New system won't boot Windows 2000. Please help.

Please can somebody help me - this is driving me nuts !
Put a new system together: XP2400 on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP with 512 Mb
DDR2700, 60 Gb Seagate HD and Matrox G400 graphics.
Booted-up a DOS floppy fine and used FDISK to prep the drive.
Tried installing Windows 2000: All went easily until it came to the part
where it re-boots and is 'running Windows for the first time' - it just
hangs indefinitely ! :-) Tried several times - same result.
Did a fresh build of Win 2K with the drive installed on a Duron 1200, and
then moved the drive over to the XP2400. No complaints, no errors, it just
hangs when the 'Starting Windows' progress stripe has completed.
Tried swapping memory and also tried swapping the motherboard for another -
GA-7VRXP Rev 1.1 - even tried using a different hard drive and still the
same hanging problem.
So, where do I go now ?
Does Windows 2000 have problems running on the XP series of Athlons ?
Does Windows 2000 have problems running on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP motherboard ?
I've had Windows 2000 installed on many other systems - Pentium MMX 200,
P-II 333, P-III 733, Athlon 1.0 & Athlon 1.4 - all fine. Whatever is going
wrong on the XP2400 really has me stumped !
I'd be very grateful of any help offered.
TIA,
Kevin.

"Kevin Lawton" wrote in message
...
Please can somebody help me - this is driving me nuts !
Put a new system together: XP2400 on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP with 512 Mb
DDR2700, 60 Gb Seagate HD and Matrox G400 graphics.
Booted-up a DOS floppy fine and used FDISK to prep the drive.
Tried installing Windows 2000: All went easily until it came to the part
where it re-boots and is 'running Windows for the first time' - it just
hangs indefinitely ! :-) Tried several times - same result.
Did a fresh build of Win 2K with the drive installed on a Duron 1200, and
then moved the drive over to the XP2400. No complaints, no errors, it just
hangs when the 'Starting Windows' progress stripe has completed.
Tried swapping memory and also tried swapping the motherboard for
another -
GA-7VRXP Rev 1.1 - even tried using a different hard drive and still the
same hanging problem.
So, where do I go now ?
Does Windows 2000 have problems running on the XP series of Athlons ?
Does Windows 2000 have problems running on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP motherboard
?
I've had Windows 2000 installed on many other systems - Pentium MMX 200,
P-II 333, P-III 733, Athlon 1.0 & Athlon 1.4 - all fine. Whatever is going
wrong on the XP2400 really has me stumped !
I'd be very grateful of any help offered.


I have a dedicated audio and video capture machine here based on Shuttle
AK38N mobo, KT333 chipset, same as your VRXP, Matrox G400 Marvel (does mjpeg
hardware compression, i.e. easy to edit, and removes Macrovision protection
from VHS tapes), XP 2600+ and 512MB RAM. Runs Win2k perfectly. I also do
200+ Win2k installs annually (industrial PCs) and succeeded in getting it to
run on anything from P233 notebook upwards.

1) No need to use FDISK to "prep" a drive for NT class OS installation, use
the built-in facility

2) ntldr starts loading the OS in 16 bit 'real' mode indicated by the white
bar running left to right. At that point it switches to 32 bit 'protected'
mode and starts loading 32 bit drivers (blue bar running across). It seems
that your system halts at that point. How is your HDD connected? Primary,
secondary IDE, Promise port? If Promise port, is the drive configured
correctly as a single drive RAID array? And did you hit F6 and had the
appropriate drivers prepared on a floppy at the beginning of install?

3) Only other option is that your processor is faulty, halts when switching
to 'protected'. mode.

Thanks, Zord.
What a coincidence ! Oddly enough, once this is working okay, this machine
will be having a Matrox Rainbow Runner installed alongside the G400 for
doing video capture. I like Matrox cards - usually no issues. Also, like
yourself, I have Win2K running on a range of machines from a Pentium MMX 200
upwards.
Didn't know anything about the 'F6' thing. I usually just let Win2K start
off with its default drivers on a 'minimal build' and then start adding
extra bits and drivers once something is working.
The 60 Gb Seagate is the only HD in the system at the moment, conected to
the primary 'ordinary' IDE channel (I didn't want to complicate things yet).
The promise RAID channels are 'switched off' in the BIOS, though I've tried
that setting different ways (no change). I've also tried having sound, LAN
and USB switched of in the BIOS to keep it all as simple as possible. Once
Win2K is up and running it is easy enough to enable things one-at-a-time
later.
I hadn't previosly considered a potentially faulty processor. It works okay
in DOS, but of course that is real mode only. I'd like to exhaust all other
options before going to the expense of buying a replacement for it.
Following the processor train of thought, maybe I could download a free copy
of a different op system which uses protected mode and try that ? A recent
distro of Linux, like RedHat or Mandrake, springs to mind. What do you
think - any other ideas ?
Thanks for your help,
Kevin.

