Hi,
As I don't have a bootable CD-Rom drive, I tried to install NT by copying all the files onto harddisk and then running "WinNt.exe" from the command prompt, but the funny thing is after I rebooted setup crashed with an "Inaccessible boot device" error.
What could be the cause of this?

I tried:
1) Changing it with another harddisk with just one FAT partition. 2) Taking out all other SCSI/RAID controllers
3) Booting from floppy
4) I even got hold of a Windows 2000 RC2 CD and tried to install.. same problem.
5) Getting one old harddisk, zapping all partitions inside and created just one small partition using fdisk.

One thing is, I'm using a Promise Technology Fasttrak66, and I even tried loading in the driver during installation, but it still doesn't work.
I also have no SCSI harddisks, and no IDE CD-Rom drives..
Could it be possible that NT installation detects a SCSI card and expects to find a SCSI harddisk only to find the Promise Fasttrak partition? Or maybe it tried to access an IDE Cd-rom drive but to find nothing? Then it just gives me a dumb error?

Is there anything more for me to try??
I started seeing this after I changed my mainboard to a Asus P3B-F.. but how can a mainboard cause this?

Thanks!

It usualy means that "You are using a Promise Technology Fasttrak66"
Try getting new drivers that work with Win2k or do the Old way.... Install Win2k on ya IDE controller then install drivers after u r done with Win2k setup. Then switch ya drive back to ata66.
This is what we had to do with HighPoint ata66 controller be4 Win2k driver/bios came out.

Hmm..
But I had tried taking out the Fasttrak66 card and the drivers connected to it leaving behind a IDE drive with one small FAT partition..
Still no solution..

What's this error all about anyway?

Ok, lets see if I've got this straight. You've tried removing the "odd" drive h/w, so all you have left is an IDE drive on a regular IDE primary channel, a CD on the regular IDE second channel. You kick off the OS install, it copies files to the HD and reboots into text mode setup.

When does it report inaccessible boot device? How large is the IDE drive? Have you tried re-partitioning the drive in the text-mode setup? Have you upgraded the mobo BIOS to the latest version?




[This message has been edited by YuppieScum (edited 22 December 1999).]

Ah...
I don't have a CD-Rom on the secondary IDE channel.
but I do have 2 CD Roms running off an Adaptec SCSI card that is supported.

Will I need an IDE cdrom?

No you won't. I install to an IDE HD from a SCSI CD-ROM all the time.

You might want to answer the other questions though...

I only start getting 'Inaccessible Boot Device' errors after I tried to install NT4 on my machine running on an Asus P3B-F

The old harddisk I tried was an ancient 1.6GB drive.

My mainboard currently has the most recent drivers..

Have you tried creating "Boot Floppies" from either the NT4 or W2K CDs, and then using them to re-partition the HD?