N00b here (b4 u guess!)

I have been running win2k pro on my home PC (KT3 Ultra, Prophet 7500 128Mb, 256DDRAM, etc) with no problems, but 2 days ago my PC failed to shut down and went to the dreaded blue screen, which it then sat on all night. When I came back to it it wouldn't boot at all- couldn't even find the HD. SO I went out and bought a new one (80gb samsung 7200rpm) fitted a fan to it(!) and reached for the bootdisks ...

Now boot disk 1 is telling me that the data is corrupt or missing on another machine so I guess the floppy is knackered - so I went to DrDisks (http://www.nerdlabs.org/bootdisks/index.php) mirror website and downloaded the 4 disk images and makeboot.exe and managed to get it to create me 4 disks which I had done a FULL format on to get rid of any bootsector info etc .. but I am getting the error message :

the following value in the .SIF file used by Setup is
corrupted or missing:

Value 0 on the line in section [SourceDisksFiles]
with key "SP2.cab."
Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3.

Now I think this is something to do with service pack 2 from reading another post on this site (but its a private thread so I can't post there!) - and the tip involved re-building the bootable CD and it was all waaaay above my head, seeing as I don't even know how to make a bootable CD (hence my back-up CDR that I have been installing 2000 from isn't bootable ... goddammit!) I hope someone could make sense of this for me.

Is there anywhere online that I could go to download the bootdisks instead of having to reprogramme the CDR? and also is makeboot.exe the best way or should I be using winimage? (which I only just downloaded and figured all u do is hit extract a: .... which might also be wrong!)

Like I said it's a real n00b question and if you could even point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated. Currently I have a shed load of work to do and a blank screen


Cheers,
Adz

Originally posted by admiraladz:

"
the following value in the .SIF file used by Setup is
corrupted or missing:

Value 0 on the line in section [SourceDisksFiles]
with key "SP2.cab."
Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3.
"

Hello Adz,

Well, your problem sounds very familiar. iirc, it is related to the extract.exe version. Let me do a quick search, I remember this being brought up before.

Here it is:

http://www.ntcompatible.com/thread21976-1.html

Take a look!

- Lotus

Thanks for the pointer, but the jargon is way over my head on that thread - didn't get any of it!
except that the SP2.cab I'm getting was SP3.cab in his probelm so I'm guessing that SP2 or 3 has something to do with the service pack .... ?

Is it possible that my original Win2k has NO service pack info and the boot disks I have downloaded have been setup for service pack 2 which is why it can't find the file?

If that is the case does anyone know where I can find bootdisks for Win2k with NO SERVICE PACKS, or a complete n00bs guide to making a bootable CDR from my win2k CDR and any additional files I'll ned to download .......bearing in mind I have NO idea about programming past my old Acorn Electron!

Have you checked out DosFreaks slipstream guide? He wrote a nice guide that is easy to follow if you take your time. I'm not sure if this is what your looking for or not, but take a peek anyway =)

http://www.ntcompatible.com/thread21978-1.html

Take a look at making your CDR bootable.

I made a nice bootable Win2k SP4 cd using his guide, worked like a charm. Hope it helps. Just take your time!

- Lotus

The Win2k CD contains copies of the 4 bootdisks. If you can get access to another system with CD drive and floppy, open a command prompt and type:

d: (or whatever the drive letter of the CD is)
cd bootdisk
makeboot a:


then just follow the on-screen prompts.

Hope this helps

Rgds
AndyF

will try both those suggestions and let you know the outcome.

Just one query is that I jave Nero 5 as my burning software - can that make bootable CD's?

Cheers all

I now use Nero 6, but I did use Nero 5 and iirc, I could make bootable cd's. Keep us updated on your progress.

- Lotus