Unable to install Windows 2000 on Intel D845GVAD2 microATX desktop board

[matthuszagh]

Hi, I have an old (circa 2002) microATX PC on which I'd like to boot Windows 2000. It's an Intel D845GVAD2 (https://theretroweb.com/motherboard/manual/d845gvad2-productguide-english-609c0f9e2c5ae911359813.pdf).

I'm able to perform the installation procedure using a win2k pro sp4 installation CD. This installs Windows 2000 to an attached IDE drive (it's an mSATA SSD with an adapter). This all works as expected and at the end it indicates a success at which point I remove the CD and reboot. However, it doesn't boot into Windows. I just get a blinking underline cursor on the screen that remains there apparently indefinitely. If I repeat the procedure, it does appear that Windows was installed to the drive as the setup gives me a message about an existing installation. I also tried another installation disk from Tektronix (this microATX is normally resident in an oscilloscope) and that produces similar symptoms.

I don't get the sense that there are any hardware failures. When I enter the BIOS setup I see the CPU, correct amount of installed RAM with correct bus rate, etc. I'm also not seeing any BIOS boot messages about failures, although I'm not entirely clear about how to view the POST (power on self test).

I hear a single beep during the boot sequence. The above manual indicates a single beep indicates a refresh failure (presumably, DRAM refresh). But since the RAM seems to be working, I wonder if this actually means a successful BIOS POST or something.

Any thoughts about what might be going wrong here? How can I troubleshoot this?

FYI there were 4 bad aluminum electrolytic power supply caps (not shorted, and paralleled by a number of good caps) on a 1.5V rail that I replaced.

Finally, is this an appropriate forum for not-modern PC troubleshooting? I normally go here for test equipment and I don't see a ton in this category, but maybe it's just because I haven't been looking.

[eurgenca]

Hi.
Do you check which boot device is selected in bios?

[matthuszagh]

Do you check which boot device is selected in bios?

Yeah if I set the BIOS (after installation) to boot first from the drive I don't see anything on the display.

[edpalmer42]

This thread would fit better in the computer section rather than the repair section, but whatever.

Boot off of any Linux disk and run memtest from the main menu.  This will confirm that the CPU and RAM are working as expected.  If this test passes then you can be reasonably sure that the problem isn't hardware and you can move on from there.

[shakalnokturn]

Any AHCI settings in BIOS for IDE controller?
Any IDE (PATA) disk at hand to try with?
Try checking partition table / MBR / bootloader.

[matthuszagh]

This thread would fit better in the computer section rather than the repair section, but whatever.

Sorry about getting the wrong forum. If there's a way to migrate it I'm happy to do that.

Boot off of any Linux disk and run memtest from the main menu.  This will confirm that the CPU and RAM are working as expected.  If this test passes then you can be reasonably sure that the problem isn't hardware and you can move on from there.

I'm still trying to get memtest to run. I created a bootable USB but I'm not able to boot into it. However, I was able to create an xubuntu 32-bit installation USB that's running fine. I ran memtester from within there `sudo memtester 100 5` (this machine only has 511MB RAM) and that completed fine. I think memtester should be runnable from grub, but so far I haven't had any luck getting into the grub menu. I tried holding shift but no luck. I also tried updating the grub config but I'm getting an error when attempting to update. Think memtester is sufficient, or should I keep trying to get memtest running?

[matthuszagh]

I was successfully able to get memtest86+ to run. It passed. So, I suppose that means the hardware is ok.

[matthuszagh]

Any AHCI settings in BIOS for IDE controller?

I don't see any. There is an "IDE Configuration" page but nothing about AHCI that I can tell. I didn't see anything elsewhere either.

Any IDE (PATA) disk at hand to try with?

Unfortunately no.

Try checking partition table / MBR / bootloader.

Partition table looks ok to me:

Code: [Select]

$ sudo parted /dev/sde print
Model: HC-NSmTA MA-321 8 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sde: 128GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End    Size   Type     File system  Flags
 1      32.3kB  128GB  128GB  primary  ntfs         boot

Any suggestions for checking the bootloader?

[james_s]

Does it work with another OS? Try installing Windows XP or Linux, if that works then you can be fairly confident that the hardware is ok. Does the board support UEFI? If so you will probably have to disable that.

