Help a poor Mac geek install Win 2000 Server!

[TCatlin]

Hello,

I recently bought a 600 mhz celeron Dell with 256 mb or ram and preinstalled NT 4 workstation. I need the Mac services that Windows 2000 server offers.

I tried to do a clean install with the Windows 2000 Server CD, but the installation failed and will not boot. I can, however still boot off of the old NT 4 OS.

At this point, I'd like to nuke everything and start over. The 10 gig hard drive came partitioned into one 3 gig FAT partition and one 7 gig NTFS partition. I think I'd like to make the HD one 10 gig NTFS partition. The Windows 2000 set up will not allow me to do this. Is there something else I need to boot from in order to reformat/partition this drive and start over? Then get a fresh start with a new install of Window 2000 server.

Thanks,

Tim

 

[SteelDragon]

Ok, NTFS Will not boot to a partition that is greater than 4 GIG in size.. that is why Win 2000 set-up will not let you do it. NTFS partitions can be up to 8 Gig in size for secondary partitions however, and in 2000 I believe even larger. What you must do if you want to get this 2000 box up and running is run 2000 setup from in windows NT, select upgrade, and follow the prompts... you do not need to boot from the CD, the upgrade option is very effective and a lot less complex. Once you are done, you can use the convert command to convert the 3 Gig Fat Partition to NTFS an viola there you have it, you nice new 2000 box. If you run in to any other issues, just post them and I'll be glad to help.

Good Luck,
SteelDragon

 

[TCatlin]

Thanks SteelDragon,

Well, the odd thing is that Windows set up will allow me to reformat the 7 gig partition, but won't allow me to reformat the 3 gig FAT partition (C. I suppose that this is because it's the location of NT 4 that came with the machine and won't let me touch it unless I'm booted off something else. That's why I tried to install Win 2000 Server to the D: partition, but something happened and the installation was not successful.

My reasoning was: If I can install the new OS to D: (7 gigs), then I could just boot from from D: with the new Win 2K and reformat the 3 gig partition later and thus erasing all traces of NT 4 workstation, but windows set up will not allow me to touch C: and I can't get the machine to boot from the CD.

Thanks,

Tim

 

[SirLee]

I disagree about the 4 Gig Boot Limitation I have a single 6 Gig NTFS Boot partition on my Win2K Notebook and its booting perfectly.

 

[TCatlin]

Thanks again for everyone's support. I'm really encouraged by the friendliness of Windows folks.

I successfully installed Win 2000 Server
by adjusting the target volume to 4 gigs. So
I'm up and running and sharing files with
my macs just fine.

Now...I have my start up partition as D:
will this be a problem? The 10 gig drive
is now partitioned as follows: C: 2 gig
FAT, D: 4 gig NTSF, and then 3.31 gigs of
free unpartitioned space.

Disk Admin will not allow me to touch the
C: even though there's nothing on it. I'd
like to delete the C: 2 gig partition and
combine it with the 3.31 gigs of free
space and make it a 5.31 gig NTSF
partition.

Also...I've tried to make D: into C: but I
again Disk Admin will not allow me to do
this. Perhaps this is just asthetics, but it
seems that the start up partition should
be on C:??

I need a large partition to install the RIP to so that I've got a significant amount of disk spool space. I'm often printing files larger than 150 mb.

Any suggestions are appreciated,

Tim

 

[stuttle]

Your NT Boot loader is on C: and you cannot change this now. Do not delete the C: drive or Win2k will no longer function. If you want to do it over, delete all of the partitions with FDISK and start win2K install by booting with the 4 boot floppies or from the CDROM (if it is IDE). ----------------------------
Steven R. Tuttle
CBE, MCSE, BNCS, DCT, A+
Senior Consultant, ePresence
----------------------------

 

[SteelDragon]

SirLee,

your laptop is mostly an exception to what is otherwise the rule, I would be willing to bet if you looked in your Bios you would see that your entire drive is under the 1024 cylinder barrier that exists for a bootable partition for any Windows OS. Some hardware will be capable of acheiving this or being configured to achieve it, but the vast majority of drives out there hit their 1024 cylider at 4 Gig. I was trying to not go into the engineer aspect and be overly technical about the actual theoretical limits of the drives. The limit in fact is NOT based on storage size in bytes, but rather in the cylinders of the physical disk, which relate to size by sectors. If you pick up a Tech manual for A+ certification, or go to the MS web site and look up the NTFS bootable partition limits it is explained there in detail.

Thanks For the Correction,

Good Luck,
SteelDragon