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I have a reasonable amount of experience with these kinds of issues, but this one is just a little weird.
I'm trying to keep a legacy computer going that's attached to a piece of equipment that my department can't afford to replace, and which is still used on a regular basis. I was going to try to replace the whole box, but while the software for the instrument runs in Windows 7, it relies on a particular ARCnet PCI card for communication to the instrument and has the driver built into the software, and doesn't use the Windows driver system – which is something that works in Windows 2000 but not Windows 7. There's no driver for the card installed in the existing Win2K system, and the system only appears to activate the ARCnet card when the software is opened.
The computer is an IBM Netvista A40 – Pentium 3, Windows 2000, of course IDE drive interfaces. It's got the newest BIOS version that I found available. So for now I'm trying to replace the hard drive to dampen the terrifying noise of a Quantum Fireball LCT that's been spinning for 17 years. I picked up a 32 GB IDE SSD and used Ghost to clone the existing drive to it. For some reason BIOS sees the SSD as only 8 GB although software is able to see it as 32 GB but is only able to address 8 GB (so Ghost wouldn't let me create a 32 GB partition on it). That's fine – there's only 2 GB of data on the original system so 8 GB is plenty.
I get the "Inaccessible boot device" BSOD after booting from the SSD with normal boot. However, it works fine in Safe Mode. That's usually an indication that a few quick things will fix it. No other hardware has changed aside from the drive, so I didn't think I would run into driver issues. The drive is on the same channel as the original HDD, and is similarly set to master.
With a Windows 2000 CD I tried the "automatic" fixes (fixboot, etc.) as well as a repair install – neither of which was effective.
Any suggestions for things to try before I either attempt a Win2K clean install or give up on the SSD and get a newer IDE HDD?
I figure that there's maybe something strange with the way the IDE SSD reports geometry that causes the inability to address more than 8 GB of disk space – the existing HDD in there is larger than 8 GB (20 GB actually) and so it doesn't seem like the typical cases of BIOS limiting disk access. This system was from 2001 and would have been subject to the 137 GB BIOS disk limit, so this 8 GB thing seems like some edge case.
I thought about trying to see if virtualization with PCI card access might work, but I don't want to dump more time into this than is absolutely necessary.
Adam
Posted 2017-09-16T03:15:58.007
Reputation: 21
Potentially helpful link? http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netsysm/article.php/623601/Repairing-Windows-2000-through-the-Recovery-Console.htm
– rahuldottech – 2017-09-16T03:33:35.943Your idea is sound. Get an 8GB IDE HDD, and spare yourself all this nonsense. Don't get trapped into the "what does this button do" abyss! i lost at least 2 jobs that way ! Also, its not the original BIOS, that might be a reason of it all. – GwenKillerby – 2017-09-16T03:54:10.247
Can you provide the as much detail about the BSOD you see? The code, and any other info. Any chance this computer is infected? Have you scanned the drive for malware and specifically rootkits? It's definitely trying to load a driver during normal boot that is getting in the way. Is there any other device on the cable? A CD-Rom? How about any type of USB device? Maybe the OS is mounting the drive with the wrong drive letter during normal boot. Have you confirmed that the clone produce an exact replica? Maybe the partitions were relocated or resized. A sector-by-sector clone might be better. – Appleoddity – 2017-09-16T03:54:56.363
I think the 8GB issue is a clue though. If the original is 20GB then it is likely the data is still stored outside the 8GB boundary somewhere. You really need to solve that issue. – Appleoddity – 2017-09-16T03:55:31.583
See here about the 8GB BIOS limit, are you absolutely sure the BIOS is configured the same for this drive? http://micom.net/Downloads/Drive%20Size%20Limits.htm
– Appleoddity – 2017-09-16T03:57:07.620the original USES two gb of data, not SEES 20 GB. @Appleoddity – GwenKillerby – 2017-09-16T03:57:38.387
@GwenKillerby - He said the original drive is 20GB. Just because only 2GB of data is used doesn't mean it is all at the beginning of the drive. Likely it is not. Likely there is at least some spread around the entire 20GB. – Appleoddity – 2017-09-16T03:59:20.537
Maybe related: How do I fix my USB drive to get its original size back?
– Scott – 2017-09-16T04:02:21.580its 20, okay, but if it only uses 2gb i don;'t see any reason why its spread out. what makes you say that? – GwenKillerby – 2017-09-16T04:02:24.337
@Appleoddity that's a good point, but I'm not sure then why it would work in safe mode but not normal boot? Also Ghost should have taken care of making sure that all of the data is inside the new 8GB partition- as it had only let me make the new partition that size. That's also why a lower-level sector copy probably wouldn't help in this case. There's no other device on the same cable as the drive, and only one non-CD drive attached at a time (when I test the SSD I disconnect the HDD). – Adam – 2017-09-16T14:32:24.053
It's an interesting issue. I've got another idea to remove all disk drives and IDE controllers from device mgr while viewing hidden devices: https://www.google.com/amp/s/kabheap.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/command-line-to-show-hidden-devices-in-device-manager/amp/ Then reboot, but this might make things worse. There's also a way to boot a live CD and review and disable drivers. I used to have a great tool for that but it stopped working after XP and I retired it, now I can't remember what it was.
– Appleoddity – 2017-09-16T15:05:56.287Sometimes root kits show up in those hidden devices also. I'm serious about he malware, especially rootkits hook the startup process and work at a low level that might be bypassed during safe mode. A change to partitions and drive layout might cause a rootkit to freak out. Good luck on finding a tool compatible with 2000 to scan with though. Just throwing ideas out there... – Appleoddity – 2017-09-16T15:08:19.763