Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with win2k

Where's the XP Installer's Undo?

kristi — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:17:38 -0800

A Windows 2000 hard disk got clobbered by the XP installer and is "unallocated". What are my next steps? I have an old PC running Windows 2000 (SP 4). There are 3 internal drives:

D: 40 GB (Win2K system disk)
C: 200 GB
F: 500 GB

Recently, I tried to install WinXP on the C drive so I could dual-boot Win2K and XP. I ran the XP installer (new install, not upgrade); it successfully completed but I could never boot from C; it was giving me various errors about missing hal.dll and stuff. I've basically given up on the dual boot on this machine; I don't need it badly enough to spend more time on it.

After my first attempt to install XP, I discovered Win2K no longer mounts the F drive. It still shows up in the BIOS, but not in Windows Explorer; only the C and D drives show up in the Explorer address bar now.

When I go into Computer Management, I can see the missing drive in the Disk List and Graphical View, but not in the Volume List. In the Graphical View, it shows up as

(left side)
Disc 0
Basic
465 GB
Online

(right side)
[no letter drive here]
465 GB
Unallocated

As far as I can tell from Googling around, the F drive apparently had EZ-Drive on it (I tried Partition Magic 6, and it gave me an error saying "EZ-Drive has been detected on drive 0, but EZ-Drive is corrupt. Run the EZ-Drive setup diskette to correct this problem."), and apparently XP hates EZ-Drive.

I've tried running

fixmbr \Device\Harddisk0\Partition0

(that's the device that shows up using Recovery Console's map command) from the Recovery Console, but it didn't change anything.

The Add/Remove Hardware Wizard can see the drive, too (it says the device is working properly).

I ran Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics on the drive - did the Quick Test - and got

Test completed successfully

The drive shows up in the Physical Drive list in WD Diagnostics, but not the Logical Drive list.

I'd like to just undo whatever the XP installer did to the drive and get it back to where I can read and use it again. If I have to partition it, I can do that, but I'm wondering whether EZ-Drive will remain on the disk (it sounded like that would happen, based on some of the reading I've done) and what effect that would have on anything else I need to do in the future.

I only use this machine for a couple of pieces of software and I'd like to spend as little time as I can getting it working again. If at all possible, I'd love to avoid reformatting/repartitioning the drive. It just seems like there should be SOME way to undo whatever the XP installer did.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Create Win2K network install image?

mcarthey — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:43:11 -0800

How to simply create an install image for Win2K and place it on the network for another computer to install from? I'm looking for a quick and dirty guide, or even a quick application to step me through the process of taking the Win2K installation CD and putting it onto the network to be installed onto a laptop that does not have a CD drive.
I have found too much information to be useful and all assume an administrator's level of experience or a corporate environment that I'm pushing service packs or the like.
Can someone simplify this for me?!

Thanks!

Two websites on one Win2k server?

Doofus Magoo — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:49:45 -0800

Is there a way to run two "virtual" websites on a Windows 2000 server that are accessible to different users by different names? We have a VB6 application that's based on a SQL Server backend. In addition to the forms within the application that are used to review and change the data, there's also a webserver involved that serves up VBScript pages (mostly reports). This is all done solely on an internal network with a Win2k server running IIS 6. What I'm trying to do is set it up so that two users who are testing will be working against totally independent instances of the database.

The DSN is hard-coded into the application, and (for the sake of this question) can not be changed; the DSN (Application_Data) is obviously configured on each client machine, but is also set at the server for the sake of the ASP pages that need to access the data. The "web address" of the web server is also (for the sake of this question) not changeable -- it's hard-coded into the application as http://application, and we set up an entry in users' HOSTS file mapping "application" to our server address (192.168.0.254).

I've created a second instance of the database in SQL Server (DB1 now has a duplicate, named DB2). I've set up a second DSN on the server (Application2_DSN) which references DB2. I've copied over the web directory to a second directory on the server (wwwroot2), and changed all of the files in it which referenced the old DSN to the new DSN. I then set up a new "Web Site" in IIS pointing to wwwroot2.

It's at this point that I get stuck. What's the final step I need to do so that user A, when they navigate to http://application, go to one IIS "Web Site," while user B would be directed to another "Web Site?"

