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The Formatting on this is different because this is so long! I wanted to try something new, too. The essay here is copyright 1998 by David K. Every, and was copied from this web site.Fun with WindowsNT Another pleasureful experience I had with a "simple" WinNT install.
By: David K. Every
©Copyright 1998
I am a software engineer who writes code for both Macs and Windows. Just thought I would share an
experience I had with a simple WinNT install. This is WinNT 4 on a modern machine
Well, a P-90...
- this should be no big
deal - or so I thought.To be fair, all during this process, I do have other work to do. So I am starting things and leaving
them alone so I can do other things. It is amazing how bad the installers are on the PC's though - they
love to ask question all during the process so that you can not just let them run,
Oh yes, damn those installers for trying to ask questions about your system.
you have to hold there
hands - this is very foreign to me, as Mac installers just work - rarely prompting me, and never asking
questions that it can figure out itself.
Perhaps your system couldn't figure out the question all by itself! That's why it ASKED!
Thursday - 2/6/97 - Getting my new System
I am elated - I got my OpenStep Enterprise - Developer Tools (which is going to be compatible with Apple's
Rhapsody OS) - I want to install and get to work. This will allow me to learn more about OpenStep, which will
give me a big head-start on Rhapsody development. I get a machine for this task from "upstairs" (our IS dept) -
its a Dell Optiplex XMT 590 (Pentium 90mhz with SCSI and 32meg of RAM). Not a brand new machine - but
not old either.
Well, several years old...
This should be a snap.I bring the machine downstairs (to my cube) and start to set it up. First thing I note is that the keyboard and
mouse have the exact same connectors - but neither cable is labeled, and the wrong device in the wrong port
will not work. Brilliant mechanical design if you ask me.
Hmm, I just looked at my keyboard and mouse...odd, one won't fit in the other's socket, and they have different shaped connectors! Damn those PC designers for not making the plug in the shape of a smiling mouse!
On the Mac they are the same - but they can be
plugged in either way, and you can plug the mouse into the keyboard, or the keyboard into the monitor (and the
monitor into the computer), etc. it just works. Well no need to pick nits. PC's are cheap
Yeah, 3 grand...very cheap...Well, I guess if you're talking about the fact that there is only one manufacturer for most of the components in an Apple, and the PC can be built from different ones to drive down costs, well...I guess they are cheap.
- they are not meant to be good.
I have used Dells for 6 years and I know that the Macintoshes aren't worthy to even approach the pedestal that the Dimension sits on...As for the comp. being used in the install...well...That's a tad older...Problem #2 - No-CD drive. Who ever heard of a modern machine (post 1990) without a CD-ROM?!! (All
Macs have come with CD's for years and years).
Well, it could be because Dells are BUILT TO ORDER, and this company apparently did not need a CD-ROM in their system, so they either didn't order a system with a CD-ROM or took it out and used it somewhere else.
Well no problem, I'll grab one from upstairs. They don't have
any ATAPI CD-ROM's, but give me a nice SCSI one. Cool. Bring it downstairs. Wrong cable on my SCSI (the
PC's SCSI controller uses some funky SCSI-2 cable that no one else in the world, except Sun, seems to use.
Grumble. Go and get funky cable).
Oh yeah, diss Dell for installing a faster SCSI adapter then the one in your sweet Apple. You should be happy you had a SCSI-2.
The CD is now plugged in, and I can install WinNT from CD. But wait -
there's more. There are no CD-Drivers.
Duh. The system didn't have a CD-ROM installed, so there was no drivers on the Hard drive! You should have asked for the drivers disk that should have come with the CD-ROM you got! Of course, you're probably too smart to have thought of that.
Here is the dilemma - no CD-Drivers they are on the CD, but how can I use the CD to install the CD drivers?
Search for a while - but all the standard disks for this type of machine have ATAPI CD-ROM drivers.No SCSI
CD-ROM drivers to be found.
Like I said, one should have come with your CD-ROM drive.
Boxes of disks and various floppies that all have CD-ROM drivers won't work
because this is SCSI (they are all for IDE/ATAPI). Macs don't have this problem, you can boot off of CD
drives.
My Dell Dimension M200 can boot from a CD, Your problem is that you're using an OLD non plug and play system that won't boot from CD.