[abdulbadii]

cross checked booting from Usb flash drive then go on installing a simple Linux ?

had it installed but kept failing start then outright H/W, notice further fault code given

[matthuszagh]

Does it work with another OS? Try installing Windows XP or Linux, if that works then you can be fairly confident that the hardware is ok. Does the board support UEFI? If so you will probably have to disable that.

I was able to run Linux from a live installation USB. I just tried installing xubuntu 18 to the drive. That took ages, but it succeeded. But when I tried to boot into it I see "error: failure reading sector 0x98c590 from 'hd0' Entering rescue mode... grub rescue>".

Think my drive is to blame? I'm using this mSATA SSD (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GZLJD5R?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details) with IDE adapter (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GRMUQRG?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details). These worked fine in a similar oscilloscope (TDS7104, vs this one which is a CSA7404B), though they use different PC boards. I don't have another compatible drive that would work with this, but I'd be open to buying something if there's a good chance this is at fault. If so, any recommendations for what I should get? There are IDE SSDs (like this: https://www.amazon.com/KingSpec-2-5-inch-Solid-SM2236-Controller/dp/B008RWKFYE/ref=sr_1_2?hvadid=570524173573&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1014249&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=9820816855298931523&hvtargid=kwd-16282279738&hydadcr=917_1014973510&keywords=ide+pata+ssd&qid=1680652268&sr=8-2&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.18ed3cb5-28d5-4975-8bc7-93deae8f9840). Would I need to worry about size? The windows installers setup the drive as an NTFS filesystem, so I would think anything up to 2TB should be fine.

[Whales]

Check that SMART status of the suspect drive.  The tool "smartctl" or "smartmontools" on Linux will help you, eg:

Code: [Select]

smartctl /dev/sda --test short
(wait 5 or so minutes)
smartctl /dev/sda --all
(I am guessing /dev/sda.  Run "lsblk" to see what your disks are.  One will be the USB stick if you have that plugged in)

It's not a perfect system, but it will tell you if the drive has noticed any serious failures.  Paste the output here if you're not sure (redact the serial numbers if you want, those can technically be used to ID you as some software reports those for eg license checks).

[matthuszagh]

Check that SMART status of the suspect drive.  The tool "smartctl" or "smartmontools" on Linux will help you, eg:

Code: [Select]

smartctl /dev/sda --test short
(wait 5 or so minutes)
smartctl /dev/sda --all
(I am guessing /dev/sda.  Run "lsblk" to see what your disks are.  One will be the USB stick if you have that plugged in)

It's not a perfect system, but it will tell you if the drive has noticed any serious failures.  Paste the output here if you're not sure (redact the serial numbers if you want, those can technically be used to ID you as some software reports those for eg license checks).

Code: [Select]

$ sudo smartctl /dev/sde --test short
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.12.4] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, [url=http://www.smartmontools.org]www.smartmontools.org[/url]

Read SMART Data failed: scsi error unsupported scsi opcode

Ah I wonder if that's because I'm trying this via an external USB connection (plus IDE adapter) from my modern linux system. I can try it from the live usb running on the suspect mobo. That will take me a little longer though.

[Whales]

Bugger.  I know some USB-SATA enclosures have the same problem (some are blacklisted by the kernel too, you can workaround that however, try running "dmesg" after plugging it in and see if it mentions anything). 

[matthuszagh]

Here's the output from dmesg:

Code: [Select]

[449464.552381] usb 3-3: new high-speed USB device number 26 using xhci_hcd
[449464.682939] usb 3-3: New USB device found, idVendor=1f75, idProduct=0611, bcdDevice= 0.06
[449464.682943] usb 3-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=4, Product=5, SerialNumber=6
[449464.682944] usb 3-3: Product: Ext. HDD
[449464.682945] usb 3-3: Manufacturer: Innostor
[449464.682946] usb 3-3: SerialNumber: 20200731
[449464.683462] usb-storage 3-3:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[449464.683555] scsi host11: usb-storage 3-3:1.0
[449465.722748] scsi 11:0:0:0: Direct-Access     HC-NSmTA MA-321 8              PQ: 0 ANSI: 7
[449465.723190] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] 250069680 512-byte logical blocks: (128 GB/119 GiB)
[449465.724736] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[449465.724738] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 3b 00 00 00
[449465.726235] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page found
[449465.726238] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[449465.732847]  sde: sde1
[449465.736363] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk


[james_s]

How old is this motherboard? It wasn't always possible to boot at all from USB, and support varies. If you want it to work with the least amount of grief, install a hard drive or SSD connected directly to the SATA (if present) or IDE interface on the board.

