[jedinovice]

Please help me, I am being driven nuts!!

Let me explain the background first. A number of years ago I purchased a Shuttle SN45G and populated it at minimal cost with an Athlon XP 1.7 and 60GB HD I had partitioned the drive to dual boot Windows 98SE and Windows XP quite happily. The machine is firmly OFF the internet. (I need Windows 98 to run legacy apps that are of great use to me.)

Now, for various reasons I am getting more into graphics and video capture/editing. So I needed a bigger HD. I recently purchased a 32oGB EIDE hard disk.

Here's my story...

I formatted the HD using a Windows 98 boot disk into two partition, one about 200GD, the other about 150GB. Windows 98SE installed and ran fine. I then tried to install Windows XP.

Everytime when it tries to boot Windows XP it returns

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

I spent the entire weekend trying and failing to get the damn thing to fly! The BIOS recognises the HD and FDISK allow me to format and partition it to capacity. But Windows XP will not fly!!!

I have since read around and noted various ID partition limits of which I was unaware, 64GB for Windows 98 and 137GB for Windows XP.

Please note the following:

I need to run Windows 98 to run some most excellent video editing S/W plus other productive S/W. Really I do! I need Windows XP just to view FLV files. (Every single FLV player that claimed to be Windows 98 compatible I ran wasn't. I gave up.)

The hard disk will be storing a lot of images and FLC/AVI file for video editing and must be viewable in both Windows 98 and XP so I must use FAT 32. This is not a major problem for me. But I gotta boot XP!!! S the Shuttle confusing the EIDE with RAID?

What do I need to do, Reading online the NFORCE 2 motherboard should support LBA be default and it does recognise the HD! I don't mind partitioning to suit. I've done that before. I am happy to limited my HD partition if that will resolve my problem.

I really *need* this HD to work and my wife spends my money for me so I need help! I have a completely booked out week so I have time to determine exactly what I must do to get this thing to run 98 and XP!!! Help! I've lost an entire week end and much goodwill from my wife!!

Many thanks.
Yours desperately!

 

[jedinovice]

44 views and no reply?

Do I take silence as assent?

 

[raptor_pa]

What service pack is on XP? You need SP 2 or better to recognize drives larger than 137

 

[jedinovice]

Hi Raptor,

Thanks for the reply.

I believe the XP rendering is Base and, thus, will hit grief with the 137GB limit (which I have only learnt about post formatting!)

My plan is to use partition magic to limit the size of the partitions on the hard disk. I don't mind partitioned HD as long as I can get the OS installed and recognising the capacity of the drive.

However, does the explain the error message in it's entirety. Is there anything else I need to check? The Shuttle dual booted Windows 98Se and XP happily on a 60GB HD partitioned into 2x30GB.

BTW apologies for the awful typos in my original post. I was stressed and busy at the time. Better now!

 

[raptor_pa]

A reinstall should work with smaller partitions on the XP side. XP should be installed after Win98 for dual boot

 

[jedinovice]

A reinstall should work with smaller partitions on the XP side. XP should be installed after Win98 for dual boot

Ah! Many thanks.

Yes, I have since researched and found the various partition limits.

My plan is to ... well, re-assemble the Shuttle as it is now a mass of components! Then use partition magic to create a 32GB boot partition and test installing XP on that. If that flies I'll repartition the entire hard disk, install Win98SE in the 32GB partition and XP on a 100GB NTFS partition and split the remainder to less than 100GB.

If it doesn't work though, I will be back!

I'll let you know how it goes. I probably won't be able to get to this until the weekend.

 

[jedinovice]

Ok. I admit, I’ve given in. After several Basil Fawlty moments…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78b67l_yxUc

I’ve given up and bought a refurbished Dell Optiplex with more power than I’ll ever need for the same price as a new hard disk with a three month warrenty. Same model we use at work so I know it’s reliable. I don’t have hardware wasting time any more. Just awaiting delivery.

But I would like to know what happened!

I repartitioned the 320GB HD. Lovely. I installed Windows XP. Restarted.

HARD DISK BOOT FAILURE.

Eh?

I FDISKed the drive rather than using partition magic and used my Windows 98 boot disk to SYS the drive – just to get a command prompt.

HARD DISK BOOT FAILURE.

Pardon? The PC recognised the drive as an IDE boot master. I put the original 60GB HD back in.

HARD DISK BOOT FAILURE.

What???!!!!

Ok, maybe the motherboard has gone. I restored an older AthlonXP machine and stuck the 60GB HD into that.

HARD DISK BOOT FAILURE.

?????!!!!!!

OK… Maybe the 320HD has knackered everything (I used it on the older Athlon for test purposes a few days ago.) Maybe it’s blown the hard drive controller on both PCs. So I stick in an old 7GB D, already formatted drive and SYS that.

HARD DISK BOOT FAILURE.

I get a new boot disk and sys from that.

HARD DISK BOOT FAILURE.

I stick in the original 20GB drive for the machine.
It boots.
I SYS it.
It boots.

It’s the only one that will. But that means the controller isn’t bust.

I have no explanation, give up and go onto ebay. I want to be creative on a PC, not waste weekends swearing at technology and traumatising my wife.

But what could explain this? All drives were set up and recognised as IDE masters with no other drives installed. You could also boot to floppy and read the drives, you just couldn’t boot.

"It’s like trying to stake Bibles on whipped cream" (Attack of the killer tomatoes 1977.)

 

[JimE]

Try a different data cable. As they are IDE drives, set as Master and ensure you are using the end connector (furthest from the motherboard). Also note that some drives, older WD drives come to mind, have a single drive setting.

 

[jedinovice]

Try a different data cable. As they are IDE drives, set as Master and ensure you are using the end connector (furthest from the motherboard). Also note that some drives, older WD drives come to mind, have a single drive setting.

Many thanks for the reply. :wave:

I swear - done all that. Changed cables, sockets, BIOS settings, jumpers, put into another PC, rebuilt a second PC to put it in... The works!!

The autosetting of BIOS sounds the most plausable explanation so far. The guys at work are convinced they can get the machine to fly but I am taking some time out from hardware to use the referbished dual core Dell for a bit of light video editing first.

I need to do something creative before I get back to hardware.