NT install anyone?

[cow]

hello people,

I've a problem, and I don't know if this is the right place...

I just got a new box, asus a7v133-c mobo, amd 900 t-bird, and a quantum 20 gig hdd. Put the whole thing together... then tried to install an OS

Windows NT 4.0 WorkStation refuses to install on my box... It keeps telling me that my partitions that are prepared by MSDOS are not located.

This is what I did...
1) fdisk new partitions;
c: 2 gig
d: 4gig
e: 4gig
f: 4gig
g: 6 gig
formatted drives c:\ to g:\ with format.
2) Install NT by acessing cd rom and run setup
3) Install NT for an hour. By the way, I ended up with 3 boot disks
4) restart comp and boot from floppy
5) do all instructions on screen(put in NT floppies, too)
6) the damn thing spits out a "Setup is not able to locate the hard drive partitions prpeared by the MSDOS portion of setup"

I was planning to install Linux right after it, since I can't install NT after Linux(right?). So guys/gals, any ideas? Please help! My boss is flaming my arse as we speak...

sincerely,
cow.

PS I have a feeling that I'm gonna incur some wrath for this one... :)

[Matt G]

Ok i may not know Linux very well, but Nt i think im fluent in. Ok, those 3 Disks you have there, throw them away, you dont need them. With a new board you can simply either boot from CD, Or do this. dont boot to CD, but make sure CD is accessible, ie typing drive in Dos promt to get to the Cdrom. The go into the i386 folder. And run setup in there. This here over rides those Disks, those disks are whats giving you the MsDos portion thing. Try that out, and if that doesnt help you. Give me another ring on here, and ill see if i can think of anythign else. So you know my back ground with NT is about 3 years, almost 4 now. Ive admined about 3 servers all running NT. So, hope that helps. if need be, email me.

Matt

[cow]

Hi matt,

Thanks for replying.

So I boot from floppy, and select boot with cd rom support. I get into i386 and look for setup. It keeps going and going... then it asks me to get the 3 floppies in there...

Nope, still doesn't work. Could it be the fdisk partitioning and the formatting of partitions?

sincerely,
cow.

PS. by the way, what is your e-mail? If it is ok for me to have it, post it here. I really feel out of place discussing NT on a linux forum :)

[Helical Cynic]

Ok, you've got 5 partitions (if I can count correctly, it's kinda late here in the middle of nowhere), so you have to have an extended partition somewhere. Can you show us a more detailed idea of what your drive looks like?
Something like this, maybe...

1st Primary = C: (2 GB)
2nd Primary = D: (4 GB)
Extended Partition (14 GB)
1st Logical = E: (4 GB)
2nd Logical = F: (4 GB)
3rd Logical = G: (6 GB)

One thing I've noticed with NT installs is that it'll let you do an FDISK and stuff during the install if you boot from the 3 floppies or the CD. Either way, it kinda likes to have the entire disk to work with (which is why it doesn't always pay to install NT after *nix). You might also want to check the Microsoft Knowledge Base (www.microsoft.com, look under the Support section)

Hope my inane rambling helps!
Bryan

[Charles-K]

Hay... just note. NT4.0 cant use FAT32 drives. Did you use a win98 boot/fdisk and format the driver?

[Rob 'Feztaa' Park]

I don't know anything about NT, but I'd like to comment on fdisk.

fdisk is by far the worst partitioning program I have EVER seen, anywhere. Before I installed linux (and the primary reason that I switched to linux in the first place) is that I had a HD failure on my 10 GB drive, (nothing vital to the OS on that drive, just my MP3 collection and all my valuable files, that kind of stuff). So windows was still working, but the partition table for my drive got corrupted.

FDISK is telling me that I've got a 10 GB partition of type "non dos" occupying 100% of the drive. I'd like to recover the data, instead of repartitioning, reformatting, and losing everything, so I take the computer into the shop to have it fixed. They have my computer holed up in there for a week (a week!), and when I got it back they didn't actually fix the problem. they basically reinstalled windows for me, which I could have done in about an hour.