Alien Zord wrote:
| "Kevin Lawton" wrote in message
| ...
|| Please can somebody help me - this is driving me nuts !
|| Put a new system together: XP2400 on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP with 512 Mb
|| DDR2700, 60 Gb Seagate HD and Matrox G400 graphics.
|| Booted-up a DOS floppy fine and used FDISK to prep the drive.
|| Tried installing Windows 2000: All went easily until it came to the
|| part where it re-boots and is 'running Windows for the first time' -
|| it just hangs indefinitely ! :-) Tried several times - same
|| result.
|| Did a fresh build of Win 2K with the drive installed on a Duron
|| 1200, and then moved the drive over to the XP2400. No complaints, no
|| errors, it just hangs when the 'Starting Windows' progress stripe
|| has completed.
|| Tried swapping memory and also tried swapping the motherboard for
| another -
|| GA-7VRXP Rev 1.1 - even tried using a different hard drive and still
|| the same hanging problem.
|| So, where do I go now ?
|| Does Windows 2000 have problems running on the XP series of Athlons ?
|| Does Windows 2000 have problems running on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP
|| motherboard ? I've had Windows 2000 installed on many other systems
|| - Pentium MMX 200, P-II 333, P-III 733, Athlon 1.0 & Athlon 1.4 -
|| all fine. Whatever is going wrong on the XP2400 really has me
|| stumped !
|| I'd be very grateful of any help offered.
||
||
| I have a dedicated audio and video capture machine here based on
| Shuttle AK38N mobo, KT333 chipset, same as your VRXP, Matrox G400
| Marvel (does mjpeg hardware compression, i.e. easy to edit, and
| removes Macrovision protection from VHS tapes), XP 2600+ and 512MB
| RAM. Runs Win2k perfectly. I also do 200+ Win2k installs annually
| (industrial PCs) and succeeded in getting it to run on anything from
| P233 notebook upwards.
|
| 1) No need to use FDISK to "prep" a drive for NT class OS
| installation, use the built-in facility
|
| 2) ntldr starts loading the OS in 16 bit 'real' mode indicated by the
| white bar running left to right. At that point it switches to 32 bit
| 'protected' mode and starts loading 32 bit drivers (blue bar running
| across). It seems that your system halts at that point. How is your
| HDD connected? Primary, secondary IDE, Promise port? If Promise port,
| is the drive configured correctly as a single drive RAID array? And
| did you hit F6 and had the appropriate drivers prepared on a floppy
| at the beginning of install?
|
| 3) Only other option is that your processor is faulty, halts when
| switching to 'protected'. mode.

"Kevin Lawton" wrote in message
...
Thanks, Zord.
What a coincidence ! Oddly enough, once this is working okay, this
machine
will be having a Matrox Rainbow Runner installed alongside the G400 for
doing video capture. I like Matrox cards - usually no issues. Also, like
yourself, I have Win2K running on a range of machines from a Pentium MMX
200
upwards.
Didn't know anything about the 'F6' thing. I usually just let Win2K start
off with its default drivers on a 'minimal build' and then start adding
extra bits and drivers once something is working.
The 60 Gb Seagate is the only HD in the system at the moment, conected to
the primary 'ordinary' IDE channel (I didn't want to complicate things
yet).
The promise RAID channels are 'switched off' in the BIOS, though I've
tried
that setting different ways (no change). I've also tried having sound, LAN
and USB switched of in the BIOS to keep it all as simple as possible. Once
Win2K is up and running it is easy enough to enable things one-at-a-time
later.
I hadn't previosly considered a potentially faulty processor. It works
okay
in DOS, but of course that is real mode only. I'd like to exhaust all
other
options before going to the expense of buying a replacement for it.
Following the processor train of thought, maybe I could download a free
copy
of a different op system which uses protected mode and try that ? A
recent
distro of Linux, like RedHat or Mandrake, springs to mind. What do you
think - any other ideas ?
Thanks for your help,
Kevin.