Screwed for the day, go home frustrated, I'll deal with it tomorrow.
These Pee-Cees are so scary and complicated!Friday - 2/7/97 - OK, time to get serious.
All right, the previous day was just an annoying anomaly meant to remind me that PC's are not as easy as a Mac.
(On a Mac I can boot off of CD-ROM so there is no worrying about the drivers).
Yeah, if you're comparing an old Dell to a new Mac! Well sure, my 1982 Compaq Deskpro 1 only has a 10MB hard drive, so all PCs are inferior to your brand new PowerBook.
Today, I'll have my System up
and working.I go upstairs and go on a big hunt for a tool I learn is called EZ-SCSI to allow me to install SCSI CD-ROM's.
The install is somewhat of a pain because of the version of DOS, etc., but I get the EZ-Drivers to actually
install the CD-Drivers on my machine. Now I can see the CD-ROM.
Wow, you "installed" a "driver!" Soon you'll be a "Pee-Cee" Expert!
So the next step is to format the SCSI drive (the machine has a small IDE drive or a larger SCSI - I need to
install on the big fast SCSI drive - like Macs have). So I use the BIOS which has some built in utilities for
formatting the drive. With amazingly little feedback - it starts the format by tell me that this could take between
a few minutes and a few hours. Hours into the format - it fails! Try again. Same results. Why? No feedback, no
way to continue.
Your BIOS formats your hard drive? Sounds a little...odd...
Try FDISK...
OK, fine - I can work around the PC's ideosyncracies. This machine has an IDE drive with just enough room for
WinNT (130meg), I can install NT onto the IDE (C:) and then use NT's disk tools (I hope) to get the SCSI
working later. Or so I think.So I pop the NT disk in my drive and have to find what to run to install. I am given a few choices of directories
- but no real hints.
No directory called "setup" or "Winnt" Yeah right.
I figure i386 (meant Intel 386) and inside of that directory are a few executables - and I
guess WinNT.exe - and am rewarded for my guesses with something that runs.
Congratulations! You can run an .exe!
So I start my first NT install on the IDE drive. Stage 1 of an NT is to make floppy disks - so the first thing NT
asks for is 3 blank formatted floppies. Seems peculiar, but OK. I pop one disk in. Ooops its not blank, but the
machine only tells me this -but it has no option to format the disk. I just want IT to format the disk for me so
that I can use it (that is how it works on a Mac). It doesn't work that way on a PC.
Yeah, on a PC you're expected to have all the required equipment needed for the install.
Well, I can work around this problem too - I just pop the floppy into my Mac machine (2' away) and format the
disk for the PC. Luckily I have multiple machines - people at home could be screwed at this point because they
needed to format disks but they can't because their machine is already in the install process.
People at home would read the manual! They would know what to have on hand for the install!
Well the Mac formats the disks but it wont work for what I need because when the Mac formats a disk (even a
PC one) it puts one very small invisible file to keep cross platform file information on - WinNT see's that the
disk has a file on the disk and will not use it - even though it has enough room to do so.
Technically, the disk is not formatted then, if it has a file on it, and it wouldn't be 1.44MB, now would it? So the PC is right, although confusing.
Grumble. Luckily I also
have other PC's around, so I run to someone elses cube and use their machine to format the floppies. I return to
my PC, and install the floppies. This is only a little painful and on it goes.The whole process of installing disks is especially annoying to Mac users, because the installer keeps asking
me to insert floppies - which I do - then it does nothing. I have to press enter to tell it what it should already
know - which is that I just inserted a disk (this is how it works on a Mac, you put a floppy in and the machine
knows that you did, and goes).
Yes, poor PC. It expects the owner to be coherent enough to push enter when you push in a disk--and get this, you have to EJECT the disk by yourself! Yeah, too bad the PC doesn't come with a proprietary 135 Dollar 3.5 Drive that has a little servo to spit out the disk. I'll stick with my 20 dollar Sony, thank you very much.
NT finishes this part of the install and goes on to Stage 2 of the install - copying files to my hard drive. A lot of
them. Say good night Gracie. 2 hours later I go home and it is 80% complete. (Oh silly me, I figured I could just
do this install in 10-20 minutes like on the Mac).
