Hello everyone. I’m in a mess, and would really appreciate a bit of help if anyone has the time (and boy, do I have a lot of questions)! I have a pentium III 550e, running under NT4 (workstation), which I hadn’t switched on for about a year (it was fine last time I tried it). Recently I booted up to get some files off it and – probably because of user stupidity in connecting a KVM switch on the fly – wound up with a keyboard and mouse which wouldn’t function. So far, so bad. I tried repairing NT4 to no avail, and ended up with a blue screen and a memory dump every time I started up. So I went for the parallel install option which I’d seen described on this site, and could then boot into winnt-2. But I got only 16 colours. I tried installing the drivers for the ATI Rage Fury 128, 16mb graphics card, and ended up with another blue screen, and a reinstall of winnt-2, which now works again. Back to square 2. Am I missing the point here? Do I need a display adapter for the ATI card to function, or is the Rage card the display adapter? I had assumed that all motherboards included at least a basic display adapter, but that adding a graphics card superseded it. If I need to know what display adapter I have, how do I find out? Nothing that came with the system gives me any clues, and neither does NT. The machine used to work fine, so whatever hardware was needed must be present. Also, do I need to reinstall the service pack immediately after installing NT4? Could this be the problem? And, can anyone suggest a nice neat way to get back to where I used to be – that is, having only one (working) version of NT4 installed, instead of one working and one not. Do I have to reinstall all the other software again, or is there any way of getting the os in winnt-2 to see it (I suspect not). Once I get winnt-2 up to speed, can I just delete winnt, then rename winnt-2 (to winnt), for neatness (again I suspect not). I’m sure I’ll think of more questions as soon as I post this, but for now, I’d be really grateful for any help. Thanks.

I have had to ALWAYS reapply the service pack to get the video to work after installing a new driver. On extreme situations I had to come up in safe mode to apply the patch. But forget "fixing" install 2. It was only meant to be used to repair install 1. You might want to consider coming up in vga mode on install 1. You're supposed to try this before doing a install 2 :-). If you never run rdisk /s your "repair" sent the system back at new install for install 1. There may be no recovery now for install 1. But try anyway to see if you can get into install 1 in vga mode [2nd choice down in boot menu for install 1] run chkdsk /r on the drive in install 2 to make sure the disk is OK. Worse case you will get everything working in install 2, access all your data, complete the configuration. All you have to do is edit the boot.ini and remove refs to install 1. Delete the winnt folder [install 1] and you're back to one boot and one install.

Thanks Wanderer, for responding. I think install 1 is probably beyound recovery. If I boot into it, it tries to continue setup - presumably from one of my attempts to repair it. This applies evn in vga mode. I can't run chkdsk - when I try (even immediately after starting up) I get messages saying 'cannot lock current drive. Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process'. I have no idea what this other process could be. Was I right in trying to install the rage card to get access to more than 16 colours, and is there some sort of generic display adapter on all motherboards? I can't reinstall sp4 after I install the card driver, because installing that caused me to have to reinstall in winnt-2. Should I install sp4 straight after doing a fresh install (ie winnt-2) and before doing anything else? Thanks again M

to run chkdsk /r you go to a cmd prompt and type "chkdsk /r". It will say the volume can't be locked but would you like to run at next boot? Hit y for yes. Exit and reboot. Install will automatically if it can't detect the card install Standard VGA which is only 16 color. You then install the correct video driver and reboot. Nothing has changed you still have 16 color. You now install/reapply SERVICE PACK 6A not 4. sp4 was crap as was sp2 which was even worse. I always apply the service pack after the first install and reapply it anytime major components like video or networking are changed.

Ah, but the immediate problem is that I don't know what the correct video driver is. I can find no reference to display adapters in the stuff that came with the system, and no discs which look promising, except the one for the rage card, and last time I tried loading from that, I had to reinstall the os in install 2. Win 98 has a 'device manager' tab under 'system' in control panel, which tells you what hardware is on board, but I can't find an equivalent in NT4. How do I find out what video driver I need? Sorry if I'm being a bit thick - I don't often get involved in this sort of stuff, and NT is a bit of a mystery to me (although I'm getting the impression I need to learn a lot more in a bit of a hurry!) Thanks again.

Dropping in briefly - Wanderer's covered the bulk of it for you... Possibly Belarc Advisor and/or Aida32 will produce it as part of their detailed scan as to what's in the PC as whole. Otherwise take the card out and see what's writ on it. The FCC number will provide one way to determine make etc. if the make is not already one the card.

OK. Now I'm lost. You guys should know I'm not a techie. taking cards out of the computer is not something I've done. What is Belarc Advisor/Aida 32? I still don't know whether the Rage card IS the display/video adapter. Please, keep it simpler! Assume no prior knowledge on my part. One step at a time. Thanks. I really appreciate your help.