Getting to Dos without windows opening?

[xm5er]

Is it possible?

I'm trying to update a non ACPI bios currently but because w2k is installed on the Hdd I keep getting to a blue screen telling me to update the bios or switch off ACPI mode in text mode (?).

Help, this is doing my head in!

[tycho]

Press F8 when the black "starting windows" screen appears. The one with the status bar along the bottom and this will give you an option to boot to the command prompt.

HTH

[xm5er]

it only gives me a "safe mode with dos prompt". I've tried this but doesnt boot far enough to get to safe mode.

[tja]

bootdisk.com

[xm5er]

tja said:

bootdisk.com

Ta! Dr DOS did the trick, put a new bios in, now I'm getting a new error.

Now I have an inaccessible boot device, and it's telling me to check the new hard drive or controllers.

Any other input appreciated.

[lanciachris]

You sure you know what youre doing? sounds like you put on an incorrect bios....

[xm5er]

lanciachris said:

You sure you know what youre doing? sounds like you put on an incorrect bios....

lol

I haven't got a fvckin' clue what I am doing.

The bios I put on was from the Gigabyte website so i assume its correct, god knows, I may have been given duff info when i bought it.

Is it possible to boot from the W2K cd without screwing the existing install on the Hdd?

[Jinx]

It sounds like you have not set up the HDD in the Bios yet - you need to enter the bios setup (sometimes F2 sometimes ctrl + del). Somewhere there will be an option to change the HDD settings - change to autodetect and save and exit.

[d-man]

Given the ACPI bluescreen you were getting before is this is a freshly built machine and so the Windows install has never worked? Or maybe you've replaced the machine's internals and are trying to get it to boot the old OS?

In either case, during setup it asks you to press Enter to install additional IDE drivers. If you don't do that and the hard disk that you're installing Windows onto is connected to a controller (normally RAID controllers, some fast IDE controllers, maybe SATA but I've never used one...) that requires them then you get this error when you try and boot for the first time. Only solution I've found is to reinstall Windows and supply the drivers.