Yeah, on a brand new mac. Too bad this is a P90 and this is a MAJOR install on a small, old hard drive. Keep forgetting this, don't ya?
Well I figure I'll just come in on Saturday, format the SCSI, and redo the install on that drive and go on from
there.
No big deal.
Saturday - 2/8/97 - Ready to finish the install on IDE so I can reinstall on SCSI.
Its noon and this should be quick. The install is not really finished - that is only a part of the install process. (A
learning experience for me) -
You didn't notice the computer saying "Step 2?" What, you think there was only 2 steps?
I've never seen 3 or 4 pass install processes before on the Mac, and Mac installs
usually take 5-15 minutes total (this one is already 3 hours in). Oh, well... life goes on.
THIS IS AN OLD COMPUTER! arrgh! Quit pawning off your problems on a old computer!
Stage 3 of the install is booting off of those floppies I made, and doing WindowsNT setup. But wait, part of the
way through booting it asks for the second floppy. I give it to it, and it asks again for the second floppy. This IS
the second floppy. It seems that the floppy does not verify as it writes (unlike the Mac - which makes sure the
data you wrote is on there), and so it wrote to a bad floppy and there is nothing I can do but start over.
Strange, normally the computer knows the disk is bad. Something probably happened to the disk AFTER is was written.
Alright since I have the routine down I fly through stage 1 (I make a second set of disks) and start stage 2 and
decide to go home while it is doing the excruciatingly slow install part.
Sunday - 2/9/97 - Just in for a Quicky.
Well the floppies should work this time. Which they do. I am in a quiz-show mode -- where the computer asks
me all sorts of useless trivia about itself that it should already know. The Mac can tell what devices are
plugged in - WinNT has to ask me each step of the way - what Network controller do I have, what SCSI
controller, what CD-ROM, what IRQ's the controllers are at, what memory addresses they are at and make me
read a licensing agreement where I sign my soul to the devil so that I can use this program - this is loads of fun.
Once again, your P90 is not plug and play, so it has no Idea what it has. I just goes by the BIOS and such. My new (newer, anyway) Dimension P200 always knows what it has. I plug in a ATAPI (That's IDE to all you Macheads) Zip drive, boot up, and wow, my Computer says:
ATAPI Device Installed WDC 3.2GB
ATAPI Device Installed IDE CDROM 030
ATAPI Device Installed Iomega Zip 100
Wow! Without doing a thing! Imagine that.
Technically some of these questions are in this part, and some later - but its a lot of questions. All while asking
me to change disks for it.(I also note mentally that Macs can boot off of 1 floppy, and WinNT takes 3 + 130
Meg of the hard drive).
I put a disk in my 3.5 drive and a CD rom in the caddy, Boot, and ta-da!! Windows 95 boots into an OEM Install with no commands for me to enter.
It goes into some disk checking mode and does some more installs, and craps out of drive space. It turns out that
earlier when it asked for space, it was only asking for part of the space - after it filled that much up, it didn't
have enough for the rest.
I have had this happen before. I don't know why the damn thing can't give me an approximate number!
I can work around this too. I swap hard-drives with a Mac, and give my Dell a smaller (500 Meg) drive -
which it likes and formats. I think the reason it failed the first formats was because the drive was too large,
over 1 GIG and this is a problem for PC's - but don't have that problem on Macs.
*sigh* Once again, the BIOS on older computers (and early windows 95) can't handle hard drives over 1 gig, they break it down into partitions. Since I have OSR2, I only have 1 partition.
I boot off of DOS floppy since my IDE drive is hosed with a 1/2 installed NT, and use FDISK to initialize the
drive (though its called formatting, just like the Low-Level format - peculiar).
Yes, PCs and macs have different words for the same thing...wow...
But the machine still can't handle
the D: drive. I am a little perplexed - I've mapped it with my machines BIOS (parameter memory) and
formatted it (two different ways)... what am I missing. After some whining and talking with IS (who is in on
Sundays trying to keep the PC's working) I am told that I forgot to do a high level format (/s) - which actually
installs DOS on that drive. Oh yeah! 3 stages of formatting on a PC - this is much easier than the Mac - NOT!
What the hell is this? All I had to do, even on my 486/25 (also a dell) was run FDISK, then Install DOS. None of this crap about formatting 3 times. I think you just mucked around with FDISK, feeling around with the commands. TRY THE MANUAL!
