pianoman1948
03-11-2005, 04:30 PM
Am I glad I found PC Guide! it seems like there are some folks here who really know their stuff ... which is what I need. You are gonna love this (sarcasm). I am trying to understand the cause of a very strange problem; having beaten my head against the wall for a couple months, I appreciate your time and patience.
Executive summary:
I am unable to install Windows 2000 (booting from the Windows CD) anymore. Windows setup cannot see my hard disks, which are plugged into a controller card. Most perplexing, I can't find any way to undo this problem. I know about and have always used F6 to install the drivers for the disk controller card during setup. It just doesn't have the desired effect anymore.
More detail:
My computer has an unusual setup (created by the store I bought it from), but has been working fine for years. It has two hard drives that both run off a Promise Technology Ultra100 TX2 PCI disk controller card, and the two motherboard (PC Chips P4 M925LR) IDE ports are connected to two CD burners.
My primary hard drive had 4 partitions, with Windows 2000 on the first three partitions and Windows XP on the fourth, using Microsoft multibooting. All instances of both operating systems have been working fine. I have successfully cleared off (re-formatted) partitions many times and installed Windows (both 2000 and XP), and never had a problem.
But recently I did something I apparently have never done before: cleared off the first (primary) partition (which used to have 2000) and installed Windows XP on it; trying to keep up with the times, I guess.
Big mistake. After doing that, I became unable to boot up any of the remaining 2000 os's (the XPs were fine). I got a message complaining about "can't find hal.dll". What I have read about this problem sounds like 2000 and XP have different needs for some system files in that primary partition, and they are incompatible.
This won't work for me, because I need access to both 2000 and XP, so I set about going back to the way things were.
But this is where the head-scratcher came in: when I tried to do that (re-format the primary partition and re-install 2000), I found that now I am unable to do any Windows 2000 installs at all. I get "Windows setup cannot detect any hard drives on your system" .
Further experimenting has only left me more confused: I zeroed out the hard drive; I put in a different hard drive. My intention was to re-set the disk the way it came new from the manufacturer by wiping out everything on it (which would presumably include all traces of XP). Since that did not happen, I can only conclude there is something hiding on the thing somewhere that I don't yet know about.
It seems that when XP was installed in the primary partition, it modified or destroyed *something* *somewhere* on that hard drive that makes 2000 setup unable to see the hard drive via the controller card. But where? I have run out of places to look! If I put in another drive, the problem goes away. If I subsequently install XP onto the primary partition of that different hard drive, it acquires this mysterious problem too.
So to re-state my experience:
Windows 2000 setup does not see the hard drives plugged into my Promise Ultra 100 TX2 PCI disk controller card (even though F6 during setup appears to load the controller card drivers properly) IF the primary partition on the primary hard drive has, or has had sometime in the past, XP installed on it.
If the drive has never had XP in the primary partition, Windows 2000 setup works fine. If it has had XP in the primary partition, I get the error, even if that primary partition has been re-formatted .... even if the entire disk has been zeroed!
I am not looking for a way to side-step the problem; I have already done that by temporarily plugging the hard drive into the motherboard primary IDE socket long enough to do the Windows 2000 install. But that doesn't explain specifically what's causing the problem, and therefore how to fix it. It doesn't say why what's been working fine for years suddenly quit working. (Besides, I don't want to have to open up the computer and re-wire things every time I want to do a W2K install.) Honest, I am not doing anything differently.
Update a month later: I plugged in another different hard drive, that I know has never had XP on it, and to my shock it has the problem as well. So that seems to shoot my assumption that it is a hard-drive-specific problem, and leaves me even more confused. Perhaps XP is not the culprit. In truth, I'm not sure at what point this became a problem, because I hadn't done any W2K installs for awhile. All I know is, the controller card and all the hard drives work fine in normal operation, and Windows 2000 setup used to work fine, but for some reason, at some point, Windows 2000 setup lost its ability to see the hard drives connected to that card. XP setup does not have this problem.
There must be some technical issues that I am not aware of. Any input would be greatly appreciated. More detail and previous discussion can be found on these forums:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=41066
http://forums.techguy.org/t323510.html
Note: I thought the most promising lead was an MS KB article about Windows setup (although it was talking about XP, not 2K) IGNORING the driver attempting to install via F6 during setup if it thought it already had one (same name, same pnp ID). But I went round and round with Microsoft and never got anywhere.