[Whales]

Not sure then, sorry.  Maybe it lacks the short test type?  Tried other smart commands? 

Code: [Select]

$ smartctl --info /dev/sda
smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [x86_64-linux-6.1.19_1] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, [url=http://www.smartmontools.org]www.smartmontools.org[/url]

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Constellation ES (SATA)
Device Model:     ST31000524NS
Serial Number:    x
LU WWN Device Id: x
Firmware Version: SN12
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database 7.3/5319
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Wed Apr  5 10:18:30 2023 AEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled


[Whales]

How old is this motherboard? It wasn't always possible to boot at all from USB, and support varies. If you want it to work with the least amount of grief, install a hard drive or SSD connected directly to the SATA (if present) or IDE interface on the board.

The OP succeeded at booting from USB, but is failing to boot from the HDD.

[matthuszagh]

How old is this motherboard? It wasn't always possible to boot at all from USB, and support varies. If you want it to work with the least amount of grief, install a hard drive or SSD connected directly to the SATA (if present) or IDE interface on the board.

Sorry, I realize I probably caused confusion with that last message.

The actual drive I'm installing to is not connected via USB. It's an mSATA SSD connected to an IDE adapter that is connected to the mobo via an IDE cable.

It takes me a while to boot run the live Linux USB I've been using on the suspect motherboard, so when I was asked to check smart I plugged the mSATA SSD + IDE adapter into a USB IDE adapter connected to my modern Linux desktop.

I actually have been using a USB flash drive to install Linux on the motherboard since the BIOS supports USB booting. If it didn't I would have had to install the ISO to a CD, which is what I did for Windows 2k.

[matthuszagh]

Unfortunately I failed to get smartctl working on the live installation USB. Anyway, plugged it back into my modern Linux machine. It does at least have smart capabilities:

Code: [Select]

smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.12.4] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, [url=http://www.smartmontools.org]www.smartmontools.org[/url]

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     CHN-mSATAM3-128
Serial Number:    AA000000000000000957
Firmware Version: V0110A0
User Capacity:    128,035,676,160 bytes [128 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Form Factor:      mSATA
TRIM Command:     Available
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2 T13/2015-D revision 3
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.2, 3.0 Gb/s
Local Time is:    Tue Apr  4 17:30:29 2023 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

But getting rid of

Code: [Select]

--test short didn't work either.

[Whales]

In that case just try checking smart --all /dev/xxx and see if it has a pile of error logs for failed reads or writes.

[matthuszagh]

Code: [Select]

$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sde
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.12.4] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, [url=http://www.smartmontools.org]www.smartmontools.org[/url]

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     CHN-mSATAM3-128
Serial Number:    AA000000000000000957
Firmware Version: V0110A0
User Capacity:    128,035,676,160 bytes [128 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Form Factor:      mSATA
TRIM Command:     Available
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2 T13/2015-D revision 3
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.2, 3.0 Gb/s
Local Time is:    Tue Apr  4 17:42:32 2023 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

Read SMART Data failed: scsi error unsupported scsi opcode

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Status command failed: scsi error unsupported scsi opcode
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: UNKNOWN!
SMART Status, Attributes and Thresholds cannot be read.

Read SMART Log Directory failed: scsi error unsupported scsi opcode

Read SMART Error Log failed: scsi error unsupported scsi opcode

Read SMART Self-test Log failed: scsi error unsupported scsi opcode

Selective Self-tests/Logging not supported

I also tried:

Code: [Select]

$ sudo smartctl -a -d scsi /dev/sde
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.12.4] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, [url=http://www.smartmontools.org]www.smartmontools.org[/url]

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Vendor:               HC-NSmTA
Product:              MA-321 8
Revision:             
Compliance:           SPC-5
User Capacity:        128,035,676,160 bytes [128 GB]
Logical block size:   512 bytes
Logical Unit id:      0x47656e65726963200x200047656e47656e
Serial number:       
Device type:          disk
Transport protocol:   Fibre channel (FCP-2)
Local Time is:        Tue Apr  4 17:43:07 2023 PDT
SMART support is:     Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is:     Enabled
Temperature Warning:  Disabled or Not Supported

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Health Status: OK
Current Drive Temperature:     0 C
Drive Trip Temperature:        0 C

Error Counter logging not supported

Device does not support Self Test logging


[Whales]

Oh no.

