Error loading operating syste

Hello all. I have a Soyo Dragon SY-K7V (not plus), VIA KT266 chipset, and an amd xp 1800, palomino core. I recently did a win2k install, on an western digital 40gb drive. After post, and bios output, it reads the a:, cdrom, and when it gets to the hdd0 I receive "Error reading operating system", or something very similar. But it gives me that error so fast, it's like the mobo isn't even trying to read the drive.

According to the Soyo website, the fastest palomino core supported is 1700. I'm trying to figure out if by using an 1800, I would recive the error I am getting. It doesn't seem likely, but that's all I can figure out by now. I even have the proc underclocked to 1.1Ghz.

I appreciate any help. Thanks.

 

Re: Error loading operating system

I doubt that it's a timing issue. It sounds to me like a problem in the hardware boot process. It goes like this (grossly oversimplified):

• The BIOS checks itself and the hardware out in the POST.
• Then it reads the master boot record program on the first cylinder of the boot drive, and passes control to it.
• The MBR program reads the partition table, and (if there's no problem with the partition table), passes control to the boot partition record program.
• The partition boot record program loads the OS system files.

All of those programs are simple-minded, and quite inflexible. They have no search routines. The process takes very little time because each program in turn reads only one sector (512KB) to find what it's looking for. If one doesn't find what it expects to in that sector, it generates an error message and quits -- and the boot process stops.

In your case, I suspect that either the partition boot record is not valid or is unreadable, or the Win2K system loader file is not where the partition boot record expects to find it.

Did you (re-)partition the drive before you did the install? When you re-partitioned the drive, did you mark the boot partition "active"? Did you do whatever process is comparable in Win 2K to the DOS SYS command? (That's the process that puts the necessary system file in the right place so that the partition boot record program can find it.)

 

Ok, I think I've found the source of the problem here:

http://www.computing.net/os2/wwwboard/forum/1437.html

This sounds about right. I thought the problem was a remaining folder left over after a suse 10 install, that I didn't delete before installing win2k. Nope.

I guess there could be a problem with that particular via chipset. I'm going to set the bios to lba, run a reinstall, and hopefully that will fix the problem. Thanks for your help, the boot process still mystifies me, but I liked your explanation.

 

If you change the drive addressing mode in the BIOS (e.g., from or to LBA mode), be prepared to lose any data that you have on that drive, and to have to re-partition and re-format the drive.

You're welcome. It was a condensation of the information in Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PC's (12th Edition). That book is now in its 15th or 16th edition, and worth having around.