win2000 can't find hard drive

[wbhambone]

i'm installing win2000. i booted from cd, bios finds both drives, everything seems normal.

win2000 setup starts up, begins to loads files it needs. after loading files, right before the actual install begins i get a message the 2000 can't find any installed hard drives. it tells me to check connections, etc.

any thoughts?

both drives are connected to a pci card, not to the board itself.

both drives are completely functional...win98 is currently on system and works fine.

thanks.
brad

[TallCool1]

Win2000 setup starts up, begins to loads files it needs. after loading files, right before the actual install begins i get a message the 2000 can't find any installed hard drives. it tells me to check connections, etc. both drives are connected to a pci card, not to the board itself.

It's that oldCatch-22 -- in some cases, the drive can't boot Win2K until it "sees" the drive, but it can't see the drive until the card drivers are installed, but it can't install the drivers until it sees the drive. Go to the website of the card's manufacturer and check it out -- someone has already had that problem, I'm sure and, hopefully, solved it. If it's a no-name card, go to the chipset manufacturer's site and find out who else used those chips. You may need a firmware upgrade.

Also, are you sure that your card is bootable? Not all IDE add-in cards have their own BIOS. I assume that it does, since it worked with Win98...

[wbhambone]

The card is a CMD Technology 648/649 IDE Controller card. I still have the box it came in which states that the BIOS can be easily updgraded. Problem is I can't find the upgrade anywhere. I did find win2000 driver updates for the card. Question is: if I update the drivers while in win98 and reboot to the win2000 cd will it even be able to see the new drivers?

Any thoughts on where to find an update to the BIOS?

Thanks.
Brad

[antioed]

So...setup probably doesn't have drivers for the controller card. Copy the Windows 2000 drivers for the controller card to a floppy and during Windows 2000 setup when it gives you the option to load 3rd party drivers (press F6) you should be able to load the drivers in for the pci card so setup can see the HD attached to it. Alternatively, I think you could go directly to an IDE channel on the motherboard to do setup, then install the drivers from within 2k and after they're installed reconnect the HD to the PCI card.