I too have a Rainbow Runner / Mystique 220 combo in a 366MHz K6/2 PC running
NT4.0 but its video resolution is limited to 160 x 120 pixels and no driver
support for later OSes.

Two more ideas:
1) Your G400 isn't a dual head sending video to the wrong socket?
2) Have you tried starting in safe mode? It will list all the software
modules as they load halting hopefully on the faulting one.

Alien Zord wrote:
| "Kevin Lawton" wrote in message
| ...
|| Thanks, Zord.
|| What a coincidence ! Oddly enough, once this is working okay, this
|| machine will be having a Matrox Rainbow Runner installed alongside
|| the G400 for doing video capture. I like Matrox cards - usually no
|| issues. Also, like yourself, I have Win2K running on a range of
|| machines from a Pentium MMX 200 upwards.
|| Didn't know anything about the 'F6' thing. I usually just let Win2K
|| start off with its default drivers on a 'minimal build' and then
|| start adding extra bits and drivers once something is working.
|| The 60 Gb Seagate is the only HD in the system at the moment,
|| conected to the primary 'ordinary' IDE channel (I didn't want to
|| complicate things yet). The promise RAID channels are 'switched off'
|| in the BIOS, though I've tried that setting different ways (no
|| change). I've also tried having sound, LAN and USB switched of in
|| the BIOS to keep it all as simple as possible. Once Win2K is up and
|| running it is easy enough to enable things one-at-a-time later.
|| I hadn't previosly considered a potentially faulty processor. It
|| works okay in DOS, but of course that is real mode only. I'd like to
|| exhaust all other options before going to the expense of buying a
|| replacement for it. Following the processor train of thought, maybe
|| I could download a free copy of a different op system which uses
|| protected mode and try that ? A recent distro of Linux, like RedHat
|| or Mandrake, springs to mind. What do you think - any other ideas ?
|| Thanks for your help,
|| Kevin.
||
||
| I too have a Rainbow Runner / Mystique 220 combo in a 366MHz K6/2 PC
| running NT4.0 but its video resolution is limited to 160 x 120 pixels
| and no driver support for later OSes.
|
| Two more ideas:
| 1) Your G400 isn't a dual head sending video to the wrong socket?
| 2) Have you tried starting in safe mode? It will list all the software
| modules as they load halting hopefully on the faulting one.

Thanks, Zord.
Tried having a screen connected to the second output of the G400 but nothing
on that at all (as expected).
Tried booting in 'Safe Mode with Command Prompt'. The last line before the
system hangs reads:
,,,,WINNT\System32\Drivers\Mup.sys .
Having spent a lot of time browsing around several newsgroups and forums, it
seems that this problem (which seems quite common) is occurring after
Mup.sys has been loaded - while device drivers are beng loaded - so it might
be a driver issue, but this is a fresh install of Win2K. Some people seem to
get resolution by either removing some hardware temporarily or adding
something, which will change both the drivers loaded and the amount of power
consumed. I guess as each driver is loaded its corresponding device is
initialised, which will draw current.
Anyway, for me this seems to be a Microsoft 'gotcha' as all I can now think
to do is to spend money to replace parts I haven't already swapped: Graphics
card, Power Supply and Processor - in order of increasing cost. I would
abandon Windows and use Linux instead if it were not for the software for
the Rainbow Runner and my Phone, which are only available for Windows.
Possible alternative might be to dual-boot Linux with a version of Windows
95, probably Me, but I really didn't want to have to take that route as
Win2K is so much better than Me in many respects.
Very gratefull of your help so far with this, but I'm starting to worry that
this new ystem I've put together might not be all I'd hoped it would.
Kevin.