Our router is set up to direct all incoming port 80 requests originating on our network to the server 192.168.0.254. I've tried setting it up to also forward all port 8080 requests to the same server, and then configuring the second website in IIS to listen on port 8080, and that almost works (going to 192.168.0.254:8080 in a web browser brings up the second "website") but it doesn't entirely work because apparently you can't specify a port number in a HOSTS file (grrr), so I can't modify the entry in the HOSTS file to point to 192.168.0.254:8080 instead of 192.168.0.254.

If I've left out any crucial details, please don't hesitate to ask for clarification.

Make Vista work like 2K: How can I have my cake and eat it too?

fvox13 — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:00:22 -0800

So, I finally finished building my computer, and, in the interest of a "DirectX 10 Experience," I installed Vista. What can I do to make it less annoying and more efficient? In other words, how can I make Vista behave like XP (or 2K, if that's possible!)? Long story short, I really liked Windows 2000, especially the server versions. I'd like to make Vista behave as close to Win2K as possible - to really trust me and stop holding my hand. I also am not sold on how it looks - I like the timeless elegance of Classic Windows.

I've read about Vista4Experts, and it's a start, but I'm really looking to go another level beyond this.

For the curious, here's an overview of my system specs:
EVGA 780i motherboard, Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping, 4GB Corsair RAM, EVGA NVIDIA 8800 GTX Superclocked, Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Platinum, ThermalTake Armor Case, Tagan BZ 900w Power Supply...

Need help with a ckhdsk problem on Win 2k

flyby22 — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:48:12 -0800

Strange problem with chkdsk in windows 2000. My machines currently have latest Zone alarm (virus prot disabled), Diskeeper 2007, and Kaspersky AVP 6.0. I am noticing unusual behavior on both of them, but more so on one of them than the other. I dont know if this is just a coincidence or the events are actually related. I recently installed Kaspersky Anti Virus 6.0 on my win 2k machines which have had ZA, and DK for sometime now.

On first machine here is what I see -

At some point I was trying to access "..Application Data\All Users\Kaspersky..\AVP6\" directory content. I noticed that trying to open any of the sub-folders takes FOREVER and the disk keeps spinning in the mean time. Eventually it does list the content which is not much. This happens with each of the sub folders.

I started to think that the disk may be corrupted. So I run chkdisk from within win2k and it detects some MFT and file handle related issues in the disk and says they need to be fixed during reboot. I did not see any message about circular depdencies though. So I schedule a chkdsk /F task during reboot.

So chkdsk runs during reboot, but it does not complain about anything and does not seem to fix anything. This is strange. Then I am back in Win2k and I notice the same issues again.

I thought I should try without the KAV process. But I could not shut down the AVP process manually (even from service control panel). I guess my only options is to uninstall it and see if it helps.

But I dont know if KAV at all has messed up its own data folders somehow. Or is it Diskeeper that messed things up. I am just surprised that it involves KAV folders, which i installed so recently.

Some other observations on the second machine.

I have another machine with the same setup including KAV and there I can navigate its data folders fine. However I noticed opening locally stored DVD files on a local disk on that machine with Power DVD takes very long. Did not happen before, but that was a while ago. I did not try this experiment on the first machine yet and I dont know if these are connected to KAV at all.

Also strangely enough when I run media player classic app on this second machine and I click on the File menu it does not pop up and it goes into some kind of hang state for a while. It eventually continues running, but no menu showed up. Did not see this with other apps. But I have not seen this problem on first machine either.

I cannot for sure say if all these behaviors on the second machine started after KAV install. I am now noticing them because after i had problem with the first machine, I was trying to compare the behaviors of these two machines with almost similar setup

So if any of you guys can tell me why chkdsk is not finding the problems during a reboot, and yet it finds them during normal operation, and what could be the reason for LOOONG folder open delay on the first machine I would appreciate it very much.

thanks

Vista+Win2k Notwork

IronLizard — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:41:38 -0800

Networking Vista and Win2K. They can't 'see' each other. I have both machines on the default workgroup: WORKGROUP (go figure). I can ping with no problem and have added a user account with the same name and password to each PC. The two are connected to a gateway that was previously used to connect XP and win2k (and winME beforehand) without any difficulty. I've tried two different procedures, found through googling, that turned on LLTD and something else. The vista machine is set up as belonging to a 'private' network. Firewall is not a problem. This is nuts.

