purpose:
Lossless installation of NT Server 4.0 on an original Win98 (FAT32) 4.2G hard disk. (The original hard disk is 2G C: and 2.2G D:.)
Operation:
Use PMagic to reduce D:, install IBM Boot Manager at the end of the hard disk; reduce C:, in the second half of C: Empty out about 400M to build a FAT partition ready to install NT4.
Set the 400MB partition to ACTIVE. After DOS 6.22 is established, it will boot normally and bring the CD-ROM drive. At this time, because the original 98 C: invisible; the original D: FAT32, FAT can not be accessed, so it is not visible, therefore, the partition ready to install NT4 is C:, the optical drive is D:.
Starting from the CD-ROM WIN/B, copying the file is completely normal, and it can crash when the first blue screen is small! From the full screen error message you can see: INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE
Question:
In FAT format, DOS starts normally, NT4 starts to read BOOT.INI is normal (RESET after hang, NT multiple start every time) Select the menu, choose to install the NT4 and then the blue screen, and then the crash information will be out again), why NT4 will prompt that you can not access the BOOT device?
You can completely eliminate disc problems or hardware compatibility issues! Because in the same machine, the exact same configuration, the same hard disk, the same disc, just on the previous day, almost the same way, once successfully installed successfully! The problem can be solved by starting the installed NT4 the next day after the shutdown! Reinstall, or the same error situation in the same place! Why!
Analysis:
In order to eliminate the large hard disk, FAT16 2G restrictions and other factors (although I don't think I have such a problem in the above arrangement), I used PMagic's powerful partition move function to move 400MB free space to the entire hard disk. The forefront. Unfortunately, trying to install NT4 still fails the same. However, at least now some possible interference factors have been ruled out.
Let's analyze: My question is "Unable to access the boot device (INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE)", then, how does the startup start? Needless to say, the BIOS first reads the MBR, and then uses the 512-66 bytes in front of the MBR as the boot program, and the 66 bytes as the partition data starts the boot process!
OK, I can boot from the 4 boot partitions of the 4.2G hard disk, including the 400MB FAT16 partition (DOS boot), indicating that the boot program and partition data in the MBR are basically correct ……
Can it be said that it is completely correct? No, of course not! The most obvious example is the bootstrapping virus. When it is infected and the MBR startup program is modified, it may still start to access the partitions normally. If (people or programs) do not check the MBR, no abnormalities will be found. So, if the virus is ruled out (I have 95% confidence that there is no virus), is the MBR now normal?
Maybe not. Why is it possible? In theory, PMagic uses a separate partition to install BootManager to implement boot management, and will not modify the MBR startup program. But I have changed the size of each partition with PMagice xx times. For my PMagic 3.05, it has to write MBR every time the partition size changes (PMagic 4.0 has improved)! Although in theory it should only change the information after 66 bytes, it should not be changed to the first 512-66 bytes of data. But is it really doing this? Or is it an error when doing this?
Solution:
Let us take some action to prove this! Now I want to move MBR, naturally be cautious. So, back up an MBR file first - how to prepare? There are a lot of tools, I use KV300/B to do it, although I won't use it to kill …… ;-) Then, make a clean MBR startup program to compare it (mainly compared to the startup program). There are no other machines at hand, and a clean MBR startup program can only be obtained from FDISK/MBR. But as a result, this clean program goes directly to the MBR. Then, come back to KV300/B again and save this "clean MBR”. Open these two MBR data files with UltraEdit, Compare Files…… Ha! The comparison results are really different!
There is no mind to analyze the difference, simply restart the machine, choose to start the 400MB partition, choose Install … … the result … … ;-) is very satisfactory - I only used 10 minutes is very smooth Completed the remaining installation work!
So, when you encounter problems, attention analysis can always be solved. The solution to this simple installation problem is a basic example. I hope to draw a little meaning from everyone.