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.