Smart commands: barely supported

Disk performance: weird read errors, even though things seem to write OK.

Serial number: suspiciously low (AA000000000000000957)

Model: CHN-mSATAM3-128

Huh?  CHN stands for China, doesn't it?  That's a really weird generic name, no company would use that unless they're a generic manufacturer that doesn't want to be known and/or cycles other names on their products every few months or so.

Quick websearch of the model: https://www.amazon.com.au/Zheino-mSATA-Internal-Notebooks-Tablets/dp/B07GZLJD5R

Opinion:  (1) it's faulty or buggy, or (2) it's straight up faking the disk size and you have been scammed.

Number (2) is common in the cheap USB stick and SD card industry, I guess it makes sense to be a thing in the SSD industry too.  Size is falsely reported and writes are redirected to the same (smaller) flash chip over and over again.  Copying files to the disk works, but reading them off (after rebooting to flush your OS's disk cache) reveals weird corrupt stuff.  It works barely enough to (hopefully) get you past the return date on the selling platform, nothing more.

There are tools for windows to detect this.  Not tried this one but it's for Linux https://github.com/AltraMayor/f3

(I seriously recommend you avoid buying anything with flash memory from greymarket sources like Amazon, eBay and Alix; and flash memory that otherwise smells greymarket even if bought from more reputable stores.)

Let's hope I'm wrong :|

[JeremyC]

Partition table looks ok to me:

Code: [Select]

$ sudo parted /dev/sde print
Model: HC-NSmTA MA-321 8 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sde: 128GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End    Size   Type     File system  Flags
 1      32.3kB  128GB  128GB  primary  ntfs         boot

Any suggestions for checking the bootloader?

I believe the problem is related to your SATA -> IDE adapter. Linux sees the drive as SATA, or SAS (/dev/sde) and not as IDE. In Linux IDE would be /dev/hd[[a,b,c,d]. Probably Win2k has problem with it. You should try to disable “quite/silent” boot in BIOS and observe what the BIOS post looks like.

[matthuszagh]

Oh no.

Smart commands: barely supported

Disk performance: weird read errors, even though things seem to write OK.

Serial number: suspiciously low (AA000000000000000957)

Model: CHN-mSATAM3-128

Huh?  CHN stands for China, doesn't it?  That's a really weird generic name, no company would use that unless they're a generic manufacturer that doesn't want to be known and/or cycles other names on their products every few months or so.

Quick websearch of the model: https://www.amazon.com.au/Zheino-mSATA-Internal-Notebooks-Tablets/dp/B07GZLJD5R

Opinion:  (1) it's faulty or buggy, or (2) it's straight up faking the disk size and you have been scammed.

Number (2) is common in the cheap USB stick and SD card industry, I guess it makes sense to be a thing in the SSD industry too.  Size is falsely reported and writes are redirected to the same (smaller) flash chip over and over again.  Copying files to the disk works, but reading them off (after rebooting to flush your OS's disk cache) reveals weird corrupt stuff.  It works barely enough to (hopefully) get you past the return date on the selling platform, nothing more.

There are tools for windows to detect this.  Not tried this one but it's for Linux https://github.com/AltraMayor/f3

(I seriously recommend you avoid buying anything with flash memory from greymarket sources like Amazon, eBay and Alix; and flash memory that otherwise smells greymarket even if bought from more reputable stores.)

Let's hope I'm wrong :|

Yeah fair enough. I'd bought this same set a while back and it's worked just fine in my TDS7104 oscope so I thought it would be ok.

But anyway I'm more than happy to buy something else. This is going in a high-end scope and I simply bought this because I'm not really aware of the options. If you have thoughts/recommendations I'd really like to hear them! I'd prefer it to be an SSD than HDD, but I suppose HDD might be ok.

[matthuszagh]

Partition table looks ok to me:

Code: [Select]

$ sudo parted /dev/sde print
Model: HC-NSmTA MA-321 8 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sde: 128GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End    Size   Type     File system  Flags
 1      32.3kB  128GB  128GB  primary  ntfs         boot

Any suggestions for checking the bootloader?