(On the Mac I plug a new SCSI or IDE drive in it says "This is not a Mac disk - would you like to initialize?" -
and viola, its done and it works).
My Plug and play system sees the drive, and when windows boots up it loads the drivers off the windows95 CD. viola! Instant Hard Drive!
Well, I get DOS installed - but have problems getting it to be mapped right. The machine seems to fight over
having IDE and SCSI both with systems on them. So I yank the IDE drive out of the machine completely, and
use the BIOS setup parameters to map the SCSI as the 'C:' drive.Now I'm cool - got the right drive set up, and I am ready to go. Start to reinstall NT, after having to reinstall the
CD-ROM drivers for SCSI and this version of DOS, get the NT disk in (and remember to get through stage 1
and stage 2, and I get to make more floppies so that NT can continue) and I can go home - knowing that on
Monday NT will be installed and working.Why wife is a little pissed because I wasted a good part of the weekend, and "just popping in" to work turned
out to take a few hours each - but she's not THAT upset.
She's been staring at a frozen thermometer progress bar in her Mac Program. The system had frozen 2 days ago, but there she sits, knowing her loved mac will beep and show a sad mac if something is wrong...Monday - 2/10/97 - Beginning a brand new week.
The machine is actually completed stage 2 of the install, and even stage 3 is DONE! Yea! According to the NT
screen - "The setup is complete" and I have to reboot - again. This is 3 or 4 reboots, each takes about 2 - 4 x's
as long as booting once on a Mac. And I only have to reboot once on a Mac install - instead of 4 different times.
I am getting amazed at the ineptness, but at least it is over.
Yeah, installing a whole new O/S is tough. It takes awhile espically on a OLD COMPUTER!
So after all this I am presented with new graphical NT screens - labeled "Windows NT Setup". Like what the
hell have I been doing for the last 4 days?!?!
Popping in and out of "work" to stretch this thing out into 4 days when it would only take about 7 or 8 hours if you worked straight through?
At least these screens are pretty'er than all the others. Oh well...
I'm at least at Stage 4.It asks me to make an "emergency disk". Which I do. (You never know). And I am off to more questions. These
are more graphical than the earlier set. Sexy little dialogs for me to answer. Then copies more files around.
This takes it quite a while - but is much faster than the first few copies it has done - and it has little graphical
progress bars that keep filling and getting replaced with new ones to fill. The machine seems happy.. and in 3
simple sub-stages WinNT says its installed and I can Reboot. (How many times is that now). Neat little dialog
with a picture. The anticipation is building.<SUCCESS> - it booted!!! After only taking 10 minutes to get through the boot process (damn its slow).
IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER! IT IS AN OLD COMPUTER!
Time to actually install OpenStep. (Wow - 4 days to do something that would have taken 20 minutes on a Mac).
BECAUSE YOU WORKED ON IT "OFF AND ON" IT WOULD ONLY TAKE 7 OR 8 HOURS IF YOU WENT STRAIGHT THROUGH ARRRRRRGH!
So I pop the OpenStep CD in, and I'm ready to go. It comes with directions and everything. But the Application
install process is pretty easy. I run its installer and a go.OpenStep installs but will not run. Hmmm... it says it wants 48 Meg of Memory - but the Dell only has 32meg.
Well, I've got 16 Meg of RAM around. I just pop open the Dell - noticing how cheaply made the stamped metal
frame with all the sharp edges is - especially compared to my 7500 PowerMac -
Oh man, I would really pass up a full metal case for some damned plastic thing. And it isn't sharp, so cut the crap. I had a case like that in my 425/s NetPlex (a Dell.) It was metal, and not very pretty, but sharp? Nah.
and it only has 4 SIMM slots -
already filled. They shipped it with 4 x 8 Meg SIMMS filling up all the memory slots! Drat!Well we have a Mac that has 40 Meg in it - and sure enough - this was done with 2 x 16meg SIMMS (and 8
Meg soldered on the motherboard) and the Mac has 8 SIMM slots ."PC's are more expandable" keeps going
through my mind
You really aren't getting it, are you? The Dell has 32 megs, in 4 8mb cartridges. So what? Just get 2 16mb cartridges or any other wacky configuration. What makes this un-expandable?
as I take the RAM out of the PowerMac, and replace them with the 2 x 8 Meg SIMMS from the
Dell, and 4 x 4 Meg SIMMS (extras), and the PowerMac is a fat & happy camper with 40 Meg of RAM AND
still has 2 SIMM slots still free... and I put those 2 x 16 Meg SIMMs in the Dell (added to the 2 x 8 megs) and
viola - its got 48 Meg. So the Mac started with more, and had 6 SIMM Slots free - the Dell was filled from the
start. Some expandability.
