I've been experiencing more than my

[bearbear1982]

I've been experiencing more than my fair share of problems with my brand new 40 gig ide maxtor hardrive and windows 2000 professional. Windows 98 can install fine, however 2k refuses to work. There are a couple of issues going on. First of all my BIOS is picking up a different number for the cylinders than whats on the hardrive itself. After a little investigating at maxtor's site the number it's picking up is the "Actual number of cylinders" or something. When I try setting it manually and install win 2k (fresh clean install or upgrading from 98, it doesnt matter) I get an "INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE" error. When I use the settings the BIOS automatically detects, and run the setup/install (again from upgrading from 98 or fresh install from floppies, ive tried both) I get the error "STOP: C0000221 Unknown Hard Error \SystemRoot\System32\ntdll.dll" which as you know, is not a nice error to be getting. I've tried all sorts of different methods of installing, even from a 2nd cd of windows 2000 professional, and still no go. It's just so odd that windows 98 works fine without a hitch, and 2k is putting up such a fight. Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[RogerNorberg]

If your BIOS is new enough to auto detect and it's detecting a different amount of cylinders than is advertized I'd take the hard drive back where you got it and have them hook it up to one of there machines to verify. Hard drives can definately come from the factory bad. You'll fight this one until your blue in the face if you start out with "iffy" hardware...my 2cents

 

[bearbear1982]

I have a maxtor 40gb hd, it dont have problems using win98. I dont have problem installing win2k with my previous hd, but this one really pisses me off. I got all sorts of blue screen msg when i try to boot.
1. Inaccesible boot device.
2. ntdll.dll hardware device error.
3. nv_mini_4.sys hardware device error
4. psrt.sys hardware error

all during boot, dont have the problem with safe mode, must be some hardware problem, but which one?

thanks in advance

 

[RogerNorberg]

Hmmm, So 2000 loads fine? With no apparant errors? Then the first time you login you get the ntdll.dll error etc?

But not in safe mode....I'm not sure about 2000 but with 98 you can go into device manager ( in safe mode) and remove any ghost drivers etc....Then stip down yur PC and let it detect all new hardware....I think you can even remove the ide controllers....2 more cents....

 

[Segfault7375]

Hi all,

For me, turning off Ultra DMA for the boot drive in the BIOS solved the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error for me. I've never gotten any of the other errors before, but I hope this helps.

Segfault7375

 

[bearbear1982]

i dont have any ultra dma in my bios to turn off

 

[wapowell]

I'm not sure if this will help, but I did have similar problems once. I had a HDD that would not let me install win2k on it, but win 98 went in fine. The problem ended up being a defective HDD. Win 2k is far less tollerant of such things. It would let me go through the install process, but then on first reboot, I got the same errors you are getting. Like I said, I'm not sure if this will help you, but here you go anyways. Just food for thought.

~Bill

 

[Guest_imported]

I have the same problem as above.

The hardware error in ntdll.dll.

I just upgraded some stuff on my computer. And that would be a new CDR and HD. I had Windows XP Pro installed before. But i wanted to reinstall it since i had som minor problems in the system. But now it say's that i have a hardware error all time.

I have removed all upgrades just to see if it had something to do with that. But it doesn't seem so. I still get the error. I just spent 400$ to upgrade my computer so it would run better. But guess what... it doesn't run at all.

I relly need some help on this one. I've found no errors on the HD i try to install the OS on. It seems like the HD is the problem here. But in my case i'm not so sure.

//Billy

 

[ced38]

I have exactly the same problem : I've cleaned up everything but I still have this error :
STOP: C0000221 unknown hard error
<path>\ntdll.dll
I do not have any other OS than XP and win98 boot disk... PLEASE HELP ME ! My computer is down !!!

 

[freeflyng]

I have experienced similar problems in the past. I found that it was a DMA issue in my BIOS. I went the manufacture of my mother board and download the current BIOS update. Flashing my BIOS seemed to resolve my issues.

 

[bearbear1982]

i solve this problem by formatting my harddisk completely with win2k boot disk, and the do a clean install...

The error msg just went away after that, the last time i have this problem is when i try to restore an image file from my previous hard disk, the clean istall get rid of this error, hope it helps...

 

[gnosis13]

Just tossing in another 2 cents worth here....you folks might try taking the new hard drive to a different PC, installing it as a second drive, then formatting to see if it generates any errors. You need to make sure that the second PC is not the same kind as the first to eliminate possible BIOS or hardware compatibility issues. You will also want the second PC to be running Win2K to make sure that there is not a software compatibility issue.
A+, N+, MCP

 

[JimXray]

Segfault7375,

Thanks! That was the answer to my problem. I think that my IDE cable was not capable of the throughput to support an UDMA drive. At least I hope so. I will rectify that situation and and set UDMA back to &quot;auto&quot; in my BIOS and give it another try.

 

[Guest_imported]

When i start my computer i get this blue screen and this message &quot;STOP: C0000221 Unknown Hard Error \SystemRoot\System32\ntdll.dll&quot; ... im currentyl running win XP and i tried formatting my HD with my win98 disk but it didn't work... help me im a newbie at this i cant do anything else.


-thx

 

[bearbear1982]

try booting with winxp cd or bootdisk, delete all the old partition n create new ones....format them n install again..
i use to have problem installing xp, but the new partition n formating helps solve it..

hope it helps u too