I believe the problem is related to your SATA -> IDE adapter. Linux sees the drive as SATA, or SAS (/dev/sde) and not as IDE. In Linux IDE would be /dev/hd[[a,b,c,d]. Probably Win2k has problem with it. You should try to disable “quite/silent” boot in BIOS and observe what the BIOS post looks like.

Yeah I tried this too. I had to take a video because the text disappeared pretty quick. I've attached an image showing the messages (sorry for the poor image quality - the top just shows the bios revision etc). What do you think?

[Whales]

Try asking on vogons.org, they will have people that have experience replacing disks in Win2K systems.


Options I can see:

(1) Buy a CF card and a CF-to-IDE adaptor.  CF cards natively speak IDE/PATA, the adaptor just re-arranges the wires and add a power connector. 

Sadly CF cards are expensive and the cheap ones are probably just SD card adaptors with a chipset inside   But if cost isn't a problem then it would be worth trying in parallel to the SATA SSD option to see which one works best.

(2) Buy a mainline brand SATA SSD from a vendor in your country that specialises in computer parts and isn't known for greymarket fake shennaneggins.  I'd go for a traditional 2.5" SSD form factor, not mSATA, just because of higher availability. 

Good known brands: Samsung (makes their own flash), Sandisk (makes their own flash), Crucial.   There are lots more but these are a starting point.

Also buy a few different models of SATA to IDE converter.  Make sure they look different (ie different main chip and/or PCB layout) as the "law of packaging inertia" applies (if it looks the same then it is the same).  These will be cheap compared to the disk itself and it would be worth trying a few.

Warning: I've had a SATA to USB that reduce the reported disk size slightly!  Hopefully they don't do this any more.  It meant that partitions went "past" the end of the disk when used, sending my kernel into conniptions.   Since then I've always partitioned my disk a few MiB short of the end, just in case.  I'm probably going to do that for the rest of my life now just because of that one bad experience *sigh*


Other thoughts:

(a) Does win2k have a maximum disk size limit?

(b) You probably don't need a more expensive SSD with RAM (most cheap SSDs are "dramless") unless your scope writes lots of data to disk all of the time.  Even then it will still probably be fast enough compared to the original HDD?

[JeremyC]

Yeah I tried this too. I had to take a video because the text disappeared pretty quick. I've attached an image showing the messages (sorry for the poor image quality - the top just shows the bios revision etc). What do you think?

It looks to me that the motherboard doesn’t recognize the disk 0 as bootable device. You may want to try experimenting with boot devices priority in the BIOS. It doesn’t even try to boot the Win2k...

[JeremyC]

Yeah I tried this too. I had to take a video because the text disappeared pretty quick. I've attached an image showing the messages (sorry for the poor image quality - the top just shows the bios revision etc). What do you think?

It looks to me that the motherboard doesn’t recognize the disk 0 as bootable device. You may want to try experimenting with boot devices priority in the BIOS. It doesn’t even try to boot the Win2k...

The motherboard sees the drive as ATA, it's good sign.

[matthuszagh]

It looks to me that the motherboard doesn’t recognize the disk 0 as bootable device. You may want to try experimenting with boot devices priority in the BIOS. It doesn’t even try to boot the Win2k...

I think it's possible it is trying to boot the device. This screen is there only momentarily then it disappears and basically just goes black and stays like that. But it doesn't stop at that screen.

In terms of setting boot device priority, I did set top priority to the drive. Is that what you're referring to? Unfortunately that didn't help.

[matthuszagh]

Try asking on vogons.org, they will have people that have experience replacing disks in Win2K systems.


Options I can see:

(1) Buy a CF card and a CF-to-IDE adaptor.  CF cards natively speak IDE/PATA, the adaptor just re-arranges the wires and add a power connector. 

Sadly CF cards are expensive and the cheap ones are probably just SD card adaptors with a chipset inside   But if cost isn't a problem then it would be worth trying in parallel to the SATA SSD option to see which one works best.

(2) Buy a mainline brand SATA SSD from a vendor in your country that specialises in computer parts and isn't known for greymarket fake shennaneggins.  I'd go for a traditional 2.5" SSD form factor, not mSATA, just because of higher availability. 

Good known brands: Samsung (makes their own flash), Sandisk (makes their own flash), Crucial.   There are lots more but these are a starting point.

