cause of this problem?-need help

this is for a friend of mine, I wasn't able to help him, hopefully youg gusy can offer some solutions.

I'm building a new computer and I have a Gigabyte GA-7DXR mobo, 256 ddr ram, a 2100+ amd athlon cpu, and a 10 gig 5400 hdd. Also a lite on cd drive and a floppy drive.

My problem is when I try to install Windows 2000 Pro.

I boot from the floppy drive, with the 4 2000 pro boot disks. It boots up and does the installation. I formatted the hd using ntfs. After it completes the small setup (copying files) it restarts. Now this is my problem. After it restarts, I take the floppy out, and I already have the 2000 pro cd in the cdrom drive. After it restarts it cann’t boot from the hard drive, or the cd rom drive, and just says “GRUB” and locks up. I am positive all the cables are correctly connected and am pretty sure all the hard ware works. Could it be some broken hard ware, or is it a BIOS setting problem? I disabled RAID on the board. I also tried booting in every boot combination. (i.e. Floppy, CD HD-0 ; CD, HD-0, Floppy; HD-0, floppy, cd…etc)

PLtNmHeLiX said:

this is for a friend of mine, I wasn't able to help him, hopefully youg gusy can offer some solutions.

I'm building a new computer and I have a Gigabyte GA-7DXR mobo, 256 ddr ram, a 2100+ amd athlon cpu, and a 10 gig 5400 hdd. Also a lite on cd drive and a floppy drive.

My problem is when I try to install Windows 2000 Pro.

I boot from the floppy drive, with the 4 2000 pro boot disks. It boots up and does the installation. I formatted the hd using ntfs. After it completes the small setup (copying files) it restarts. Now this is my problem. After it restarts, I take the floppy out, and I already have the 2000 pro cd in the cdrom drive. After it restarts it cann’t boot from the hard drive, or the cd rom drive, and just says “GRUB” and locks up. I am positive all the cables are correctly connected and am pretty sure all the hard ware works. Could it be some broken hard ware, or is it a BIOS setting problem? I disabled RAID on the board. I also tried booting in every boot combination. (i.e. Floppy, CD HD-0 ; CD, HD-0, Floppy; HD-0, floppy, cd…etc)

Click to expand...

is that hard drive set as the master to boot to in the bios?? i believe that grub is a linux boot utility??? it sounds familiar... have you formatted every sector of the hard drive???

ah, i just type in "grub" in the search box for the forums... it comes up with tons of linux stuff... i thought it was a boot loader... that is why i am thinking you still have part of a boot partition around... you might wanna get a win98 boot disk and run fdisk... delete every partition listed and then try to install win2k pro. if you need a win98 boot disk, check out http://www.bootdisk.com

Yes

You need to get a boot disk that has fdisk
then boot to it
and type C:
then at the C: prompt

A:FDISK /MBR


or you can just boot to your 2KCD and when you get to the "Welcome to setup" screen just hit F10

then from the RC prompt:

Fixmbr
Exit

Well I had Red Hat Linux 8.0 installed on it before I gave the hd to him, but I formatted it with partition magic and then again during the initial stage of the windows 2000 installation. I thought it'd be formatted by then, but I guess I have to try using fdisk. Thanks guys I'll update you on what happens

Sounds to me as if the previous posts are correct. The computer still thinks a Linux partion is available. Use FDisk from a floppy (even a windows 98 emergency boot disk will work) and delete ALL partitions, including "non-DOS partitions". then try to re-partition and format the the drive. At 10 GB a Windows 98 emergency repair disk should handle this with no problem.

I like and use Partition Magic, but I only do so after I've used a Win98 emergency repair disk to delete EVERY partition on a drive. I even do that before using a Maxtor or WD Diagnostic disk to do a low level format.

Wait a second.

BOOT FROM THE CD. If it's a modern motherboard, it should totally support boot from cd - just enable it in bios. (enable boot from cd AND make sure that in the setting entitled something like 'boot sequence' [or sequency, haha] that the cdrom drive is listed BEFORE the hard drive.)

If all goes well, windows2000 setup should boot from the cd. Delete all partitions on the hard drive, create a new one, format it ntfs, and install 2k on that.

InThrees said:

Wait a second.

BOOT FROM THE CD. If it's a modern motherboard, it should totally support boot from cd - just enable it in bios. (enable boot from cd AND make sure that in the setting entitled something like 'boot sequence' [or sequency, haha] that the cdrom drive is listed BEFORE the hard drive.)

If all goes well, windows2000 setup should boot from the cd. Delete all partitions on the hard drive, create a new one, format it ntfs, and install 2k on that.

Click to expand...

windows 2000 professional doesn't allow you to boot from the cd. (at least that it is how the version i have is as well) that's why he had to use the 4 install disks... it sucks, but that it how it has to be done... i have always wondered if i could copy all the files from the 4 windows 2000 install disks and burn them to a cd and if it would work... when i reinstall win2k, it brings back the memories of installing win95 from my 26 disks

Anytime I install Win2k Pro I boot from cd with no problem at all. You have to select boot from cd in bios, and when system starts it will ask if you want to boot from cd hit enter.

Hardass said:

Anytime I install Win2k Pro I boot from cd with no problem at all. You have to select boot from cd in bios, and when system starts it will ask if you want to boot from cd hit enter.

Click to expand...

believe me, i have it set to boot from the cd as well. how old is your windows 2000 copy? mine is from early 2000...

I have no idea how old it is , but I do know I have used it atleast once a month on my folding rigs and have never used or needed 4 boot disks.

Hardass said:

I have no idea how old it is , but I do know I have used it atleast once a month on my folding rigs and have never used or needed 4 boot disks.

Click to expand...

well that sucks for me...

ghetto 4 disk install...