Preserved Topic: Win2k issue... suggestions anyone? (Page 1 of 1)

For all you Win2k buffs out there, I've been having this problem, and I wonder if anyone has any idea that might help me fix it...
(To preface, my system is a generic Celeron 600/P3 equivalent. Nowhere near top o' the line, but it gets the job done, for the most part. Assembled by yours truly, and never had a problem until July...)
In July, I had a printer driver conflict and the system crashed. Since I was upgrading to PS7 anyway, and needed a scratch partition, I reformatted, and attempted to reload Win98. I could never get 98 back up properly. In the process of the rebuilding, I happened upon a reasonably priced upgrade to Win2k, and figured it must be a sign to upgrade my OS. I repartitioned my 20 GB drive using a Western Digital HD manager and installed Win2k. I have gotten everything working properly now, except the sound. I LOVE Win2k... It is so much better than Win98... But I just can't figure this sound problem out! I have BCM board (which may be the problem if you check out their support discussion thread!) with an Intel chipset. The sound and video is onboard. I had sound before the crash - now, no sound. I have tried upgrading all the drivers, installing and uninstalling the devices, all to no avail. I have messed with some of the settings in the BIOS, per the knowledge base at Windows.com... and I attempted to flash the BIOS with the newest release, which I was CERTAIN would fix the problem. No sound.
There appear to be no conflicts with the devices, (the sound shares IRQ 11 with a couple of other media devices), and when I test the sounds through the control panel, it acts like it's playing, but I have nothing coming from the speakers. I have even switched out the speakers to 2 different sets... If it's at all possible, I'd like to avoid buying a separate sound card, but I may ultimately have no choice.
1) Does anyone have any idea how to create a start-up disk for Win2k that will allow the system to boot straight to DOS so I can try flashing the BIOS one more time?
OR
2) Does anyone have any other suggestions for correcting this issue?
For most of my work, not having sound isn't really a problem. It's just irritating because I had it before all of this happened... Any insights will be appreciated...

Ok first off,

if ya have a win98 startup diskette use that to boot to dos...

as it starts to load up press the F8 key which will then allow you to drop to dos

if ya got win2k pro its possible to also do this when ya get the boot start it says something like press f8 for advanced boot options.

(not sure if ya get this on win2k home edition)


it sounds more like the fact that you havent got win2k drivers for ya sound card or they are outdated

a few more checks.

make sure that when ya flashed ya bios originally it didnt set the onboard sound to disabled....check in bios

also check that in multimedia in control panel that you havent muted sound by accident.


other than that there isnt much more tghat i can suggest without you checking these things first.

if ya need any further help ya can contact me via email

hope this helps and ya get back up and running.

F8 on my computer takes me to the boot menu, which doesn't give me an option to get into DOS by itself for some reason. I can get to Safe Mode with Command Prompt, but I can't flash the BIOS from that. (They call is Safe Mode for a reason, I guess!)
When I initially tried to flash the BIOS, I used the Win98 start up disk in that manner... I'm just not sure if it really worked, and just wasn't the problem, or if it simply didn't work... I guess I need to go verify the BIOS version again...
Do you think if I reformat the C partition again and reinstall all my software with the updated BIOS and drivers that it may correct itself that way? I'm not really looking forward to that, but it may be the only other option besides a separate sound card...

Are you using Win2k Pro??? I am not sure if this is the same on other versions but you get the install cd and browse it and there should be a bootdisk folder and a executeable named MAKEBOOT.exe or MAKEBT32.exe and you can make the floppies that you need. You need 4 blank floppies.

