Win 2k3 enterprise install gone bad

G

Ghettobox

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 5, 2006
Messages
470
A friend called me last night...and I am clueless after going to his house to help him out. He is instaling Server 2k3 on a real POS box and going to set it up and use it as a file server. Seems easy enough to me.

SO he pops in the CD, follows the steps..pops in the Key etc. All seems to go well. Gets to the finalizing settings...saving settings stage (all of 3 minutes left) and then reboots. Server 2k3 spalsh screen comes up, then it restarts setup. So he let it go thinking it needed to reboot..then add more files. Well it starts right back at the beginnning.

I tried it myself..and watched carefully so I could pop out the CD at reboot. Still restarts setup. Powered down. Unplugged it to clear any memory issues (yeah I know..BS...but why no try it.), let it sit for 5 minutes. Plugged it back in..same thing when you power it up. Just try's to install again.

No idea where he got the CD..looks legit to me. Key works and all.

The machine is pretty old school. A single P3 733, 256mg RAM, WD 20gig drive, Intel 810 chipset.

Any ideas? I can install BSD etc..but never installed any Windows OS other than 98 and XP pro. Help would be greatly appreciated.

Ghettobox
 
Windows XP and 2003 have the ability to resume a failed installation. It should figure out where it failed and skip over that part the next time through. So, let it reboot and o see if this will work. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does.

Installing Windows 2003 isn't any different than installing Windows XP.
 
I have let it reboot twice myself and let it reload. gets to the same point 3 minutes left..reboots and trys to start all over again. CD key..Time zone etc.
Ghettobox
 
The hardware should be fine, I have 2 similar spec'd machines that are fine to run 2k3, just don't try installing AD and Exchange, the minimum requiements are BS.

Try checking the HCL on the MS website to make sure the hardware is compatible.

if its bad media try booting to a win98 or XP boot floppy, then run winnt.exe /makelocalsource from the i386 forlder on the CD, make sure you disable booting from the CD.
 
Most likely causes:

Bad CD
Bad RAM
Bad HDD

Is the CD burned? If so......

Run Memtest
Run the HDD diagnostics
 
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