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Weird Windows Booting Issues On Athlons?
"This would normally point to something being flaky in hardware, (OS not booting from any boot device); however, it still boots Linux without any issues at all. If I try booting from a Windows 98 CD, I get the Boot from CD/Hard disk menu, but as soon as I choose CD, the computer screen goes black, places a flashing cursor in the top-left corner, and does nothing. No disk accesses or otherwise.
I have reset the CMOS settings via the Jumper settings on the motherboard, and then set the CMOS to use failsafe settings to no avail. I have tried removing all cards from the system except the video card, and I have even tried booting from another Windows Hard disk with no luck.
This is all pointing to a problem with the CPU/Motherboard not liking the Windows Boot code as far as I can tell. Has anyone experienced anything like this? I really would like the system back to the way it was working before."
Linux is working fine. Windows isn't even booting.
What are you complaining about?
Sorry, I just had to say it..
Seriously though, do you have a local Linux User Group? I've found the best answers to this sort of technical minutae through places/people/discussion groups like that.. (yes yes slashdot is one large discussion group... BUT)
Clearly your processor has made the Right Choice{tm}, saving you the bother.
I don't own an Athlon, but a friend of mine had a very similar problem with his Atlhon. He kept taking it back to the shop (and fortunately they were local and they knew what they were doing), and eventually they figured out that he needed a better (and bigger) power supply. Evidently Windows *still* doesn't idle the processor when nothing is going on, the way Linux does, so it uses a lot more power and runs hotter.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
The thing I see most about Athlons is the power supply being too weak. Do yourself a favor : spend a few more bucks and get a 300w power supply. The Athlon cpu itself isn't that power hungry (esp. in the case of Durons), but the motherboard's chipset more than makes up for it. Also if your video card is monstrous (Geforce2 and Voodoo5), that will also be sucking down alot of juice.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
We see this issue on and off when we try to squeeze a larger hard drive/incompatible harddrive into a new system. Usually, we are able to format and ghost a system without errors, then when it boots, it just goes to a flashing prompt in the upper left corner, never to boot again. If we try to boot off a floppy or CD at that point, it just kicks out to the same prompt, like what you are seeing. The only way we can recover this is to use a third party utility, like EZdrive. the system WILL boot to an EZdrive disk for some reason. Check the disk access mode in the BIOS, and harddrive parameters. Maybe LILO is fine, boot sector under the FAT partition is freaking out. Otherwise, a larger power supply won't kill you.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
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Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com." The purpose of that site was not known. -- MSNBC 10-26-1999 on MS crack
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# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
What if you try and boot Windows from LILO?
Maybe your computer doesn't like Window's MBR?
It may not help but it's worth a try.
Just a thought, but it might be that your BIOS has become corrupted. As several other people have suggested, check your power supply, too - I'd consider 250W a minimum for an Athlon system.
The reason I suspect the BIOS is that Linux doesn't really use the BIOS once the kernel is booted, whereas Windows9x relies upon it for accessing a variety of subsystems, even after booting. If you don't mind the risk, and nothing else seems to work, try flashing the MB's BIOS with the latest version available.
The simple DOS kernel could be getting confused by some hardware not being at the correct location, or something else using an expected IRQ.
It is only when DOS had loaded that the Windows drivers take over.
Poke around under with /proc under Linux to see which resources are currently allocated.
This is the news for nerds I've come to know and love??? This is a tech support question... I build my own boxen, and I've had troubles in the past, but this isn't what /. is all about.
I have a Duron 650 with GA-7ZM motherboard, and Windows takes ages to boot - probably a whole minute (not actually timed). Most of this time its doing nothing. Just sitting with the Windows startup screen, then the black textmode screen, then finally the usual desktop.
This is newly reinstalled W98SE (like, last week), and has done it ever since then. (Upgraded from K62 with a similar problem, but no where near as long)
I do notice network useage during the black screen. (flashing lights on the hub) It should have a static IP!
With the K62 it wouldn't start at all if not plugged into a hub. Not yet tested with the Duron.
Anybody know anything about any of this, and to help??
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no sig for you. come back one year.
Something like:
Just say "No" to Windows.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
You don't say whether the install of 98 is a "real" install, or an install from a copy of another CD (ie, a copy you don't own). We can assume you own it, but think about this:
Might it not be possible that Windows 98 did some surrepticious "upgrading" during the night? Maybe IE5 asked to upgrade (I have seen this happen several times), and you said "sure, why not" - and that upgrade added a bit of code to cause Windows 98 to verify that it was a legal copy with M$'s servers. Or maybe it checked to see if you had Linux installed in another partition (somehow). Then, if either of these tests failed, it refuses to boot up (or maybe it erased part of itself to cause the bootup to fail, or something similar).
Now, more than likely, this is not the case - I would look into all the other suggestions first. However, given the way M$ has been acting lately, and given all of the other crap we have seen in the recent past with companies ROUTINELY violating peoples rights and machines, can you really blame me for thinking this?
I say you tell M$ where to stick it, and nuke the partition to allow your Linux one room to grow (unless you have some dire need on the M$ side, that isn't or can't be replicated to some extent on the Linux side)...
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
What are the differences between running Intel and AMD? I don't mean performance differences. Are there many differences in terms of what software will run? I recently had some Fortran code that I was trying to link to some C code. Running under FreeBSD on an Intel box it worked fine. On an AMD Athlon some floating point flags were set on returning from the Fortran code and the next floating point operation threw a SIGFPE. Should there ever be a difference between the two platforms like that?
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-- SIGFPE
I also have an 800Mhz AMD K7. I have a similar setup as you do. I have Linux on one drive (DVDs, games, everything) and Windows on the other (Diablo II.) I have had it for about four weeks and no problems. Perhaps your motherboard is bad.
All I know is that my Athlon system (Athlon Thunderbird 700 on a Asus A7V works perfectly fine, with Windows ME as well as Mandrake. Windows ME doesn't even get a chance to idle the CPU, since I'm running distributed.net all the time.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
...did /. become a helpdesk?
On my dual boot system, sometimes I have to wait while the cursor blinks in the upper left hand corner of the screen for several minutes. I think Windoze is doing something stupid with the NIC/network. Now if we could just get rid of MS Project, I wouldn't need their OS at all :-)
UugaBuuga
#2. Try FDISK
#3. If you have backups elsewhere... download this and run it from the DOS prompt on a WIN98 (or DOS 5.0 for that matter) boot disk, it will ERASE the boot sector, completely. (Killing Linux along the way) zap_part.exe. The source code is in the same directory in TP 7. The password is "amber". Be VERY careful. I wrote this program to remove NT installs.
--Mike--
Your right AC in that he did say he tried another drive - though he doesn't say whether it was the only drive in the system (though more than likely it was).
/. if this was taken wrong.
I am sure that what I sugested wasn't the case, and I wasn't tring to stir the pot (ok, maybe I was a little - my paranoia gear just kicked in, is all). I appologise to all on
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I've been working on a 750 Athlon system with a Gigahertz MB and when I installed an All In Wonder Pro card in it, it started doing all sorts of weird things. I finally found that an incompatability with the CD Writer (none specific) had to be installed as a secondary master instead of slave. This resolved all glitches the system was having. This I found after re-formatting, re-installing with different options and other different cards. This was on a windows 98SE system. There seemed to be no problem under Linux at any time and this error appeared with or without Linux installed with LILO.