So anyway, in that week I reconsiled the idea of losing all my valuable files - my 3 GB mp3 collection (all legal! all either ripped from my own CDs, or from mp3.com), my webserver, my ftp server, all my homework that I'd been working on, my newly designed PHP website 3 months in the making, not to mention my entire portfolio of all the other website I've ever designed.

Anyway, I was so glad to have my one and only comp back, I didn't care that I had to lose all my stuff, I just wanted my comp back. So I went into FDISK and what did I see? 10 GB non dos partition occupying 100% of the drive. Ok, they didn't even touch that drive at all. So I delete that partition, but when I try to make a new one, my 10 GB drive magically transforms into a 500 MB drive. I made a new partition, and FDISK actually told me that I had a 500 MB dos partition occupying 100% of the drive. I loaded up windows again, and I installed the BARE minimum to get linux running: video card drivers so I can see what I'm doing at a decent res, winzip to unzip cuteftp, and the cuteftp to download linux.

Since windows obviously had no use for my 10 GB drive, I figured I ought to just give it all to linux, which is what I did... and i haven't booted windows since :)

Oh! I almost forgot! The best part of the story! Before I used fdisk to delete my partition, I went out (way out) on a limb to see if making a new partition would fix anything. For about 30 seconds, I actually had one partition taking up 100% of my drive, and a second partition... taking up 90% of my drive. Well, I have to admit, fdisk is a great program. You don't see linux boxes utilizing 190% of their HD space, do you? (that was sarcasm).

Anyway, bit of a rant there. Moral: FDISK is EVIL!

On a related note, Partition magic is worse, but I won't get into that now.

[bdg1983]

NT will not install unless it finds an existing NTFS partition or free space. Delete the partition you set aside for NT and try the install again.

[cow]

Hmmm... here goes...

Primary partition- c: 4gig
Extended partition-d: 16 gig
Logical partitions-d: 16 gig

I reformatted since the last post.

I have used both win98 boot and NT boot... to no avail; "Nt can't locate partitions made by MSDOS".

charles... I formatted the hdd with the win98 boot disk... is that it? What boot disk should I use to boot the box? (no pun intended)

mdwatts... should I just set create the partition without formatting and let NT format it?

feztaa... if not fdisk or part. magic, then what should I use?

matts... funny thing happened. There is no setup.exe in folder i386, there is a usetup.exe, but it doesn't run in DOS prompt.

sincerely,
cow.

PS thanks for all the replies... I really appreciate it :)

[ 04 July 2001: Message edited by: cow ]

[lm72]

I suggest you remove all the partition you created and run NT setup for eithr booting with floppies or CD rom and you will be prompted create a partition along the way create the partition of size you want and see if setup go along with(it should).
And will most likely install ok.


Regards,

Alex :)

[cow]

I booted with NT boot disk, with my hd having a single 20 gig partition. Chucked in three diskettes and after disk 3 ,"NT setup is unable to locate partition prepared by MSDOS".

sincerely,
cow.

[lm72]

Do not create a partition at all let the setup do it and the tell what size you want it.

Alex

[ 04 July 2001: Message edited by: lm72 ]

[cow]

hello guys,

Ok, In got the install runninng as should be, thanks for all the help. Just for you information, this what I did...

Boot with a MSDOS 6.22 boot disk, fdisk a 2 gig primary partition. Format it. Restart.

Boot with a win98 boot disk, select boot with cd rom support. Go to cd rom and type winnt<enter>.

After that its all smooth sailing.

It seems that Nt will only recognise NTFS and I think FAT16 partitions. FAT 32 is a booboo. Oh yeah, NT can't install to partitions bigger than 4 gigs(!). Why I don't know... just another one of those Windoze idiosyncracies...


sincerely,
cow.

[Matt G]

YEah oops my bad, its not Setup, its winnt.exe, sorry bout that, its that windows thing. Must be huy i want to run Linux myself :)

[x]

Just one thing: if you don't want the 3 boot discs, type "winnt /B"
(Btw, winnt32 is if you are installing from WinNT.)