this has been probably tried before - so hoping to get some help - tks in advance trying to install nt4 on compaq presario 7360 that came pre-installed with 98 - AMD/k-6 500 processor - the NT disks are fine - when I try the same on a Toshiba machine with Win98, it reads the NT disks and begins the NT setup process -

When/where in set-up does this error message arrive: do you manage to get any way into NT installation at all What is the file format for C: partition on the Pressario; with '98 already present it could be fat32 - but could equally be fat16? A little more clearer info would be useful; drive partitions/formats/RAM installed etc. for 'both' Pressario and Toshiba?

On the presario 7360, AMD K-6 500 processor, 128 MB RAM The C partition on presario is fat32 - I wiped out and formatted as fat16 but did not help - Error occurs when I put the winNT disk 1 and boot the machine to begin installation of NT. Also tried the following - I booted the compaq with CD support and launched the setup from the CD - it went thru and loaded some files on the c drive - it gave a msg saying 'rebooting ....' and then the NTLDR I/O error popped up The Toshiba I tested is an Intel P2 300 with 64 mb ram - It also has win98 installed on it already - fat32 Appreciate your help - pls let me know if any addl info is needed tks

This is puzzler… That you don’t even get beyond disk-1 suggests possible problems with that set of disks (at least disk-1). I’ve seen comments elsewhere that occasionally a given floppy-drive may be more able to read a less than perfect disk, whilst most other drives won’t – all to do with given sensitivity etc. of heads. A fresh set of floppies will remove that one? Also a Presario with an AMD 500 chip should be on the current HAL list for NT; nonetheless it might be wise to verify it’s OK for NT. After a brief dig around the www etc. things tend to point to the possibility that the Presario 7630 may ‘not’ be on the NT HCL – and so may not allow you to install NT… (Compaq’s are weird machines and I tend to avoid anything to do with them like the plague…) *************** Things I’d try first (presuming Presario is NT compliant.): Remake the NT set-up disks, and try again. NT is picky about RAM quality (W2K even more so…). If 128 = 2 x64 sticks, then try with only one 64 stick installed and see if it works OK (try each stick in turn)? Less than perfect (as far as NT is concerned) RAM can produce an assortment of installation problems… Also have SP4 or later to hand if the HD is larger than 7.8/Gig; NT will require the updated ATAPI.exe to handle larger drives. (How 'big' is the HD?) *************** Another install approach – and it may work out OK. Create a small fat16 (active) Primary partition; make it around 250Meg; format as fat16. Copy the I386 off the CD to this C: fat16 partition. (Use any DOS/’9x boot-disk with CDROM support for this.) Install NT from the C: location using the command: C:\i386\winnt /b /x /s:c:\i386 where: /b = make no setup floppies; /x = floppy-less install; /s: = location of winnt.exe; In this case /s: = c:\i386 At this point you can: Either: Install NT to C: primary as fat16 (there will be enough space to allow this); then use Disk Admin to create Extended partition, and format totally as ntfs, or sub-divide into two or more logical-drives – the first for NT (fat16 = 4Gig max; and if ntfs then as large as you want – within reason…); then run NT set-up again from C: partition and point it to the Extended area. The second version will be the default OS to boot. Or: Use NT set-up\create/delete partitions option to partition balance of drive and install NT straight to that area. If going this route, then NT (logical;-drive/boot-partition) can be fat16/ntfs = 4Gig max. (only). If NT creates its ntfs partition during setup it initially creates it as fat16 then converts it later to ntfs (hence the 4Gig limit). NT will not install to a fat32 area (it can’t see fat32), although there are workaround this problem – more on that courtesy of John Savill at his FAQs (he covers it in great detail, so why duplicate?) at: http://www.windows2000faq.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=13902 and ATAPI.exe guideline: http://www.windows2000faq.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=13894 Quite why Compaqs are such a pain for NT etc. is beyond me; Compaq was involved with NT development! Perhaps check with Compaq and see they can shed any light on the problem? Post back with any results?

tks for the detailed help - I will try out the suggestions and post the results.

same is happening to one of my friends computer that i work on to fix. well, actullay i am trying to install win2k, but every time i put the first disk: disk 1 in the drive and reboot, after passing the bios and showing compaq logo, i get "Disk I/O Error" message. i deleted the pertition on the hard dirve, and tried to install either windows nt 4, or 2000, but the same message i get from reading the disk 1 of the setup set. the computer is compaq presario 7360 i can install anything but windows "NT Technology operating systems". it is not the floppy disks for sure. they are ok. i even went and updated the bios of the 7360, but did not help. sometimes i thought it was the floppy drive, so i went and used three different floppy drives, but they all had the same message. "Disk I/O Error" """"""What Should I Do, Please Help"""""""" """"""T h a n k y o u""""""""