Also buy a few different models of SATA to IDE converter.  Make sure they look different (ie different main chip and/or PCB layout) as the "law of packaging inertia" applies (if it looks the same then it is the same).  These will be cheap compared to the disk itself and it would be worth trying a few.

Warning: I've had a SATA to USB that reduce the reported disk size slightly!  Hopefully they don't do this any more.  It meant that partitions went "past" the end of the disk when used, sending my kernel into conniptions.   Since then I've always partitioned my disk a few MiB short of the end, just in case.  I'm probably going to do that for the rest of my life now just because of that one bad experience *sigh*

Thanks this is really helpful. I'll look a bit at CF cards - I like that that this doesn't require additional logic. It looks like brand names like sandisk aren't crazy expensive. And the actual amount of storage can be quite low. The original HDD this is replacing (didn't come with the unit) was 40GB and that was probably more than enough.

Other thoughts:

(a) Does win2k have a maximum disk size limit?

(b) You probably don't need a more expensive SSD with RAM (most cheap SSDs are "dramless") unless your scope writes lots of data to disk all of the time.  Even then it will still probably be fast enough compared to the original HDD?

I saw some people saying that early version of win2k had a 137GB limit, but that people thought this was fixed by SP4. After that it was just the 2TB NTFS limit (I could be wrong on this, can check more). But, I didn't see anything about 128GB not being supported by one. Still, I'll probably go with 32 or 64GB if I can find it. Interestingly, the challenge has been finding a drive that's on the smaller side since large SSDs are becoming so readily available and cheap.

It's also worth mentioning that my TDS7104 (also running win2k) is using a 128 GB drive (the same one as I'm trying here). But that was a disk clone of 40GB hard drive, so its just a 40GB partition.

[JeremyC]

It looks to me that the motherboard doesn’t recognize the disk 0 as bootable device. You may want to try experimenting with boot devices priority in the BIOS. It doesn’t even try to boot the Win2k...

I think it's possible it is trying to boot the device. This screen is there only momentarily then it disappears and basically just goes black and stays like that. But it doesn't stop at that screen.

In terms of setting boot device priority, I did set top priority to the drive. Is that what you're referring to? Unfortunately that didn't help.

I thought the BIOS was waiting for F12, or F2.
Did you try to disconnect the IDE cable from the CDROM drive?

[matthuszagh]

I thought the BIOS was waiting for F12, or F2.
Did you try to disconnect the IDE cable from the CDROM drive?

No, it doesn't. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that. Here's a video of the boot process: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lug2TPpqSJkdedHH6f7Mig7Bm5biYkOD/view?usp=sharing (33MB). FYI that video is in slow motion. And apologies for the glare I can retake it if needed, though I think that shows all the relevant info.

I haven't tried disconnecting the CDROM IDE cable, but I can. If that works I have to imagine there's a fault somewhere tho as this is supposed to be able to work with both plugged in.

[JeremyC]

I haven't tried disconnecting the CDROM IDE cable, but I can. If that works I have to imagine there's a fault somewhere tho as this is supposed to be able to work with both plugged in.

Sometime IDE hard drive require special “master”, “only master without a slave” and “slave”, jumper settings. It can be tricky.
I would try also boot when all cards besides the VGA are unplugged.

If the BIOS has “Plug and play OS” option, try change it.

[matthuszagh]

Sometime IDE hard drive require special “master”, “only master without a slave” and “slave”, jumper settings. It can be tricky.
I would try also boot when all cards besides the VGA are unplugged.

Ok I unplugged the CD drive. The IDE configuration for the IDE drive was primary master I believe. Anyway, I still see a message about "failure reading sector...". I still have the Linux installation on there.

If I unplug everything except the VGA I see a similar Intel boot screen (but obviously no usb or other drives detected). It also displays a message about a keyboard error. It then transitions to a new screen that says

"Reboot and Select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device"

[matthuszagh]

If the BIOS has “Plug and play OS” option, try change it.

Yeah I'd tried this before as well (and just tried again). I turned it off (was on before). Same result.

[matthuszagh]

That failure reading sector message is really making me think there's something with this drive or the adapter. Looking into CF cards and adapters. It looks like I want something that support true IDE mode.

[JeremyC]

That failure reading sector message is really making me think there's something with this drive or the adapter. Looking into CF cards and adapters. It looks like I want something that support true IDE mode.

