dearleader

Sorry for the bump – I forgot about this thread, and wanted to try again after a few months. windows2, I made an ISO with HFSLIP and it also refuses to load setup. I do not want to use the F5 procedure and select Standard PC, because that is actually what disables all of my onboard devices. I think I’ve figured out the issue: this machine has an InsydeH2O BIOS, which is known to not play nice with Windows 2000. Some research tells me that the serial port settings could be the problem – however, I do not have these settings at all in my BIOS, and would need a mod to change them. The BIOS currently running is version F.35, revision 3.0 (search for "sp48079.exe" if you would like the image). Being from early 2008, this laptop is not on EFI.

I am trying to install Windows 2000 Professional SP4 on a Compaq Presario C700, dual-booting with its native Vista. During installation, the setup froze on the Setup is starting Windows 2000 screen, but I was able to get past it by selecting Standard PC as my HAL. It installed successfully, but none of the onboard devices work, i.e. the keyboard, touchpad, and so on - I had to use a USB keyboard to complete the installation and use the system. After installing Vista on a second partition, I get a 0×7B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE BSOD, and the PC will no longer let me into Windows at all. What could be causing this issue, and how can I get my two installs to work properly and play nice with each other? Thank you!

I have already tried multiple original disc images from both Microsoft and Dell. I have set the timeout in my boot.ini to 0 and selected grub4dos as my default, which means I don't even need to use the boot menu. I think my problem is solved.

The floppy image workaround works! Thanks so much! In any case, this is my boot order (items without a number are disabled): 1. Diskette Drive 2. Internal HDD 3. USB Storage Device 4. CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive Modular Bay HDD Cardbus NIC D/Dock PCI slot NIC Onboard NIC

Could you explain #4 in more detail?

Yes, those bytes are 80 00 80 00.

The output of the cat command is 00 00 00 00 . Chainloading NTLDR as you described loads Windows fine, both with and without specifying --edx=0x0080 . Disk Management shows the disk as Disk 0.

These steps work. Could this mean that somewhere my drive is 0x81?

The re-mapping you just described works, even without the flash drive. Booting the entry for Windows XP directly still causes the ntoskrnl.exe issue. Both of the options you told me to add to my boot.ini fail with the following error: Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

@Dietmar I have prepared the hard drive and re-installed Windows. The ntoskrnl.exe issue still occurs. @jaclaz The steps you described work, and I can get into Windows. Is there a way I can do this without relying on a boot disk?

@Dietmar I have prepared the flash drive with RMPrepUSB, and it just tells me that NTLDR is missing.

When I boot from the flash drive, I get a menu with the following options: 0 ...Back to Main Menu 1 Auto-detect and use F6 SATA/RAID/SCSI Driver 2 Auto-detect and use F6 SATA/RAID/SCSI Driver 3 First part of Windows XP Professional SP3 setup from partition 0 4 Second part of Windows XP Professional SP3 setup/Boot first internal disk I choose option 4, which loads Windows XP. Option 3 would start the installation again, and the other two are currently useless.

This is the output I get from these commands. grub> geometry (hd0) drive 0x80(LBA): C/H/S=7297/255/63, Sector Count/Size=117226305/512 Partition num: 0, active, Filesystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x07 grub> cat --hex --skip=446 (hd0)0+1 000001BE: 80 01 01 00 07 FE FE FF 3F 00 00 00 02 BB FC 06 ; Ç....■ ?....╗ⁿ. 000001CE: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; ................ 000001DE: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; ................ 000001EE: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; ................ 000001FE: 55 AA ; U¬ grub> find --set-root /windows/system32/ntoskrnl.exe (hd0,0) grub> root (hd0,0) Filesystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x07 grub>

I have edited my boot.ini and both options are visible in the boot menu. The entry for Windows XP reads rdisk(0) as it should. Windows XP will still not boot, claiming that ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt, but I can get to the grub> prompt.

That's what I did, and the issue persists.

I have burnt the ISO to a CD and tried booting from it. However, my original issue with the computer locking up after Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration... is still there, so I cannot re-install from that disc.

Windows XP Integral Edition has finished installing, save for one problem. When I boot the computer from the hard drive, it shows the following message: Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe. Please re-install a copy of the above file. Strangely, when I use my WinSetupFromUSB flash drive to boot from the hard drive, I can get to Windows XP fine. Should I try burning the ISO to a CD and installing from that instead?

@Damnation I have used Rufus to put Windows XP Integral Edition onto a flash drive. As usual, I see Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration..., but this time, the PC reboots immediately. I suppose that's at least some progress! @jaclaz How would I go about doing an offline install?

I'm pretty sure it's just on-board Intel graphics (GMA 950).

Memtest has completed, and it found no issues with my RAM. Strangely enough, Linux Mint installs perfectly fine on this laptop (I tested before wiping the drive). However, I would like to keep XP for compatibility reasons.

RainyShadow, I have disabled the integrated NIC, modem, parallel and serial ports, PC card slot, WiFi card, Bluetooth, and cellular from within the BIOS; this did not solve the issue. I'm pretty sure my version has Intel video. I will run Memtest now. Dave-H, even though the machine uses a SATA hard drive, there is no option to change it to compatible mode. This laptop is from 2006, so I imagine it is already compatible.

I am trying to reinstall Windows XP Professional on a Dell Latitude D620. The setup process gets to the point where it says Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration..., after which the screen goes black. There is no disk activity, and the computer does not respond (not even to toggling Caps Lock). This issue has happened with numerous ISOs of Windows XP, ranging from RTM, SP2, and SP3; retail and OEM media; and installation from optical disc or USB. I have read about this issue, and many suggest stripping the computer down to the bare minimum; this is a laptop, so I cannot do that. There is no floppy drive, and I have no USB ones on hand, so a boot disk will not work. People have also attributed this issue to the hard drive using a partition format Windows does not recognise. I have filled the hard drive with zeroes using DBAN, so that is not a possible cause. The hard drive is also 120 GB in size, so 48-bit LBA is not a problem. How can I fix this issue and install Windows XP?

In theory, these drivers work. I removed the previous ones by deleting the .INF file and installed the ones you linked manually, and the error disappeared. Device Manager also claims the device is working properly. I have now upgraded to Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (the last available version) in order to install Odyssey Client, which installed successfully. However, it does not recognise the wireless adapter at all, even though the drivers are installed. The only adapter Odyssey lists is a PPP Adapter of type Unknown.

I have installed the RAM patch and removed MaxPhysPage=30000 from my system.ini. There are no conflict issues with the wireless adapter. The only conflict issues are with three devices all titled System board extension for ACPI BIOS and chipset drivers, such as the USB and hard disk controller. The hardware ID of my wireless card is PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_4311&SUBSYS_00071028&REV_01.

I have installed Windows 98 SE on a Dell Inspiron 6400. Aside from the Unofficial Windows 98 SE/Me USB 2.0 WDM drivers and changes to system.ini to make the system work on more than 512 MB of RAM, this is pretty much a vanilla system. I want to install a driver for the Dell Wireless 1390 Mini-Card in the system. I have tried PROBL3MCHYLD's unofficial driver, but it fails with the following error in Device Manager: This device is either not present, not working properly, or does not have all the drivers installed. (Code 10.) Try upgrading the device drivers for this device. In addition, I get the following message when the PC boots up: ===Windows Networking=== Your network adapter Broadcom Wireless WLAN Mini-Card (0002) is not working properly. You may need to set it up again. For more information, see the Network Troubleshooter in Windows Help. The website that I linked above claims this driver is compatible with my wireless card. Is there another driver that I can use?