Win2K Startup Disc? Anyone?

[Adam]

OK, about 3 months ago I bought a new machine with XP, and brought over the "data" disc which was NTFS formatted. Great (I thought)- I can chuck out the old machine. Due to moving etc, its still hanging around, and the missus announced that her little Palm PDA having lost its batteries (also due to not being used for several months) needed to be plugged back into the old machine to get all its data, and then we could dump it on the new machine.

Problem is..... the old machine hangs as it boots. It gets through the bios OK, and all the way through to where the big windows logo appears and then hangs. I've tried all the various options, safe mode, last known profile etc. I've also tried taking the harddisc to the new machine, and taking the 2nd disc back but no luck.

It keeps asking for a Windows 2K boot CD - but I gave mine away several years ago - and the friend I lent it too has moved to London.... So.... does anyone have (or able to create me) a CD which I can boot from so I can try and get these files off this machine? Or do you have any suggestions how to do it?

Thanks in advance,

Adam

 

[CHJ]

Adam, can you create one from one of these downloads?

 

[BrianD]

Adam,

you state you move the disc to the new pc as a second drive and it did not work.

If the disk is in good condition, then this will work of you have setup the BIOS and set the jumper (assuming it is an IDE) to be slave mode from Master or Cable select.

Do not substitute the new PC drive with the old one, rather make sure the drive is positioned as the secondary on the cable OR insert cable and drive into the second IDE position - still check the BIOS though. This will work believe me.

The drive will be seen as your D: drive.

If you have conducted the above and should it not work you will have to conduct a disk recovery which is another exercise. Try above first then let us know if it worked or not. If it failed then I can try help you on the next more complcated step.

Cheers.

 

[Steve Maskery]

If the disk is in good condition, then this will work of you have setup the BIOS and set the jumper (assuming it is an IDE) to be slave mode from Master or Cable select.

Do not substitute the new PC drive with the old one, rather make sure the drive is positioned as the secondary on the cable OR insert cable and drive into the second IDE position - still check the BIOS though. This will work believe me.

I recently offered my old PC to a friend who was still trying to live with a WIndows 95 machine. All her My Documents directory could fit on a floppy!

Which was fortunate, really because I spent a couple of hours trying to get her old hard drive to be seen as a slave on mine, which was itself orginally a Win98 machine (Athlon 650 - state of the art when I built it!). Nothing I could do could make it visible and in the end I gave up. Had I realized that her My Docs was so small I wouldn't even have bothered trying. I've come across motherboards which won't read more modern HDDs before now, but never one that won't read such an old one.

 

[CHJ]

Adam, something else that might help.

 

[Adam]

Adam, you state you move the disc to the new pc as a second drive and it did not work. If the disk is in good condition, then this will work of you have setup the BIOS and set the jumper (assuming it is an IDE) to be slave mode from Master or Cable select.

Yep, I did that already. Both the Bios and the jumper settings. I tried making it a slave, altering the bios but it would cause the new PC to not fireup.

Do not substitute the new PC drive with the old one, rather make sure the drive is positioned as the secondary on the cable OR insert cable and drive into the second IDE position - still check the BIOS though. This will work believe me.

Sorry, thats what I meant. I added the disk to the new PC as a secondary drive. But that didn't work - the PC wouldn't boot. The new PC has its primary drive on one of those new serial cables - so it wasn't interfering with the IDE anyway.

The drive will be seen as your D: drive.

Which was fortunate, really because I spent a couple of hours trying to get her old hard drive to be seen as a slave on mine, which was itself orginally a Win98 machine (Athlon 650 - state of the art when I built it!). Nothing I could do could make it visible and in the end I gave up.

This is exactly whats happening.

Had I realized that her My Docs was so small I wouldn't even have bothered trying. I've come across motherboards which won't read more modern HDDs before now, but never one that won't read such an old one.

I bet its not far off. But I do have two CD drives, of which one is a burner. It does have a 1.4 floppy - so thats an option.

Adam

 

[WellsWood]

does anyone have (or able to create me) a CD


Adam

Adam, I may have an original somewhere, I'll have a look this evening. If not I've got a copied ( :-$ ) one. PM me with your address and I'll put you one in the post tomorrow.

Mark

 

[Barry Burgess]

Adam did you change the jumper settings on the old disk drive to a slave???
If not your new PC could not detect which drive was the bootable drive and would hang.
Barry

 

[Adam]

'Tis OK now - I've had a kind offer by PM so will try that as my first line of attack. Many thanks,

Adam