Yep, Win2k Pro... Have boot disks, but they start the install process, and won't let the system boot into DOS.
Because of the crappy motherboard manufacturer, their BIOS updates do not create their own bootable disks. In order to flash the BIOS, I have to create a bootable disk, then add the BIOS files to it, boot up to DOS, and then run the flash program. As I understand it, most BIOS updates create their own boot disks... (sigh... crappy hardware support... can't stand it...)
I did find some documentation about creating a Network Start Up Disk with Win2k Pro on the windows knowledge base, and I'm gonna try that and try to flash the BIOS again, just to be sure that I've done it as right as I know how. If anyone else thinks of anything, please post here. I'm well open to options at this point... I've been trying to work out the issue for 2.5 months now... Thanks for your help...

try this..
Click Restart, and then click OK.
When you see the message Please select the operating system to start, press F8.
Use the arrow keys to highlight Safe Mode with Command Prompt, and then press ENTER.
NUM LOCK must be off before the arrow keys on the numeric keypad will function.

Use the arrow keys to highlight an operating system, and then press ENTER.

Indus, thanks - done that. Safe Mode with Command Prompt won't allow me to flash the BIOS. Something about Safe Mode being safe...

So you all know, the answer to this particular issue likely will not be simple. I've already tried the most obvious things, and have religiously searched the knowledge base on windowsupdate.com...
Short of installing a separate sound card or reformatting C: and starting over, I'm fresh out of options.
In fact, I may reformat this weekend just to see if that will work. It's possible that I have the device double installed, just can't figure out how to remove the duplicate copy...
Keep 'em coming though. It's comforting to know that I'm headin' in the right direction with it...

[This message has been edited by bodhi23 (edited 10-11-2002).]

Ahh I should have know you would have tried that sice you've been working on this for 2 1/2 months now.,....hehe.
Well I am fresh out of ideas for it......good luck to you I hope that you can get this solved...if I run across anything I will let you know.

Yo bodhi!!

If ya went the win 98 way then that bios flash should have worked.. only way to tell is if you new the bios version before flashing and the new version number...


as for the rest win2k pro is a bitch for some of the older stuff, how i went around things is i partitioned my hdd into 2 parts.

installed win 98 into partition 1.

then installed win2k pro into the second partition

now i have the best of both worlds.

when i boot i get the choice of which os to use..

double check the onboard sound options in ya bios again that it isant disabled.

double check again that ya havent muted the sound..

other than that like i said try and get the motherboard drivers from the hardware manufacturer...

i cantr really see why it isnt working.

go into control panel then into the system folder, look at hardware, click device manager and go through every bit of hardware, double clicking it will bring up the properties and check for conflicts..

also check that there are no "unknown devices" showing.

I have had the case several times where after a bios update i have had to re-install from scratch...BUT only after i have eliminated the obvious ie drivers etc.

what was the problem with the re install of win 98 ???

The reason Win2k won't make a DOS boot disk is because it isn't a DOS native OS like win98. Therefore, you need a win98 bootdisk (something no tech should be without).

Also, if you formatted your drives with NTFS then you won't be able to read them from dos becuase dos don't read NTFS without DOS/NTFS drivers (downloadable, try google).

Anyway, that should clear up the bootdisk issue. As for your original problem, make sure your sound drivers support win2k.

A fantastic DOS driver for those that have NTFS partitions and need to read them from a FAT diskette is found in sysinternals, free for read only access. http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdospro.shtml

Thanks for your many comments and support. I'm getting into a realm of computing that I think I need to learn a WHOLE LOT more about before I start messing with it too much! *sigh* Such an issue... One day I hope to conquer this problem... Hopefully that'll be soon.

BTW, Tomeaglescz, I never did figure out what the problem was with Win98. But I must have reformatted the drive and reloaded that sucker 6 times and every time I brought it up, there was a new conflict. This is all strange to me, because I built the system from scratch practically, and it was the same CD I originally installed the OS with. Bizarre... but then I had the opportunity to unpgrade, and I never did go back in and figure why it wouldn't work. I just sort of left it. I may ultimately set up a dual boot. Since this is all part time to my full time life, I can't focus as much attention on it as I'd like to. But for wahtever reason, Win98 would never reinstall properly.
When I repartitioned the drives, I probably should not have changed the C: to NTFS, not knowing a lot about how to work within that file system. Though I figure the only real way to learn it is to play with it, so that and a helpful push from my father made that decision. The other partitions are still FAT32. I might be having an easier time of it if I had left well enough alone...
Thanks again!