First of all, I have to explain that this machine has had Windows 2000 Advanced Server installed before. I needed some services not available in Windows 2000, so I switched back to Windows NT 4.0 last year. Then when Windows 2000 was released, I decided to upgrade six of my machines to Advanced Server, but it took me this long before I got around to them all. While I chose the month and allotted plenty of time for the changeover, I never expected this one to catch me like it did.
Beginning the Upgrade
I upgraded RAM, hard disks and processor. I chose to also check into the firmware of my SCSI controllers as well just to ensure the compatibility of all the hardware. I have two Adaptec SCSI controllers-the AHA2940UW, and a AHA2940U2W as the main controller. Four hard drives are in this machine and a couple of CD-ROM drives, as well as Jaz and Zip drives. As you can see, this machine was plenty loaded. But this is my standard configuration for almost all my machines: fully loaded.
Looking at the Adaptec Web site, I noticed that there is a newer version of the BIOS than my older version of 2.20. It is 2.57, so I downloaded it and upgraded the firmware with the DOS application they included with the upgrade. After installing it I decided to upgrade the operating system to Windows 2000 Advanced Server. I got into the BIOS of the controller and switched it to have the CD-ROM boot right into the upgrade.
One nice thing about the Windows 2000 CD is that it gives you five seconds to hit the Enter key and boot from the CD drive. So I did and started the install. It failed. It could not find the hard drive. So I booted from the hard drive, thinking that the old version of Windows NT could come back up and I could upgrade using that method. This failed as well.
I did everything, including reformatting the hard drives and starting all over. I knew I had a backup of my data and besides, with all the machines I have, I always transfer all the important data to a working machine before I start an upgrade like this. Nothing worked.
I was worried sick. I couldn't sleep for days; each day I would work on it for hours, trying all the solutions I could think of. Three days later I finally figured it out.
Technet Has the Answer
I checked Technet and came up with article ID Q225125, "Limited OEM Driver Support with F6 During Windows 2000 Setup." It seems that when Microsoft designed and implemented Windows 2000, they left one slight glitch. If you hit the F6 key while starting the install of Windows 2000 and ask for an OEM driver for a SCSI controller, it asked you to insert the OEM disk and it will install it.
However, if it has the same name as one of the internal SCSI controllers offered in the initial install disks or CD, then Windows 2000 will install its own driver, not allowing you to install the OEM driver. This was the case with the firmware that I upgraded with my AHA2940U2W and AHA2940UW cards. Neither will be installed unless you follow these instructions.
The first problem is that you cannot have the drive formatted to a NTFS partition. This is because you must have access to the drive to replace the drivers manually. If it is a NTFS system, you cannot change it unless you take the drive out and install it in another system that is running NT or 2000 and change the driver through that system. However, you can install the system using FAT32 and then, after it is all done and you change the driver, you can convert the file system over to NTFS. This was the method I used after I discovered that I had lost the system due to this problem.
Here is how it is done. First start the Windows 2000 install. Whether it is Professional, Server, or Advanced Server, it is all the same process. Once the system states it is checking your system and getting ready to install, the screen turns blue and down on the bottom, it says "Hit the F6 key to install an OEM controller card."
Go ahead and hit F6 and wait until it prompts you to enter the OEM disk. Walk yourself through the rest of the process until it asks you to install the system on a partition. Chose your partition and format it to a FAT32 volume. Finish the rest of the text-based install until it asks you to reboot. Once it reboots, stop the install and boot into DOS. Use a DOS disk that can read a FAT32 partition, like the Windows 98 or Windows 95 OEM disk.
Booting and Rebooting
Once you have booted into DOS, change to the C: Drive and go into the (C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT) directory. Manually put in the updated OEM driver and replace the old ones. The ones that come with the Windows 2000 install will still be in compressed mode, so you might have to delete them. They will usually end in ".SY_." Once you have replaced these files, continue and install the rest of Windows 2000 until the next reboot.
Stop the install again and boot from DOS again. This time we have to replace the updated OEM driver in the C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS directory. Once this is done, reboot into the remainder of the install and it should be correct. It will now boot into Windows 2000 without a problem. If you decide at this time that you are happy, you can then convert the FAT32 partition over to NTFS with the convert command.
CONVERT C:/FS:NTFS
There are plenty of benefits of NTFS and once you change it over, you can convert it to a dynamic drive. And this will be the topic of my next month's article.