I’m running out of ideas, sorry.
The same here, my speculation is that it’s something wrong with the SATA – IDE adapter, or with the drive itself.

[matthuszagh]

I completely forgot I also have an mSATA-USB adapter. SMART is working through this. Here's the result of `# smartctl -a ...` after running a short test:

Code: [Select]

smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.12.4] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, [url=http://www.smartmontools.org]www.smartmontools.org[/url]

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     CHN-mSATAM3-128
Serial Number:    AA000000000000000957
Firmware Version: V0110A0
User Capacity:    128,035,676,160 bytes [128 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Form Factor:      mSATA
TRIM Command:     Available
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2 T13/2015-D revision 3
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Wed Apr  5 06:59:28 2023 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x02) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (  120) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x11) SMART execute Offline immediate.
No Auto Offline data collection support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
No Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
No Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0002) Does not save SMART data before
entering power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: (  10) minutes.
SCT capabilities:        (0x0001) SCT Status supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       2
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       188
160 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
161 Unknown_Attribute       0x0033   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       100
163 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       19
164 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       279
165 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       1
166 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
167 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
168 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       7000
169 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       100
175 Program_Fail_Count_Chip 0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
176 Erase_Fail_Count_Chip   0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
177 Wear_Leveling_Count     0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
178 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Chip  0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       179
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       40
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
232 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       100
241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0030   100   100   050    Old_age   Offline      -       693
242 Total_LBAs_Read         0x0030   100   100   050    Old_age   Offline      -       206
245 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         2         -

Selective Self-tests/Logging not supported



[matthuszagh]

I purchased a 64GB Transcend PSD330. I'll report back. Thanks again for all the help.

[amyk]

I am aware of faked capacity flash drives but even on those it's likely to have enough real capacity for a Windows 2000 install (<1GB). You can try opening the SSD to see the real capacity/model of the flash chips, provided they haven't scrubbed those off.

I'd recommend putting MS-DOS on it from a bootable USB and seeing if it'll boot from that. This being an 800 series chipset, even Win98 should install fine. There's a great diagnostic program called MHDD (usable from pure DOS) which you can use to do a full block scan on your SSD, and that might uncover some errors.

[Whales]

I am aware of faked capacity flash drives but even on those it's likely to have enough real capacity for a Windows 2000 install (<1GB).

Depending on how they implement the fraud: it can cause massive and silent data corruption regardless of how big the total install size is.

Eg if the actual flash size is 16GB but it advertises 128GB: a write to location X might actually get written to location mod(X, 16).  Writing at the 18GB address will actually write to the 2GB address.  Last write wins.

Depending on the behaviour of the filesystem in use the corruption will be more or less statistically significant, but even a few bytes wrong can bork an entire OS.  Some filesystems spread files around randomly (ext?), others try to cluster them near the start more (fat?).  The bootloader's first stage is at the start of the drive and its next stage will be somewhere else.  Swap space (system page file) will also inflate the amount of space used.

[mapleLC]

I am aware of faked capacity flash drives but even on those it's likely to have enough real capacity for a Windows 2000 install (<1GB).

Depending on how they implement the fraud: it can cause massive and silent data corruption regardless of how big the total install size is.

Eg if the actual flash size is 16GB but it advertises 128GB: a write to location X might actually get written to location mod(X, 16).  Writing at the 18GB address will actually write to the 2GB address.  Last write wins.

Depending on the behaviour of the filesystem in use the corruption will be more or less statistically significant, but even a few bytes wrong can bork an entire OS.  Some filesystems spread files around randomly (ext?), others try to cluster them near the start more (fat?).  The bootloader's first stage is at the start of the drive and its next stage will be somewhere else.  Swap space (system page file) will also inflate the amount of space used.

I was going to say something along these lines.  Try a known good flash drive.

[matthuszagh]

I received the Transcend drive. Although the installation completes successfully (or so it says), there doesn't appear to be any data written to the SSD: no partition table, nothing. I tried connecting the drive to another motherboard and using a stock win2k installation ISO, but still nothing written to disk. I'm pretty sure that other motherboard works fine as I've been running FreeDOS on it.

The Transcend device has a jumper for three IDE settings: master, slave and cable (being cable select I assume). It's configured tot be master by default. I think that should be correct, but I also tried cable select. Both produced the same result.