On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 15:25:18 +0000, Kevin Lawton wrote:

Please can somebody help me - this is driving me nuts !
Put a new system together: XP2400 on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP with 512 Mb
DDR2700, 60 Gb Seagate HD and Matrox G400 graphics.
Booted-up a DOS floppy fine and used FDISK to prep the drive.
Tried installing Windows 2000: All went easily until it came to the part
where it re-boots and is 'running Windows for the first time' - it just
hangs indefinitely ! :-) Tried several times - same result.
Did a fresh build of Win 2K with the drive installed on a Duron 1200, and
then moved the drive over to the XP2400. No complaints, no errors, it just
hangs when the 'Starting Windows' progress stripe has completed.
Tried swapping memory and also tried swapping the motherboard for another -
GA-7VRXP Rev 1.1 - even tried using a different hard drive and still the
same hanging problem.
So, where do I go now ?
Does Windows 2000 have problems running on the XP series of Athlons ?
Does Windows 2000 have problems running on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP motherboard ?
I've had Windows 2000 installed on many other systems - Pentium MMX 200,
P-II 333, P-III 733, Athlon 1.0 & Athlon 1.4 - all fine. Whatever is going
wrong on the XP2400 really has me stumped !
I'd be very grateful of any help offered.
TIA,
Kevin.

I know that you're a Windoze person but just for grins why don't you
install Linux just to confirm that your hardware is OK. I'd suggest that
you download a copy of Mandrake 10.0 Community from the following address,

http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#586

Download the ISOs and burn the CDROMs. It's free so you have nothing to
lose. Linux is much much easier to install then Windows mostly because
Linux distributions are updated every few months as opposed to Windows
which is hardly ever reved. As you've found out your Win2K install CDROM
is missing some critical drivers, that's because it's four years old.
Mandrake 10.0 came out last month so it should have everything you need.

"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news | On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 15:25:18 +0000, Kevin Lawton wrote:
|
| Please can somebody help me - this is driving me nuts !
| Put a new system together: XP2400 on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP with 512 Mb
| DDR2700, 60 Gb Seagate HD and Matrox G400 graphics.
| Booted-up a DOS floppy fine and used FDISK to prep the drive.
| Tried installing Windows 2000: All went easily until it came to the part
| where it re-boots and is 'running Windows for the first time' - it just
| hangs indefinitely ! :-) Tried several times - same result.
| Did a fresh build of Win 2K with the drive installed on a Duron 1200,
and
| then moved the drive over to the XP2400. No complaints, no errors, it
just
| hangs when the 'Starting Windows' progress stripe has completed.
| Tried swapping memory and also tried swapping the motherboard for
another -
| GA-7VRXP Rev 1.1 - even tried using a different hard drive and still the
| same hanging problem.
| So, where do I go now ?
| Does Windows 2000 have problems running on the XP series of Athlons ?
| Does Windows 2000 have problems running on a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP
motherboard ?
| I've had Windows 2000 installed on many other systems - Pentium MMX 200,
| P-II 333, P-III 733, Athlon 1.0 & Athlon 1.4 - all fine. Whatever is
going
| wrong on the XP2400 really has me stumped !
| I'd be very grateful of any help offered.
| TIA,
| Kevin.
|
| I know that you're a Windoze person but just for grins why don't you
| install Linux just to confirm that your hardware is OK. I'd suggest that
| you download a copy of Mandrake 10.0 Community from the following address,
|
| http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#586
|
| Download the ISOs and burn the CDROMs. It's free so you have nothing to
| lose. Linux is much much easier to install then Windows mostly because
| Linux distributions are updated every few months as opposed to Windows
| which is hardly ever reved. As you've found out your Win2K install CDROM
| is missing some critical drivers, that's because it's four years old.
| Mandrake 10.0 came out last month so it should have everything you need.
|

General Schvantzkoph wrote:
| On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 15:25:18 +0000, Kevin Lawton wrote:
| I know that you're a Windoze person but just for grins why don't you
| install Linux just to confirm that your hardware is OK. I'd suggest
| that
| you download a copy of Mandrake 10.0 Community from the following
| address,
|
| http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#586
|
| Download the ISOs and burn the CDROMs. It's free so you have nothing
| to
| lose. Linux is much much easier to install then Windows mostly because
| Linux distributions are updated every few months as opposed to Windows
| which is hardly ever reved. As you've found out your Win2K install
| CDROM
| is missing some critical drivers, that's because it's four years old.
| Mandrake 10.0 came out last month so it should have everything you
| need.