It all depends on how much ram you want. The Dell is...wow...OLDER...and thus doesn't have as many SIMM slots. Dell packed it 4 x 8, to meet the order the person made. If the order had been for 16mb, it might have been 2 x 8...
Well that didn't fix the problem either. OpenStep will still not work. I spend the of the day trying to figure this
one out.
Oh I bet you'll find a way to pin it on that old Dell.Tuesday - 2/11/97 - Back to work.
I know I can do this. I fight and search and hunt, and break down and call tech support at NeXT. They are very
helpful and will email me what I need to know - but it turns out that this is the fault of OpenStep - it sometimes
doesn't install right on NT 4.0. (Now they tell me after I've installed it - removed it, reinstalled it, etc.)Well they give me the directions and I try to solve the problem. No worky! The programs (Daemons) will not
stay running - they keep shutting down. Without those background apps - their system won't work. I call them
and discuss things for a while and find out that the network part of my install may not have succeeded - and
OpenStep REQUIRES the networking card to work. I test the networking card, and sure enough, it does not
work. Damn, damn, DAMN!!Well it turns out that it had "auto-recognized" the wrong card. (Which it had done with the SCSI card the first
time as well, but I was able to override and preventatively fix). Well I play run-around again, and can't find out
what kind network card had failed to install.
Told ya he would find some hardware to blame it on...
I finally get another DOS program - called EZ-Setup which allows me to recognize the kind of networking card
I have. So then I can go to control panels under NT and setup the right network card (which IT failed to do) and
get the networking working. Except it won't work. I've got the right card, and am entering in all the right
parameters (including brand, model, address, IRQ,node, RAM address, etc.) and it will not work. I am going to
throw this damn machine out the window, and its time to go home!
Wednesday - 2/12/97 - Time for a new Machine!
I give up. The Dell has gremlins or I did not pray to the install Gods and I am cursed. I will solve my problems
by installing NT on my other machine (Gateway 2000 P5-66). It is a slower machine, but has an IDE CD-ROM
and Hard Drive and the networking has been working (fairly well) for years - maybe my problems are only
with the Dell.
OH DAMN! Now you're installing on an even older machine! BWAHAHAHA! Windows NT on a P-66!
So I start an NT install on the new machine. This machine already has Win95 installed, and its a breeze. The
CD is recognized from the moment I pop it in -- lets go to town! It doesn't even ask me to create those 3 stupid
floppies. Why? I am not sure - probably because it has enough space on the hard drive or something.
*cough*
When I put
the CD in it recognized at runs the auto-play program that asks me if I want to install - things are better already.
It starts tearing away on the install process (well crawling quickly) and then warns me - "This Pentium Chip
has the FDIV bug, would I like to work around it?" Damn!
So your company was too stupid to get the FREE replacement from Intel...
The work around for the FDIV problem is to disable the entire floating point unit of the chip, making many
functions 1,000 times slower. On a Mac you can patch out just the offending instructions if something like this
ever happened (which it hasn't),
Strange, patching out the FDIV altogether would cause more hang-ups then leaving it in! This was something that had to be solved by HARDWARE, not some "patch"
on a PC its all or nothing! Some choice - math slower than a 486, or math that
is wrong occasionally. Well the machine will probably only work occasionally anyway, and I'm not doing much
floating point (I'm no bean counter, and who needs math anyway) -- so I chose the latter. Like many places our
company could not afford the time or effort to search for every bad Pentium,
Yeah, looking for Intel Inside: Pentium on the case Was very hard...The P66 was the ONLY Pentium out there at the time...
one wonders how many mistakes
were made using this computer before I got it. But heck, computers were only designed to do math - who cares
if they get it right.
