My Win2k operating system screwed up and a friend reinstalled it on a partition on the C drive. I was intending to repair the earlier install later. But something is wrong. The Win2k disc won't spin up on booting so I cannot do the repair. I would be content to run Win2k from the partition but there are a few things that need to be put right. 1: On the second boot up screen I get a message saying 'the Bios is disabled' I have tried installing a new CMOS battery but it doesn't make any difference. 2: The floppy drive will not recognise discs. I use that drive to import and export Favorites. 3: Going into system/device manager I have a yellow question mark against all items in 'other devices' IE Ethernet Controller, Multimedia audio controller, PCI simple coms controller, raid controller, Universal serial bus controller. What can I do to correct these things? I would be most gratefull if someone could help.
I'm slightly confused at to what your problem is exactly. You said that the re-installation was done on the C drive but you still want to fix the old installation. Does that mean that the new installation done into a new partition and the old installation is still in existence? If you could tell me how your drive is partitioned and what is on the partitions then I might be able to tell you what's wrong. At the moment I suspect that either the re-installation was messed up and you need to do a fresh re-install from scratch or that you have a slightly unusual partioning set-up that is confusing the hell out of Windows.
Thankyou for answering. The partitioning and installation of W2k was done when I wasn't present. Apparently their was some space on my C drive so he(my brother-in- law) partitioned it and installed the operating system on D(the partition) The old W2k was on the C drive but it needed repairing. I didn't want to lose all the programs etc so I had hoped to mend it. I don't own the Win2k disc, it belonged to my in law. I originally used a copy of the disc but it seemed that it wasn't working when I wanted to re-install. I don't know how he made the partition.
It sounds like what you need to do is obtain a legal copy of Win 2000 first, back-up all your data from the hard-drive, and install the OS onto a clean hard-drive. Though it's theoretically possible to have two different versions of Windows running on the same hard-drive I've found it to be remarkably tempermental under such circumstances. Also, when the OS is as erratic as yours sounds then there could be so many things wrong that trying to fix them is a waste of time. I recommend a fresh install on a formatted hard-drive.
I think that you are right. The machine is slowing down as well. Web pages are taking ages to load and I am on 2meg broadband. I'll back up as much as I can and reformatt. I'll get back when I am done Thanks again
hi, if there are question marks next to the devices in device manager then to me it sounds like your brother didnt back up the drivers needed. just download all the original drivers your pc manufacturers website. I had the same problem when i once formated my hard drive, all i did was downlaod all the original drivers and it was all sorted
I assembled the PC myself so I am not sure which site to go to to download drivers. I have an Asus motherboard, do I go to their site? Thanks for reply
well, if you built it yourself, you should have the disks that came with the hardware? if not then just find out the who made what. if you cant find out try this http://www.infomaticsonline.co.uk/vnunet/downloads/2129001/sisoft-sandra-lite-2005 sisoft sandra will tell you exactly who manufactured what and is also a helpfull benchmarking program. once you have ascertained what make and model your parts are go to their websites, and download the original drivers, its as easy as that
I've been to the site and found out that it costs $40 to download sandra. I would need to have no doubts at all to pay that much. I don't know for certain whether it is the drivers missing, or something else. I have just come across a site that explains the error message I get when installing Windows 2000. The missing file is nvctray.dll and it can be due to the cdrom drive not being recognised during the install (although it is recognised at the beginning of the install) . This can be due to the CD-Rom drive being a bit old (mine is). I do have a modern CD-Rom which I can try first. (doesn't actually belong to me) You can see what I mean if you look at support.microsoft.com 'Access to cd rom lost when GUI-mode setup starts'. That is exactly the error message I got. Thanks for your suggestions though. I will keep them in mind.
There's a version you pay for and a free version (all legal). Older CD-ROMs may cause problems since they may lack support for certain standards.
OK. I'll do a repair of the operating system with the other drive and see if cures it, but I will have to do it later as I need to have internet access for the moment. Again thanks everyone
I tried to start from the beginning with the installation of Win2k. I put in a drive that had nothing important on in place of my Win2k boot drive. I went into the bios and brought my CD-Rom to the top of my boot list. But the Win2k disc woudn't spin. I looked in the Bios and the CD-Rom drive had disappeared. What am I doing wrong?