What should I try next?

Too many files?

chef_boyardee — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:12:22 -0800

Is it possible for Windows 2000/XP (or more properly, an NTFS disk volume) to "collapse" under the weight of too many files? I have about a million specialized data files spread out on about a hundred CDs (no, it's not porn) and would like to load them onto one of those 500 GB Firewire drives formatted with NTFS. I will spread them out among multiple directories, at least so that directory operations in various applications won't grind the OS to a halt.

But I have some concerns about whether a huge number of files could corrupt the volume somehow or invite read/write problems. Doesn't it take a lot of storage merely to index a million files?

How many files is "too many"? Is there any advantage to putting massive collections like this into zip files (if so I'd be using command line info-zip)?

How to install fonts on network profile?

IronLizard — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 15:16:25 -0800

When installing a particular font in a Win2k networked system, the font is gone after logging out and back in.... I understand that there is a mechanism which resets the user profile after each logoff that is probably causing this, my main question is: How can I get around this and make the font normally available without setting off all manner of alarms at the admin's desk (install on the local pc account, perhaps)? Failing that, what would be the simplest way for to them accomplish?

How to access Win2k workgroup?

apark — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:05:10 -0800

My work laptop running Win2k belongs to workdomain. My home computers are on homeworkgroup. How can I mount a share on my home network on my work laptop? If I boot my laptop into the local administrator (non-domain) account, then i can mount the share by selecting RUN then typing \\home-server-name

However, it's a hassle and I would like to be able to access my home network shares while logged into my domain account on the laptop.

Is it possible?

All I want is a simple home network that works

zek — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 20:34:07 -0800

Argh! Can anyone give me a walkthrough for setting up a simple home network for two Windows 2000 Professional computers? I'm frustrated by unreliable mapped drive connections, and am ready to break down and follow a step-by-step procedure for creating a home network. Part of the problem is Google turns out reams and reams of stuff for Windows XP. I don't have XP.

I'm beyond any hope that this network can be fixed... but if anyone cares, here is the scoop.

Each item is plugged into the one above it. Network names are hypothetical CAT and DOG.

* DSL modem
* Linksys BEFSR81 Regular router - CAT is connected to it
* Linksys WRT54G Wireless - DOG is connected to it

Computers are both basic Windows 2000 SP 4, both workgroup "WORKGROUP". All firewalls are removed. No antivirus. On CAT I mapped Z: to \\DOG\C$, and on DOG I mapped Z: to \\CAT\C$. Set both computers with NetBEUI protocol, set NetBIOS to disabled (this seems to be what works best).

Doing ping is pointless because most of the time I can do a DIR on the command line and list the mapped drive. It's when I try to do anything (like copying) that I get trouble.

Basically what happens is I can read directories on both computers, but if I try to copy more than 20-100 files the connection craps out with stuff like "Error performing inpage operation", "the path is too deep" (yeah, right, I'm copying ONLY files in c:\tempdir), and "the network name is no longer available" (bullcrap). Then any further attempts to use the network drive say "the network name is no longer available". Basically it appears the network is completely lazy and not sustaining any kind of usable connection for more than 10 seconds. I considered that maybe the WiFi connection is weak, but I'm not having any problem with any WiFi I/O out to the Internet.

It's occurred to me the routers might be causing trouble, but if so I am clueless.

Managing processes

rolypolyman — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:25:31 -0800

I reinstalled Win2K for business use at home. What utilities can I install that will help me manage & oversee system processes that get put on this computer over the next year or so? What's that program that allows me to run a Win2K "microwindow" to containerize suspicious freeware/spyware.. VMS or something like that... is that worth having or does it seriously slow down the system? In short there's nothing more annoying than to start out with 15 processes early on, then months later have a bootup that trots out 30 processes. The worst part is I have no way of knowing what application put them there, and the naming of them is always cryptic.

My concerns are (A) possible undetected or undetectable malware and (B) performance. I'd like to keep a lean, clean OS.