*sigh* More Apple Propaganda, eh? The FDIV bug is almost rarely encountered, and it is not a big threat.These FDIV instructions occur not only in strictly numerical code but also in graphical and symbolic code. In
principle, therefore, a wide range of Mathematica operations could be affected. However, since errors produced
by the Pentium bug are fairly small, their effect can probably be noticed only in numerical code. In graphics, for
example, the proportion of a worst case FDIV error is less than one device pixel per pagewidth on a 300 dpi
printer, so even if the FDIV bug does happen to occur, it will probably have no effect. In exact symbolic code,
FDIV is typically used only in internal heuristic estimates, and so slight errors in its output should not cause any
exact symbolic results returned by Mathematica to be incorrect.
Wolfram Research (About the FDIV Bug and one of their Apps, along with real world problems):: http://www.wolfram.com/news/pentium/pentium4.html
So on I go with the first part of the install and it neatly cuts through on this one, and life is good. Then I go on
through the first Q&A session, the reboot, the second Q&A session -where you are actually booting under
WinNT but it is running its Installer Wizards. No biggie, it see's my hard drive, recognizes my CD-ROM and
sees my Network card. Life is REAL good. Installer goes into its last phase - and runs out of space.What!?!? It didn't preflight and make sure it had enough space before it started (like on a Mac). This is asinine.
Its hard to break out of the install, but I boot via DOS and go into my drive. Yep, its full. When doing the install
WinNT makes a copy of files, and then makes another copy of those files. This seems a little space inefficient
to me!!
Uh...sure...That makes a whole lot of sense...
I am a computer engineer - I can fix this. I won't be running Win95 anymore - so I delete it, and quite a few
spurious application that I won't need either (or can reinstall later). Reboot again, and get back into the WinNT
installer - and surprisingly I am able to get it back to where it is supposed to be (after a few dozen steps). It
finishes the install and I get to go through the final round of configuration and set up my network information.
Life is real good. I reboot again and WinNT should be working after all this.WinNT comes up and life is good. I'll be able to start an install of OpenStep, so that when I come in to work in
the morning I'll have a working machine.I pop the CD in the drive, and nothing. Huh? I look around, and there is no CD-ROM drive mapped to 'D:'. It
said it had installed the CD drive, so what the hell happened?!?! Well I'll just go to a CD control panel - except
there isn't any such thing. I can't even install or upgrade from the CD because it can't recogonize the damn CD
drive anymore. I am completely screwed now. Life is bad.
Yes, older computers need drivers...we've been over this before...
I drive home looking for small furry animals to run over (multiple times)... and get on a Windows advocacy
forum to listen to the idiots claim that "Windows is as easy as a Mac!".
The new systems ARE!Thursday - 2/13/97 - Really ready to finish install on GW2K machine.
First thing I try is to recognize the CD-ROM through NT. I am playing with every know configuration in the
system - and learn that MS has ingeniously put the IDE (ATAPI) CD-ROM controls underneath their SCSI
control panel. I'm not making that up. IDE is not SCSI, and it certainly doesn't belong there - and at first I
thought I had found the problem - but IS informed me that this is where it is at. Naaah! You're pulling my leg?!
Nope - they were dead serious. Well after dinking with that - it doesn't really matter because it won't work
anyway - but in the future I know to look in strange places for things.Well maybe I can use that "Emergency Disk" I had to create - this is an emergency to me - I can't see the CD to
fix anything. I reboot with it in - but it won't work - it is not a boot disk. (Certainly handles emergencies well).
Then it wasn't formatted as a system disk. What the hell did you do?
It tells me to boot of the other 3 floppies I made, and then I can use the emergency disk. I do so, but the 3 other
NT disks I made automatically go into install mode. Ahh, many minutes later these floppies get most of the way
through the boot process, and then ask me if I want to repair the NT. I select the options and say "repair". It
recognized the CD-ROM - life is good, it will now fix it. Wait, 3 minutes later NT Install tells me - "Setup was
unable to locate CD-ROM". Two Screens back it had said that it could!!! It can no longer continue. I have one
option <F3> to exit. $#@%&*!!!.So I boot off of my trusty DOS disk -- except it can't read the CD either. Oh yeah, that set of DOS disk was for
the Dell and SCSI, this one has an ATAPI CD-ROM. So I go to another machine and make a boot floppy that
CAN recognize ATAPI CD's. (This is also a multi-stage process, but not as painful as the others). I get the
machine working and recognizing the CD-ROM under DOS, and start all over with another NT install.