I hooked up the Transcend SSD to my modern Linux desktop using an IDE - USB adapter and I'm able to partition the drive just fine. I power cycled the SSD and the partition table persisted.

I can try MHDD with this and the other SSD to see if I notice anything wrong, but it seems a bit weird that both drives would be bad. When I asked about Transcend on vogons, although people indicated it's overpriced for the performance you get, they also said I shouldn't run into compatibility issues with it.

[matthuszagh]

I used MHDD to check the new Transcend drive. The scan completed without errors. Everything showed <3ms. I checked SMART too. There was only one line that said "Read error rate: 100 100 0", where 1st # is val, 2nd is worst and 3rd is raw. Not really sure what this means.

Anyway, as far as I can tell the drive is ok.

[matthuszagh]

I also ran MHDD on the other drive (mSATA SSD with IDE adapter) and that looks fine too: same thing from scan. I've attached the SMART results too, since there's a lot more attributes. Nothing obviously wrong is standing out to me.

[matthuszagh]

Back to the custom (tektronix) win2k installation on the IDE SSD, I do sometimes get errors during the installation. I've seen "Error 1513: Bad attribution position in file record." and one other I can't remember at the moment. However, usually just trying again succeeds.

[JeremyC]

Back to the custom (tektronix) win2k installation on the IDE SSD, I do sometimes get errors during the installation. I've seen "Error 1513: Bad attribution position in file record." and one other I can't remember at the moment. However, usually just trying again succeeds.

Maybe the 1st. IDE channel on the motherboard is defective?
You could try connect the IDE hard drive as master on channel 2 and the CDROM/DVD drive as slave.

[matthuszagh]

Well 20(?)th time's the charm.. It just installed - I don't get it. The only difference this time, as far as I can tell, is that I set the partition table to MBR, which had previously not been set. Is it possible that Windows could not install itself onto a blank drive? Did it need me to set the partition table? That would seem weird. Anyway, I'm gonna try booting it up in the full system now. Will let you know.

[JeremyC]

Well 20(?)th time's the charm.. It just installed - I don't get it. The only difference this time, as far as I can tell, is that I set the partition table to MBR, which had previously not been set. Is it possible that Windows could not install itself onto a blank drive? Did it need me to set the partition table? That would seem weird. Anyway, I'm gonna try booting it up in the full system now. Will let you know.

Yes, it's weird. ~20+ years ago I installed Win2k many times, and never had a problem. Most important that it's working now

[matthuszagh]

I just reassembled the scope and tried to boot into it but nothing.... I don't get it. I connected the drive to my Linux desktop and I don't see a partition table on it. What a strange thing. Maybe I'll try your suggestion of connecting it to the secondary IDE connector.

I didn't actually check the partition layout right after the successful install, but it rebooted into win2k, so it must have been successful. So booting again erased the partition table or even more of the drive? How could that be?

[matthuszagh]

I hate to say it but I think I'm giving up. I can't believe I basically had a successful install and then it just went away - that doesn't make much sense to me. I tried a few more times but no luck. I suppose the next step would be to troubleshoot the IDE bus, but I'm not sure I'm up for putting in the time for that. Anyway, thanks so much to everyone for the help.

[coromonadalix]

not all cf cards can be booted as an hdd, i've seen many problems with that.     

For any ssd equivalent technology, you have to find drives with no trim support, because the OS  aka  win2k or xp  can't manage that

What you should have used is called   an IDE DOM    "IDE disk on module", you have some with the correct male or female 40 amd or 44 pins,  they only need an 5vdc to work

they will work like ide drive but having ssd technology /  motorless .... and can be fast enough  ...

same exist for Sata too, i have a few in industrial pc's, some of them snap directly on the pcb sata connector ... and you still need an 5vdc supply too


if it worked with an ide drive before,  you are chasing ghost(s)  and don't use what is really needed and may assume an cf card with an ide to cf adapter may work

yes      you have the master / slave  and the famous cable select modes  the cable select mode is tricky, you have some wire twists in it, not all ide cables are identicals, 

you have full straight ones too (need the master slave jumper on each drive or hdd cd-rom mix etc ...)

Never had any special problems with  win2k setups,  but it get finicky with memory problems,  when you try to install it it spit some errors,  you check everything  but the ram sticks have some problems that you did not knew / notice