WIN 2000 Installation Problem

[mesak]

Hello all,

I am experiencing huge problem with installation of Win 2K on my computer. I have erased (formated) my hard drive and boot disk loads the CD ROM but for some reason it won't start the set up file. CD ROM is loaded as Y: drive and whatever I try I can not get the Setup.exe running at all. Every time I try I get error message prompting me to either Abort, Retry or Fail. I understand I need to know exact location of SETUP.EXE file but I also would like to ask if anyone can tell me what command exactly to type in order to get SETUP.exe running.

[degsy]

Hi,

I'm guessing that your PC does not allow Boot from CD-ROM?
As you could try that.


When you bootup via floppy bootdisk then there should be a message on screen to what Drive Letter has been assigned to your CD-ROM drive.

From there you can start the setup by using
x:\i386\winnt.exe

Where x is the CD-ROM drive letter.


Note! If you have slowness trouble with the setup then you may need to load smartdrv before starting setup.

[GretaP]

You'll need to add smartdrv.exe to the startup floppy disk, and load it, as Degsy stated, prior to running setup via winnt.exe in the i386 folder. You can d/load the zipped file from here (http://michaelstevenstech.com/SMARTDRV.zip) and extract the smartdrv.exe file directly to the startup floppy disk.

[mesak]

Hello All,

Following an advice from Greta and degsy I loaded smartdrv.exe onto C: drive but for some reason I still can not install Win2K on my computer. Once files are copied I am asked to restart my computer and when I do that computer atempts to boot from floppy (usually fails because I take floppy out) and than it switches to atempt the boot from CD ROM which also fails for some reason. Once computer attempts to boot from CD and continue the set up of WIN2K I get a message saying:" Video Driver Failed to Initialize ". My question is: What exactly I need to do to avoid this problem and do I have to go into the BIOS and change some settings in there?

I also forgot to mention I have 2 hard drives, CD ROM and CD-Writer on my computer. Do I have to format both hard drives in order to reinstall win2k.

[degsy]

No, You do not need to format both harddrives.

You seem to have a problem with your graphics.
Are they onboard or a card?

What are the PC specs?

[mesak]

Hello all,

Degsy was asking me about PC specs...Well I am not sure about exact PC specs as the PC was given to my by my sister as it is and without any driver disks or supporting software. When I turn up the monitor I get the message saying NVIDIA GE FORCE 2 MX-400 64Mb BIOS and I assume that is the graphic card. Is there any way to load the drivers for this graphic/video card???I have extra video card left over from my old computer and I am thinking about putting that one in my PC but I am not sure how to do it. Is it simply plug and use or I need to do some extra operations to get it running?

Additionally, when I start computer it beggins to load Win2K with something like IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII loading up and than I see the next screen telling me Windows 2000 Professional. Immediatelly after that screen I get the message saying:Video Driver Failed to Initialize Dumping physical memory onto hard drive: %. Any suggestions?


P.S. All the trouble started when I installed modem drivers onto my computer. I think I made mistake by not selecting the port and instead of COM1 I clicked to one saying install on all ports.


Thank you

[degsy]

Hi,

Have you tried removing the Modem?

If you can get into Safemode then goto Device Manager and remove the Modem and Possibly the Display Adaptor.

[mesak]

Hi all,

just quick response to degsy...no man, I can not even access the safe mode. I mean I can opt for it by hitting F8 while Win2K loads but at the end I still get the same message about Video Driver failing to initialize...any more suggestions? As I previously wrote I still have old video card and I am thinking about switching to that one even though that one is not as good as the one I got in the PC now.

[degsy]

If you can then change the vid card.

Did you get Windows installed or are you still in the Setup?

[mesak]

Hi,

Just short notice...still in win2k set up...I think my video card is faulty as I formated C: drive so I guess modem driver is no longer there, right?

[degsy]

Yep, it will be gone if you formatted.

[mesak]

Hi all,

I have found the driver for my video card on the Internet so I was wondering would it help if I burn the driver onto CD at my sister's place and try to reinstall the video card before I decide to give a go with another one...

[degsy]

I thought the problem was that it was bringing the error during setup?

I don't think having the driver will help, unless you are getting into Windows and being able to install the driver.

[mesak]

Hi,

OK error I was mentioning earlier actually happens once I copy files onto C: drive and after computer prompts me to restart the computer in order to continue the set up. Once I restart I get that annoying message saying Video Drive Fail to Initialize...Dumping physical memory onto hard drive: %

[degsy]

Hi,
See if this helps
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=240369

[mesak]

Hi all,

OK I have found drivers for my video card on the internet and have burnt them onto the CD ROM but whatever I try I can not run SETUP.EXE file of the CD ROM. I am constantly getting error message saying "This program can not be run in MS DOS mode. Any ideas how can I get it running? I can still read the directory and content of the CD ROM just for some reason can't get the exe file to work.

[mesak]

Hi all,

I have found the drivers for my video card on the Internet, dowloaded them onto my other computer and burnt them onto CD ROM.However, when I try to run setup.exe file I get the message saying: This program cannot run in MS DOS mode. I wrote down exact directory and all but still no luck. Normal command dir gives me a list of all files on the CD ROM but as I said none of them want to execute as exe file and load drivers for my video card. Any suggestions?

[degsy]

you need to run winnt.exe in the I386 folder.

[mesak]

Hi,

OK I know I need to run winnt.exe in the I386 folder on win2k installation CD but I am asking how to load driver for my video card first to avoid hardware conflict and error occuring during the setup of Win2k saying:"Video driver failed to initialize.Dumping physical memory onto hard drive: %. I found driver on the internet, dowloaded it and burnt it on CD but when I atempt to load them onto C: drive or simply run it to install I get the message saying: This program cannot be run in DOS mode. Is there a way to copy the content of the CD onto hard drive and that is possibile to do it what command I need to use it to copy CD and paste it onto hard drive.

[degsy]

You cannot load a video driver during setup, windows will do that its self.

Check the link to the MSKB article I posted about the error.

[mesak]

Hi all,

just would like to thanks to you all for help with recent win2k installation problem. A friend of my who happened to be IT tech came over today and fixed problem with my video card. Apparently, my motherboard was not INTEL one and therefore did not have video drivers onboard. He loaded all required drivers and on top of that he gave me Intel III 800MHz processor, swapped 2 hard drives (20GBs and 8GBs) for one of 40GBs and also made a home network by connecting my Compaq Armada laptop to my desktop....

[degsy]

Sounds like a nice upgrade :)