Did you ever try loading the IDE CD-ROM Drivers you said where "everywhere" a few pages back? Of course not, you're too smart for that!
Time to start another NT install (maybe I just entered something wrong, or some such the first time). Auurrgh -
Deja Vu, it needs three blank floppies. The floppies that already have this information won't work or skip this
step (I try), and there is no way around it. I must take the floppies that already have the information I need, and
format them (again), or someone elses PC, so that WinNT can put the information that they already have on
them, back on them. (I have never seen such a stupid install procedure - and unfortunately I keep seeing it over
and over again).
The software assumes you're running a clean install...So it needs the 3 floppies...we've been over this before.
Ahh, many minutes later these floppies get most of the way through the boot process, then ask me to put WinNT
CD into the drive. But the whole reason I am doing this fricken install is because NT wont recognize the drive
it installed off of in the first place. DAMN IT!
AAARRRGGGH! More floppies! I have to start over from square one and do a complete install. The install
goes though all the steps as the first few times I have done it - but now it is becoming old shoe - I know this
stuff, and it seems somehow faster - yet another day is wasted in the process. I get to the end and figure I am
finally done - I did a full clean install, I configure everything, and - the CD still will not work. It recognizes it,
it installs off of it, it sees it in configuration - but it won't actually use it.
Sounds like the install program loaded generic drivers for the hardware...It's up to YOU to install IDE Drivers for the CD-ROM...remember, you said they were everywhere!
Conclusion
So I have two machines that will not work for different reasons. I have wasted a week of work, and have
changed my sunny disposition into one closer to that of a homicidal maniac. I have cost myself aggravation and
the company probably $1,000+ (for my time and others involved) - and I still don't have NT fully working on either of 2 machines. I was using very popular machines with very popular I/O cards and I am a very computer
savvy person. I can't imagine the poor sods trying this at home.
You mean a very MAC savvy person...it's like someone that drives a automatic thinking that he is so car savvy and then trying to drive a stick...
NT SUCKS! NT SUCKS! IT SUCKS! IT SUCKS!
More like the old computers suck.
Even when it was working briefly (without the networking card working right) the machine hung two or three
times, I got the blue screen of death as it is called - the keyboard locked up, and it had the same sucky interface
as Win95. Now I am not doubting that professionals can get it working - I am just pointing out how lame it is
that it requires professionals to get the damn thing working at all.
Or someone that can read a manual.
I'm going to call NeXT and see if I can trade OpenStep for NT in on OpenStep for Mach (which runs Unix).
A D D E N D U M
Friday (2/14)
I worked some more - I just couldn't leave bad enough alone. I got nowhere -- on either machine (I kept trying
them both). As usual, the PC is about just trying all the possibilities until something works. Eventually you are
going with the irrational, and something hits the right spot.
Yeah, those old, creaky, non-plug and play machines...Monday (2/17)
I worked some more, and IS helped a bit. Finally at the end of Monday we found out that (on the Dell machine)
WinNT was disabling the network card (under the devices control panel) when you did the install. I have no
idea why it was doing that - the card and the 27 other parameters that had to be entered were all correct. NT
and its various control panels did not tell me that the card was disabled, and in fact in all the other places to
configure a network (Network with 6 different panels of settings, Internet, Server, Services, System) did not
give a hint that anything was wrong. We also had to reboot before it actually worked eventhough there was no
indication that this was the case. (I figured I've had to reboot 300 other times, so maybe changing this setting
requires it but just isn't telling me so - and I was right). But that fixed it (mostly). However, just for fun, the Dell
system is still being moody with all sorts of access faults and other errors (more than are normal). I figure either the RAM is bad (eventhough it passes its RAM tests), or the wrong version of OLE is installed and causing conflicts (DLL type conflicts). In a few more days it might actually work completely.
If it passed diagnostics then it is not the ram..
We've given up the Gateway2000 as a lost cause.
People that think this is anywhere near "Just like a Mac" have never done an install on a Mac.
Yeah, the mac just assumes what you need, with no input from you.