with the message missing operating system.

by adam

Well that was not the answer I wanted. I might want to tell you more. I thought I listed it all. What is happening, is that the operating system looks like it's going through it's normal installing routine. Only it takes less time going thru the installation. When the computer restarts to run the error message display's is that there is no operating system. I might want to ad that after the bios boot sequence the windows .ini file does display for a brief moment. ONly to come up with the message missing operating system.

by curacao_dejavu

obviously you have some hardware that is not in the hardware compatibillity list.

when in nt, put the 2000 cd in the crom and go to run and type (assuming d=cdrom): d:\winnt32 /checkupgradeonly

(i have to verify the commanline, will let you later, chkupgradeonly ? )
it will create a upgrade report and you should be able to see what is not compatible with w2k.

Leopold

by thechas

I have a problem with your system specifications.

From the links at Intel's site, the slowest PIV I could find was a 1.3GHz socket 423 CPU.

You can get a PIII or Celeron CPU in socket 370, or Slot 1 that runs at 667MHz.

If you do indeed have PIV's, then the CPU is under-clocked.

I have seen a variety of strange problems with under-clocked CPUs.

Verify what CPU you have, and verify that the front side buss and clock are set correctly for the system.

I looked up the CUV4XE.
It is a socket 370 motherboard, so you have either a PIII or a Celeron CPU, not a PIV.

I would still start by checking the speed of the RAM and the settings for RAM and CPU clock speeds.

Next, I would try booting from a W98 startup disk.
Run fdisk /MBR to clear any strange boot record files from the hard drive.
Run fdisk, and delete ALL partitions on the drive.

Then, re-boot from the W2K CD and try installing.

Chas

by fred07

Hi

Pain

First I pulled the HD
Then I slaved to another pc
Then I formated and used Norton Wipe, once 0's
Then I installed win 95b
Then I installed 2000pro
Then I made my own set of boot disks from 2000pro
Then I reslaved, formated,wiped once 0's
Then I used the boot disks and had a complete install working properly.

I tried the boot disks from bootdisk.com and they did not let me install.

The ones made from my 2000pro did.

fred

by compgirlfhredi

http://www.labmice.net/Windows2000/install/winntupgrd.htm
http://www.labmice.net/Windows2000/install/sysprep.htm
A quick look at the support Microsoft has added to W2K to alleviate past problems with disk cloning suffered by NT4 admins, including an introduction to the System Preparation Tool.
The Windows 2000 System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) Version 1.1 enables administrators to prepare Windows 2000 System Images as part of an automated deployment. Sysprep 1.1 is an update to Sysprep 1.0 and adds the ability to reduce the number of images required in a deployment by supporting multiple mass storage controllers.
--------------------------
Also some VIA mainboards don't support the UDMA 100 rate that the ATA/100-compliant disk requires (these systems usually support UDMA 33 or UDMA 33/66). Apparently the drives don't report backward compatibility properly, and because the Win2K install process is so hardware intensive, the system hangs at this point.
The solution seems to be one of the following:

- Upgrade your BIOS

by compgirlfhredi

Better off to start here

Run winnt32.exe to upgrade from a previous version of Windows.

Upgrade installations from a network file share are not supported in Windows 2000 (this *can* be done, but only by using SMS). You must either do a CD-based upgrade or perform a clean installation of Windows 2000 and re-install needed applications.
Because of registry and program differences between Windows NT and 2000, upgrade packs (or migration DLLs) might be needed. Setup checks for these in the \i386\WinNTmig folder on the Windows 2000 CD-ROM or in a user specified location.
Run winnt32 /checkupgradeonly to check for compatible hardware and software. Generates a report indicating which system components are Windows 2000 compatible. Same as running the chkupgrd.exe utility from Microsoft's site.

by adam

This by far is the answer that has helped the most. WE sent one of the PC's back. And asked for the intel chipset which we had origanlly ordered. When the board came back with the chipset we were able to install the 2000 opserating system. Please not that by then the customer wanted Windows XP so they are all running Windows XP Including the VIA chipset barods

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