Finally got WIN2K up!!! but it errors!!!

[LC1104]

I just got WIN 2K up. I am dual booting a 10 GB partition on FAT32 for Win98SE and a 70GB NTFS partition for WIN2K. It took me forever to get the system up. For some reason, my file copying randomly messes up. I have been installing all day. I went through the painfully long win2k install process at least 20 times today. I have a fastrak 66 and 4 hard drives. I have 3 IBM 20 GB 7200 RPM and 1 IBM 22 GB 7200 RPM. I have a Plextor 40x max ultra scsi CDROm and a Plextor 8/20 scsi CDR. I have no clue why it is so random. But i was so happy when it randomly FINALLY setup win2k! i hate win 98 so i have been trying for ever to get this up. I have an asus p3b-f with a 450 P3. Matrox g400 max and RR-g. Also SBLive Value. And an adaptec 2940 U controller. Now that i'm in win2k, i thought the system would be invincably stable. i was wrong. now for some reason, i can't move/drag icons. this is the weirdest thing. if i want to move an icon on my desktop, i have to cut and paste. And for some reason, about every 1 out of 5 times i boot up, windows says there was an error and has to reboot but is fine after it reboots. Is it buggy, do i have a buggy setup, or i don't know what else it could be?! help please. I installed SP-1. This operating system is driving me insane. Could it be that my raid card is defective? My win98 setup seems to have been running well. btw, i have a raid 0 config and all four hard drives are on the same array. I thought this would be a dream setup, it's the opposite...

[LC1104]

One more question - if i go to the install part on the win2k disc and choose the repair previous win 2k installation, will it overwrite settings? Or will it just look for errors? Is this an option that anyone recommends doing? thanks a lot folks.

[Phil Pugh]

Can't help with your setup problems much - I am running W2K SR1 on my works laptop (COMPAQ M700) but I stick to Win98 on my NLE system at home - it's been very stable for the last 18 months (PII 450).

The repair bit of the W2K kit looks for missing or 'damaged' (e.g. wrong date) files and replaces them as far as I recall.

My experience of W2K is that it is rock-solid - but you have to ensure you have the correct drivers for your hardware. The installation on my laptop took me 2 hours - and that included Office 2000, which took longer than W2K !

[wkulecz]

Check the promise web site. Since you said you have a 70GB NTFS "partition," a fasttrack, and 4 ~20GB drives I assume you are installing w2k to a Raid or BODs. This is probably the problem.

You need to follow a non-standard installation proceedure, which I think is on the promise web site.

I chose the easy route. I installed to a normal EIDE drive on the mothrboard's controller and then installed the fasttrack drivers and the raid array. If you dual boot, I found it "easier" to setup the raid under w98 and then convert to NTFS after installing the Promise w2k driver.

So far I've found the w2k "reapir" option to be useless -- I had a w2k disaster early on after a warrenty motherboard swap unwittingly took me from MPC to ACPI. Repair did nothing but waste my time. Have had no problems (other than ATI capture drivers blue-screening) since the re-install.

--wally.


[This message has been edited by wkulecz (edited 11 October 2000).]

[Dr Mordrid]

For starters I see that you have tried setting up an 80 gig RAID array with 3 similar and 1 dissimilar drives, partitioning it between the boot and video storage. Not good to start with. The boot and video storage should be on totally separate devices, not partitions of the same device.

Given that you are partitioning anyhow why not just use the 22g IBM as a system drive and let the other 3 remain in the RAID array? This would be more stable and not suffer from dropped frames when Windows writes to its swapfile or temp folder. The extra 10g on the video drive isn't worth the problems your setup would cause....

As for the Windows2K instabilities, I'd Ghost the Windows installation and rearrange things as noted above restoring the OS to the single drive. If that doesn't help reformat the drive and reinstall from the ground up. Something obviously got screwed.

Also, as I've noted here many times, Win2K is NOT even close to being a mature product. With Service Pack 1 it's better, but still no cigar for editing IMHO. As things stand now Win2K is a good networking OS, but its multimedia support has a long ways to go and is not likely to be fixed until SP2 and DirectX8 arrive.

Another pair of problems;

1. Win2K's VfW to WDM translation layer is buggy. This means VfW software (most analog) could have problems.

2. There is no Win2K SDK for the Zoran MJPeg chipset. This is the chipset used on Pinnacle DC-xx and the Matrox MJPeg cards.

Dr. Mordrid



[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 11 October 2000).]

[wkulecz]

Doc I want to call you on w2k alledged multimedia problems.

Give me a few examples of "bugs in the VfW layer."

I've had zero problems playing AVIs MPEGs and MPEG2 from DVDROMs. Media Studio Pro6 work great and I've no concerns about 2/4 GB limits on DV.

All the VfW stuff I've tried worked great with the Hauppauge card -- my ATI AIW-pro is a lost cause as the marvel appears to be. Can't blame Microsoft for Zoran's inability to produce support for their MJPEG chip.

[Dr Mordrid]

The problems are in the VfW to WDM translation layer, not in Vfw itself. As you should know Win2K uses WDM drivers. The translation layer is there for legacy support of WfW devices, but in the presence of bugs this breaks. The problem exists in both Win98 Gold (original release) and Win2K.

For something on this by a vendor read here;

http://www.siliconpixels.com/win2k.htm

for info on the Win98 portion of the issue read here;

http://support.microsoft.com/support.../q192/1/12.asp

The perfect solution is for a WDM Win2K driver to be available, but as I noted there is no SDK for the Zoran MJPeg chipsets. Barring that you have to use a VfW driver and hope it doesn't hit one of the translation layers rough spots.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 12 October 2000).]

[wkulecz]

Doc,

The problem is win9x and how do I get rid of it!

The Silicon Pixels stuff is like saying I should have stayed with win3.1 because my network card didn't have 32-bit drivers.
If they can't get off their duffs and write working drivers I'm moving to something else
and the vendor that orphans me is off my buy list. If winXXX is in beta
while a card is being marketed I expect winXXX drivers for it!

VfW is a kludge of old win 3.1 "technology" and needs to be junked ASAP! We want real WDM drivers not VfW translations!

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

If you don't like the idea of the VfW to WDM translator then complain to Micro$oft about it. That was their baby so that vendors could (supposedly) use legacy drivers while developing WDM drivers. That the translation is faulty is Micro$ofts fault, not the vendors for using it.

What is particularly distressing is that this is not the first problem Micro$oft has had with various WfW to WDM translation layers. It didn't work rignt in Win98Gold either, and AFAIK it still doesn't for several features. It got fixed for Win98SE and went phlewey again in Win2K.

Both problems coexisting puts a lot of companies between a rock and a hard place.

Dr. Mordrid



[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 12 October 2000).]