booting problem

[dbentley]

I have a 500mhz/128mb machine that I ill advisedly installed XP on a year or so ago. Fed up with the performance I got a Windows 2000 Server edition install disk. Made myself a 4 boot disk set and went away and installed it.

I formatted my NTFS partition and installed. Once Windows had finished installing I get my BIOS boot but then nothing happens.

I get a flashing underscore, then my Floppy Drive grunts. The underscore moves down a line, then nothing.

I'm assuming this is a hard drive problerm.


Anyway

I changed my BIOS settings to boot from CD-ROM then reinstalled using a FAT32 partition. I changed the Boot settings to default ie. 1st boot from flopping. 2nd boot IDE 3, CD-ROM.

Now I'm left with some lovely whistles from the system to accompany my flashing underscore.

Where have I gone wrong!?!

The only thing I can get to work is a distro of Linux that is bootable entirely from a CD.

[patrickjb]

What command did you use to install Windows 2000? (winnt.exe or winnt32.exe) You should have used winnt.exe. I'm not sure if using the wrong program to install Windows would cause this problem.

[Tanksoft]

I really don't know if it will work.. but even if not, it won't be whorst..

try a fdisk /mbr

if not... boot on your windows 2000 cd and enter the console repair mode and try FIXBOOT and FIXMBR