To be honest, I am far from being a 'Windows person' - I hate Microsoft and
everything about them - from the monopoly-protecting restrictive trading
practises to the EULA. Unfortunately there is some software which I have to
run (you could call it 'mission critical') which is only available under
Windows, so I try to grin and bear it. At least Win2K is somewhat more
stable and, dare I say it, more 'professional' than the Win95 series - and
thankfully somewhat lighter than WinXP. Though, if you think my problem is
down to old-Windows-drivers-on-new-hardware, then I guess I could try WinXP
Pro to see if that works. My concern is that I've seen this self same
problem reported on WinXP installations also - and never any conclusive
solution. :-(
I was considering giving Linux a try to 'prove' the hardware - which, though
new, has all been available for at least a year. I was thinking Mandrake 9
as I already have the CDs, or maybe Knoppix as you don't actually have to
'install' it. Most other op systems I know of either only run in 16-bit real
mode (and DOS runs fine) or require patching to overcome issues with the
streaming SIMD instructions of the XP series of processors (eg: BeOS).
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll post back tomorrow ater I've tried Linux.
Kevin.

On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 00:04:20 +0000, Kevin Lawton wrote:


To be honest, I am far from being a 'Windows person' - I hate Microsoft and
everything about them - from the monopoly-protecting restrictive trading
practises to the EULA. Unfortunately there is some software which I have to
run (you could call it 'mission critical') which is only available under
Windows, so I try to grin and bear it. At least Win2K is somewhat more
stable and, dare I say it, more 'professional' than the Win95 series - and
thankfully somewhat lighter than WinXP. Though, if you think my problem is
down to old-Windows-drivers-on-new-hardware, then I guess I could try WinXP
Pro to see if that works. My concern is that I've seen this self same
problem reported on WinXP installations also - and never any conclusive
solution. :-(
I was considering giving Linux a try to 'prove' the hardware - which, though
new, has all been available for at least a year. I was thinking Mandrake 9
as I already have the CDs, or maybe Knoppix as you don't actually have to
'install' it. Most other op systems I know of either only run in 16-bit real
mode (and DOS runs fine) or require patching to overcome issues with the
streaming SIMD instructions of the XP series of processors (eg: BeOS).
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll post back tomorrow ater I've tried Linux.
Kevin.

Will the Windows application that you need run under Win98 and does it
require than more than 128M? If it can run on Win98 and doesn't require
more than 128M of memory then you could run it under Win4Lin and dump
Win2K altogether.

On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 00:04:20 +0000, Kevin Lawton wrote:

General Schvantzkoph wrote:
| On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 15:25:18 +0000, Kevin Lawton wrote:
| I know that you're a Windoze person but just for grins why don't you
| install Linux just to confirm that your hardware is OK. I'd suggest
| that
| you download a copy of Mandrake 10.0 Community from the following
| address,
|
| http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#586
|
| Download the ISOs and burn the CDROMs. It's free so you have nothing
| to
| lose. Linux is much much easier to install then Windows mostly because
| Linux distributions are updated every few months as opposed to Windows
| which is hardly ever reved. As you've found out your Win2K install
| CDROM
| is missing some critical drivers, that's because it's four years old.
| Mandrake 10.0 came out last month so it should have everything you
| need.

To be honest, I am far from being a 'Windows person' - I hate Microsoft and
everything about them - from the monopoly-protecting restrictive trading
practises to the EULA. Unfortunately there is some software which I have to
run (you could call it 'mission critical') which is only available under
Windows, so I try to grin and bear it. At least Win2K is somewhat more
stable and, dare I say it, more 'professional' than the Win95 series - and
thankfully somewhat lighter than WinXP. Though, if you think my problem is
down to old-Windows-drivers-on-new-hardware, then I guess I could try WinXP
Pro to see if that works. My concern is that I've seen this self same
problem reported on WinXP installations also - and never any conclusive
solution. :-(
I was considering giving Linux a try to 'prove' the hardware - which, though
new, has all been available for at least a year. I was thinking Mandrake 9
as I already have the CDs, or maybe Knoppix as you don't actually have to
'install' it. Most other op systems I know of either only run in 16-bit real
mode (and DOS runs fine) or require patching to overcome issues with the
streaming SIMD instructions of the XP series of processors (eg: BeOS).
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll post back tomorrow ater I've tried Linux.
Kevin.

One more thing. If you are going to install Mandrake 9.2 then check your
CDROM first. If it's an LG CDROM then use 9.2.1 or 10.0 but don't use 9.2,
9.2 has a bug that breaks LG CDROMs. You might already be aware of this
problem but just in case you weren't I'm posting this warning. I'm
speaking from experience, I had installed 9.2 on a bunch of machines
without a problem then I installed it on a system with an LG CDROM,
goodbye CDROM drive.