Yes, I do run HijackThis regularly and avoid IE, but there's got to be a better way. I'd like to say "what the hell is this" in the task list and be told which application is responsible for it.

Connecting a win2k server to two different ADSL lines.

seanyboy — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 05:19:15 -0800

I want to connect two ADSL lines with different IP ranges to a server. This is to allow external sources to connect to one of two completely different ip addresses for the same server. I thought it'd be as easy as connecting an extra network card, but this isn't the case. The network cards work individually, but will not work together. I suspect that return traffic is always routed via the default gateway.
I am using Windows 2000 servers. Application served include http and rdp (port 3389)
Is there any way to allow traffic to come to the same server via different ADSL lines?

Can I access my mp3s remotely?

synecdoche — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 10:28:12 -0800

Can I access my files on a Window 2000 machine (at home) from my iBook when travelling? I have a Windows 2000 desktop at home. I store my MP3 collection on it. Usually when doing day-to-day computing, I use my iBook laptop. At home, I can easily access the files on the Win2K box over my local network. However, I do travel from time to time, and I'd like it if I could mount the remote computer as a hard drive when I am away from home (whether across the country or at my university).

Is there any simple way to do this? If it works okay, I'll just tell iTunes that the library is in a new location and then keep it all the time. It'd be nice to be able to move files back to the Win2K machine, too.

I've seen somebody do something similar but they were running Linux, which I am not too proficient with.

I have Win2K Pro, updated to whatever they're at now, on the desktop where the fiels are, and OSX Tiger on the iBook.

Win2K/OSX Sharing

five fresh fish — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:02:15 -0800

Switching: moving my Win2K files to Mac OSX. How?! I've been beating my head against a wall all afternoon, trying to set up file sharing between my two laptops. They are both connected via wireless to an SMC "SMC Barricade Turbo Turbo Wireless Cable/DSL Broadband Router". I have enabled file and printer sharing on the Win2K box, I have shared the drives, I have made sure my account has a password, I have disabled firewalls, I've made sure ping works, I have jumped through many a hoop.

But not the right hoop.

Please hope me!

Smile! You're on candid camera!

KirTakat — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 07:41:33 -0800

Start a webcam on a timer to catch a prank What I have: a laptop using Windows 2000 and a Creative brand USB webcam.
What I need: A (free) solution that will let me tell the webcam to start recording at a specific time, and to record for a set length of time, ex: Start at 6:30 am, stop after 2 hours (or at 8:30 if that's a better way).

What software solutions can you recommend for me? This is all to capture a prank we're playing on a friend.

WiFi Scanning on Win2k

andrew cooke — Wed, 18 May 2005 09:02:38 -0800

I broke my WiFi support in Win2k. Everything works except the scanning - I can connect to a network only if I know the SSID. There are various ways I can scan - netstumbler, IBM's tool for managing connections, or via Cisco's own software. They all used to work. Now they all detect nothing. Some time ago I messed around with various scanning software packages. I can't remember exactly what, but I think I replaced/deleted a system DLL. Any idea how I work out what that DLL could be and get a replacement from somewhere?

This is Windows 2000 v5.0 SP4 on an IBM X31. The OS, firmware and wifi driver are all using the latest patches. The wifi card is a Cisco 350 series miniPCI. I'm pretty sure the problem is a missing or messed up system DLL (it could be a messed up setting, but I believe I've checked everything relevant).

This computer does not have a CD drive, although I could, if necessary, get one connected via USB, I guess. I don't want to re-install Windows (which is otherwise completely solid for me).

Seeking recommendations: video games for old-school computers? (400Mz Win2K)

five fresh fish — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:12:28 -0800

Games for a 400MHz PII Rage Pro Win2k boxen? Kids I know would like some video games (especially LANable ones), but their computers aren't so hot. Enemy Territory, BZFlag, and the like have hefty video requirements. Various "free game" resources aren't proving helpful; they're all about the latest&greatest. What's available for old-school systems?

