Need help getting OS up

Question

8/1/02
I need help folks.
I have a new Microstar based computer and
I am trying to install an operating system
and am having no luck.
I've tried installing Windows 98se and
and XP Home edition, neither works.
POST seems to run fine.
For Windows 98se, the setup floppy can be read, commands
can be run so the hard disk
can be formatted and the cdrom read.
It can boot from floppy or cdrom and
copy the OS files but a boot from the hard drive
crashes. Single stepping through the
sequence it dies after loading msmouse.vxd with
the message:
While initializing device NTKERN
Windows protection error. Restart your computer.
For Windows XP Home, setup inspects the hardware and appears to
start but dies with:
File \386\ntkrnlmp.exe could not be loaded
error code is 7. Setup cannot continue.
Obviously something in the ntkern stuff.
The system is stripped to the barebones.
I've tried swapping RAM, the hard drive, CDROM, Video card and
even the mother board (I exchanged the first one I had
because of an intermittent mouse detection problem it had
the same problem when it didn't have troble finding the mouse).
No combination gets past the above failures. I've checked
cables countless times.
The AMI BIOS doesn't provide many options and as far
as I can tell an update is not needed but the
board version is strange and I can't find hardly
any solid references to it so I'm
guessing a bit with respect to the BIOS.
The board version is 2.1 which I'm led to believe is a
a special OEM done for Gateway. (This isn't a
 Gateway machine though, there must a been
 a fire sale on theie cards).  The Gateway site indicates
the latest AMI BIOS is P08 which I seem to have
Interseting side note I ran a diagnostic that came with the 60G Harddrive and
the diagnostic claimed the BIOS was fine and Windows
XP capable.
The general configuration is:
-MS-6330 ver 2.1 mother board (two different ones)
-AMD Athlon- 950MHz processor
(A0950AMT3B
AGGA0051XPBW
9446440107)
-It has an AMI bios version 7.00.XX dated 6/26/01,
in setup it has:
62-0518-009999-00101111-070199-AMIBIOS-0AAVWP08-Y2KC-F
on POST screen
-Microsoft PS2 mouse
-Ensoniq AGP video card (4001046710 rev B) or PCI based Matrox 5063-8798 video card
-1.44 Floppy
-RAM Modules - 256M (PC133 Eudar Chips) (tried two 64M Modules too)
-Western Digital (WD 600) 60G HD (tried a 20 G Fujitsu MPG3294ATE too)
-CRROM CRD-8400B, (tried a polaroid BCE 2410IM CD-R/CD-RW too)
-Duro 400W Power Supply
Does anyone have any ideas?
khinchicago
 

Answer 1

Hallo Khinchicago,
You wrote that you use a Western Digital HDD.  Always when I have problems with installing the OS (W2k in my case) for replacement I give the HDD a low level format.  That takes a lot of time but it works almost most fine.  If I do not do that, I will have many problems during or after installing the OS and the other software.  Unfortunately, I am rather experienced in this field.  Too often, I try some new soft ware and too often, it turns my computer upside down.  I do this for some years now with IBM, Maxtor, Seagate and WD drives.  Since I started this behaviour for HDD I had rather never again problems with reinstalling a OS.
For WD drives you will find the EZ-Install utility for low level formatting (Write Zeros To Drive).  You can find this utility here:  http://support.wdc.com/download/#dlgtools.  After downloading the EZ-Install utility, you will have to create with EZ-Install a bootable floppy.  After restarting from that floppy you will be able to low level format the drive;  time consumption for 60 GB estimated 4,5 to 6 hours (WDC 20GB was over 1,5 hours).
May be this can help you to solve your problem
Jan