Thank you kindly,
Ted
Executive summary:
I am unable to install Windows 2000 (booting from the Windows CD) anymore. Windows setup cannot see my hard disks, which are plugged into a controller card. Most perplexing, I can't find any way to undo this problem. I know about and have always used F6 to install the drivers for the disk controller card during setup. It just doesn't have the desired effect anymore.
More detail:
My computer has an unusual setup (created by the store I bought it from), but has been working fine for years. It has two hard drives that both run off a Promise Technology Ultra100 TX2 PCI disk controller card, and the two motherboard (PC Chips P4 M925LR) IDE ports are connected to two CD burners.
My primary hard drive had 4 partitions, with Windows 2000 on the first three partitions and Windows XP on the fourth, using Microsoft multibooting. All instances of both operating systems have been working fine. I have successfully cleared off (re-formatted) partitions many times and installed Windows (both 2000 and XP), and never had a problem.
But recently I did something I apparently have never done before: cleared off the first (primary) partition (which used to have 2000) and installed Windows XP on it; trying to keep up with the times, I guess.
Big mistake. After doing that, I became unable to boot up any of the remaining 2000 os's (the XPs were fine). I got a message complaining about "can't find hal.dll". What I have read about this problem sounds like 2000 and XP have different needs for some system files in that primary partition, and they are incompatible.
This won't work for me, because I need access to both 2000 and XP, so I set about going back to the way things were.
But this is where the head-scratcher came in: when I tried to do that (re-format the primary partition and re-install 2000), I found that now I am unable to do any Windows 2000 installs at all. I get "Windows setup cannot detect any hard drives on your system" .
Further experimenting has only left me more confused: I zeroed out the hard drive; I put in a different hard drive. My intention was to re-set the disk the way it came new from the manufacturer by wiping out everything on it (which would presumably include all traces of XP). Since that did not happen, I can only conclude there is something hiding on the thing somewhere that I don't yet know about.
It seems that when XP was installed in the primary partition, it modified or destroyed *something* *somewhere* on that hard drive that makes 2000 setup unable to see the hard drive via the controller card. But where? I have run out of places to look! If I put in another drive, the problem goes away. If I subsequently install XP onto the primary partition of that different hard drive, it acquires this mysterious problem too.
So to re-state my experience:
Windows 2000 setup does not see the hard drives plugged into my Promise Ultra 100 TX2 PCI disk controller card (even though F6 during setup appears to load the controller card drivers properly) IF the primary partition on the primary hard drive has, or has had sometime in the past, XP installed on it.
If the drive has never had XP in the primary partition, Windows 2000 setup works fine. If it has had XP in the primary partition, I get the error, even if that primary partition has been re-formatted .... even if the entire disk has been zeroed!
I am not looking for a way to side-step the problem; I have already done that by temporarily plugging the hard drive into the motherboard primary IDE socket long enough to do the Windows 2000 install. But that doesn't explain specifically what's causing the problem, and therefore how to fix it. It doesn't say why what's been working fine for years suddenly quit working. (Besides, I don't want to have to open up the computer and re-wire things every time I want to do a W2K install.) Honest, I am not doing anything differently.
Update a month later: I plugged in another different hard drive, that I know has never had XP on it, and to my shock it has the problem as well. So that seems to shoot my assumption that it is a hard-drive-specific problem, and leaves me even more confused. Perhaps XP is not the culprit. In truth, I'm not sure at what point this became a problem, because I hadn't done any W2K installs for awhile. All I know is, the controller card and all the hard drives work fine in normal operation, and Windows 2000 setup used to work fine, but for some reason, at some point, Windows 2000 setup lost its ability to see the hard drives connected to that card. XP setup does not have this problem.
There must be some technical issues that I am not aware of. Any input would be greatly appreciated. More detail and previous discussion can be found on these forums:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=41066
http://forums.techguy.org/t323510.html
Note: I thought the most promising lead was an MS KB article about Windows setup (although it was talking about XP, not 2K) IGNORING the driver attempting to install via F6 during setup if it thought it already had one (same name, same pnp ID). But I went round and round with Microsoft and never got anywhere.
Thank you kindly,
Ted