Dell Precision M4400 compatible with Win2k Pro?

What makes you think it won't be able to boot from CD? The bootable image resides in a hidden sector on the CD itself. Give it a go, there's nothing that can go wrong especially if you didn't try this first.

 

OK let me try. I'll be back.

 

I have my system set to show hidden and system files, so I thought I would see some boot files on the CD too.

OK going now to try and boot from the CD.

 

No it doesn't reside in a file at all. It is invisible, often just called a bootable disk is the only thing you will be able to tell the difference from a normal storage disk.

 

Yes you are right, it worked all the way through, but I aborted the install because I want to swap my HD with the smaller 4.3G as master.

Let me just do that, and see if the install is successful.
Might take me a while to return, tough.

 

Sure See how it goes.

 

OK I'm back and using Win2k3. This old HD really feels a bit sluggish, but guess it will be ok to give this system a spin. Srceen area is also somewhat narrow on the sides, will need to update that driver too.

Just installed Firefox (just remembered how much I hate IE), but the rest of the system is still bare bones by my standards. Just wanted to let you know the install worked fine. Thanks very much for your help. Most probably will thinker a bit longer, but not much longer. It's 5:30am so need to get a bit of sleep and will carry on tomorrow.

Will try to install Norton AV, hope it doesn't complain about server licenses. Otherwise will have to look for alternatives. Suggestions welcomed...

Thanks again.

 

My previous posts should help reduce system use even more, especially services tweaking. Good luck with it! By the way Norton is a huge memory hog. Really slows any system down, except maybe Corporate edition. Just a tip

 

I'm now back to my regular Win2k system, something went very wrong in the w2k3 system.

I started installing some drivers of the M850 Intel MB in the win2k3 system. Installed the audio driver, then the Intel Active (system) Monitor. So far so good. Finally since I've always installed it in my with Win2K Pro, also chose to install the "Intel Ultra ATA Storage Driver". But it seems the w2k3 system did not like it, even tough I'm using the same HD's. Upon reboot an error came up saying something like there was no page file, everything was very slow, and I lost access to the CD-RW drive. Not sure what else might have happened.

Then I tried to reboot but it never got past an error after the bios booted and w2k3 was starting, a blue screen of death came briefly up that I could not manage to read because the system would very quickly and automatically try to reboot every time the error came up (first thing next install will change that setting to prevent the auto reboot).

Oh well, was nice while it lasted. I'll try again later... need to get some sleep now.

 

Are you sure you need the Intel Ultra ATA drivers? They should only be used with certain hard drives, namely those using Ultra ATA (as opposed to SATA, UDMA, PATA or ATAPI). You might want to check for a compatible server driver if it is necessary