Replies

1 posted on 04/14/2007 10:58:29 AM PDT by raybbr

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Malsua; HAL9000

2 posted on 04/14/2007 10:59:10 AM PDT by raybbr (You think it's bad now - wait till the anchor babies start to vote.)

Your “system files” are tied to your BIOS. When you changed motherboards, that changed. You may need to boot to the CD with Windows 2000, and reload the hard disk. This was not a project for a novice.

3 posted on 04/14/2007 11:03:27 AM PDT by TommyDale ("Rudy can win the War on Terror!" Perhaps, but for whose side?)

This sounds like a problem with the MB's bios not reading the drives correctly. This most often occurs with hard drive/CD drive jumpers being set to CS - Cable Select, and the drives' position on the IDE cable determining which drive is C: or D:, master or slave, etc. I've found that the CS setting is not implemented properly from one drive manufacturer to another, from one drive series to another, and sometimes not by the MB manufacturer. I've fought a motley collection of personal PC's and friend's PC's during upgrades and repairs, and the drive master/slave setting problem almost always appears.

I've learned to jumper the master drive as master, the slave drive as slave, and try different drive cables until the bios correctly and instantly recognizes each drive. I keep both 40 and 80 conductor ribbon cables on hand and swap them until the drives work right.

If the bios can't read the drives correctly there will be a hang up during boot while the bios routines try to figure out what's connected on those IDE cables.

5 posted on 04/14/2007 11:11:03 AM PDT by Dumpster Baby ("Hope somebody finds me before the rats do .....")

Download Knoppix 5.1.1 and burn it to a CD. Boot your computer with it, and copy off your data that you need. Once that is finished, reinstall windows from the bare metal and restore your data.

8 posted on 04/14/2007 11:21:21 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)

I had to remap the drives in W2K to get the sequence right

I now think this is the heart of the problem. This is a fatal mistake while upgrading small drives to big drives by transferring the small drive contents to the big drive. Never, ever remap drives when you are going to remove the old drive. You end up with file references that no longer exist, or are on partitions that are no longer visible.

Best bet is to save your data as best you can, wipe all partitions, reinstall W98, upgrade to W2K - all with ONE drive installed, the big drive.

Never, ever remap a drive you're going to remove from the system.

29 posted on 04/14/2007 5:33:51 PM PDT by Dumpster Baby ("Hope somebody finds me before the rats do .....")

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