Customizing Win2K Menus

squidlarkin — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 14:42:49 -0800

I want to customize my win2k context menus. Google found me this, which is great, but... ... each change I make that way has to be associated with a particular file extension. What if I want an option that pertains to all files? Specifically, I find myself wanting to view oddly-named files as text often enough that it'd be really nice to have a "View with notepad.exe" option always handy.

Windows 2000 hard disk management

patrickje — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 11:39:55 -0800

Hard disk management. I have several hard drives, running from 20GB to 120GB. My primary C: drive is on the 20GB drive, and the other day I noticed it was taking quite a while to do things, the C: drive was down to about 20MB of disk space! What I'm looking for is a disk manager that would look at hard drive and tell me what folders are taking up what space on the hard drive, so I could prune the offending directories. I'm on Windows 2000, and would prefer freeware.

Win2k Image Previews

Orange Goblin — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 12:34:17 -0800

Is there anyway I can get the image previewing from Windows XP on Win 2k? If not, are there any alternatives? I tried ACDSee and found it too bloated.

How do I download an install for IE 6

jacobsee — Sat, 04 Sep 2004 09:23:07 -0800

How can I download Internet Explorer 6 as a single file for installation on another computer (running Windows 2000)? This page only seems to give the me the option of downloading a small install program but I still need to be online to actually install the whole thing. My Win2000 machine has IE 5.5 and I'm having trouble getting online.

Free app to shrink the system tray in win2k like XP does?

skallas — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 02:13:35 -0800

Free app to shrink the system tray in win2k like XP does? I found one but it looks like its pay only. Its hard to believe there isn't some freewave that does this.

How do I re-enable Windows Update?

five fresh fish — Thu, 27 May 2004 13:34:58 -0800

How the #*(& do I re-enable Windows Update on my Win2K system? I've just spent three hours farting around with Google searches, registry and GPO hacking, and suchlike, all to no avail. I figure I must have done something some time in the past to turn it off -- I've no idea why -- and the solution is completely eluding me. Grrrr. I've done all the obvious stuff: hit MS tech bulletins, enabled MSIE as default browser, put the mswinupgd or whatever it's called executable in the system32 directory, checked all registry references to msupdate, played with GPOs.

I think it's probably going to end up being some stupid, obvious reversal of some piddling tweak. But I'm completely stumped as of now.

Help!

Windows background issues

Irontom — Sun, 23 May 2004 18:57:31 -0800

Win2K - I had a risque pictue set as my desktop background. My in-laws are coming to stay for a week, and my machine is in the guest room. Since I already don't rate very highly with then, I swapped the background image to something very tame. However, during the startup process, the original image appears for a couple of seconds before being replaced by the new. Why does this happen, and how can I fix it?

How to clone a hard drive in Win2k?

magullo — Thu, 20 May 2004 10:40:45 -0800

Another boooooring computer question - sorry!

How do I clone a HD in a win2k system? My system's boot hd is a 20g 5400 rpm. I'd like to swap it for a 20 g 7200 rpm which is sitting at the moment in an external firewire enclosure. I also have 150g in an internal RAID array.

More inside ... I've been looking up stuff on google for several hours now. I've found this free app which does it http://www.xxclone.com/.

However, several questions remain. First of all, I want to make clear that, if at all possible, I'd like to clone the HD while the target is still in the external firewire enclosure, then do the actual physical swap.

One of the reasons for that is that I am not sure if the CPU's power supply is going to be able to deliver the extra amps required. I could unplug the data-only raid disks for the time being. Which points to reason 2 to do it while the HD os in the enclosure: keeping the physical messing around and potential BIOS changes to a minimum (for comfort's sake ony, I built the system so I am not intimidated by it at all).

From what I've read, it seems like the actual cloning necessarily involves a re-booting step(s) which are required to make the target bootable as well. To that extent, the firewire drive appears in the win2k disk management utility as a logical drive in an extended partition. While xxclone complains about it not being bootable and the necessity to boot from a third disk.

Both drives are formatted using FAT32 ... and ideally the end result would see the computer booting from the 7200 rpm drive while the 5400 would be placed in the external firewire enclosure and reformatted. Oh, and the box has no diskette drives, only CD-R and DVD-R ones (needless to say, I can boot from them if necessary, and also create a boot disk).

Any sequential description of the process would be greatly appreciated.