Dell Precision M4400 compatible with Win2k Pro?

Unless your installation CD says "Upgrade Only" (or something like that, if ever one exists ) you can install W2K3 fresh.

 

You can boot from the W2K3 CD, provided you burnt the MS boot image, and didn't do a filecopy version. If you have a Dell system, the F12 key should bring up a small menu allowing you to select what to boot. Not sure about the older systems and if they have this too, otherwise yes, from the BIOS should be fine. You can partition the drive from within the W2K3 setup installation to your liking. You don't really need floppies at all in this day and age. If you want to boot to DOS or run old DOS software like the old days, search hard on the internet - you will be able to find how to boot DOS from a USB flash drive. USB is the new floppy disk. No more media failures, no more 1.44MB limit, and no more worrying that your next laptop doesn't come with a floppy disk, because it really is something of the past. It even supports multibooting, so you can effectively place multiple boot disks on one flash drive (may need a bit of time to work out how to do it). Here's some reading on this for your pleasure:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20089&st=0&p=143701&#entry143701

 

I tried several times installing Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x32 on my current desktop HD as a separate installation so I can choose at startup which OS I want to boot. But when the installation starts (right after the windows logo) and then a blue screen comes up with the following error:

STOP: c0000221 UNKOWN HARD ERROR
\SYSTEMROOT\SYSTEM32\NTDLL.DLL

Then just to try something different, I installed Windows 2000 Server on a separate 4.3G HD in order to be able to perform an upgrade to Win2k3, but after several tries the same exact error does come up every time at the begining of the installation process. I even tried the "Download updated install files" but nothing changes.

Any idea what could be wrong? I've done a couple of searches about the error, but all hits so far seem to point to problems in existing installed systems, but none so far to an installation. I'll continue to try and find more info, meanwhile it would be great if anyone could provide any additional info.

Thanks.

 

Does the above mean you passed through the blue screened portion of the W2K3 setup successfully? Or did you create a seperate partition to do that? I'm assuming so because there's no windows logo for the setup until you have passed that bit, unless you aren't booting off the CD and doing it another way? Also, is the disk fully formatted before starting or is a previous system on that hard drive already? And is your drive a SATA or IDE? Were you able to install W2K server successfully? I don't recall ever being able to download in the setup, so what updated install files are we talking about?

 

It starts the blue screen install section, starts loading files, then it says "starting windows" as shown on the bottom of the screen and then the error comes up.

No, I tried first installing it on my main HD, then on a separate slave HD. Same thing happens in both cases.

The windows logo came up after I tried to update the Win2k server installation. Error comes up shortly after that.

In the first case, yes there is my Win2k pro system on the main HD, and there is almost 10Gb free space on that one, formated as Fat32. In the second case, it's a separate (slave) 4.3G empty HD that I just deleted the files that where on it. It is Fat32 formated, and I told the Win2k3 install to keep that file system, not to use NTFS. I checked the drive for errors with Chkdisk before using it, and none where reported.

Both are IDE drives, master is 80Gb. Slave is 4.3G, somewhat old, but still fully functional.

Yes, I was able to install Win2k server on the slave 4.3Gb HD, no problems whatsoever. After restart I was presented with the boot option of which system I wanted to boot: win2k Pro, or Win2k server, and I could boot any of them without any problems. Later after trying to install Win2k3 (by updating Win2k Server), a third "win2k3 setup" option was also added to the boot menu.

After I start the installation, it asks if I want to download updated installation files, or use the current ones. This might not exactly be the exact wording, but it comes up after the screen with the NTFS upgrade or keep current file system option. In any case I also tried using the option of the download updated files install and tit took a few minutes longer to start the install, but in the end the same error happened.

Basically it starts copying files to the HD, then goes to reboot the machine. When it restarts the blue screen install screen comes up, starts loading files, and then after about 1 minute of file loading it reports "starting windows" but then the error comes up.

Let me just post this info, and I'll return in a while and edit the post to include the exact wording of the updated files option, or better yet let me see if I can make a screen capture.

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Update: ok I've attached a screen capture of the "get updated setup files" screen.

 

How are you getting that screen capture? Are you installing from inside Windows and not through the CD on booting?

 

I start my machine with my usual Win2k pro, go to explorer, look at the Win2k3 CD files and doble-click setup.exe to start the install. Seems like it is working...

How would you suggest I start the install?

 

Hmm.. unless your CD copy is an upgrade disk, you should boot from the CD itself, not run the installation from within windows. Or were you just trying to show that specific screen here? If you are booting off the CD, try to go for the quick format to FAT, not "keep the file system". This will make sure that all files are wiped properly, as it does sound like you have a version differing/corrupted ntdll.dll. Also, you can try removing your main drive and making the slave drive a master drive. That way you can rule out any interference from your other drive.

 

If its of any help, here's the file list of the win2k3 install CD. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think I'll be able to boot from it.

 

Boot off the CD.