Win2k troubles. Help Please

[kannanof]

Here's my computer specs.
Athlon 1.2
Windows 2000
384MB RAM
CD-RW
DVD
20 GB samsung Hard drive

Somehow I think I got a little bug somwhere. What happens is that when I start the system, everything boots fine and displays the right components. Then instead of loading windows, it says,
Boot from cd: DISK FAILURE, INSERT BOOT DISK AND PRESS ENTER
I've tried just about everything, and the only way my system will load windows is if the windows 2000 installation CD is in the cd rom drive. I've even written zeroes to the hard drive using TDCLEAR program. Still same thing. I called samsung and of course they told me that its not the hard drive. I dont know what else to do. Once it boots with the CD, everything works fine and everything on the hard drive is fine. But won't start without the CD. I've even reset the CMOS and used fdisk to delete partitions.

If anyone knows what I can do, please respond.
OF course I know I could have the hard drive replaced, but I;m trying to not go that route.

 

[rjkrash]

2 thoughts,

Is your BIOS up to date?

Did you create a Boot partition on the HD? It sounds to me like there is no boot sector.

I found a link at MS

HOW TO: Perform a "Clean" Installation of Windows 2000 Server (Q308207)

It says server but I thinks most everthing applies as far as Win2K in general.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q308/2/07.ASP

Good Luck ... The two rules for success are:
1. Never tell them everything you know.

 

[tlcscousin]

Is the computer running ata100?If so during install you should have been prompted to hit F6 to install third party drivers for a scsi.W2K does not have support for ATA 100 until SP2 (and I dont think even then).
What happens is it does not recognize the hard drive on the ATA100 controller so it does not know where the OS is.