[Valerie]

Pc Compaq Deskpro - Celeron A 495mHz - 128mb SDRAM. Onboard sound, pci modem.

Partitioned and formatted an 8Gb hdd (C:=3gb D:=remainder) and installed Win.2k Pro. No problems noted. System ran ok, installed AVG and Zone Alarm then rebooted. Immediately after the splash screen displayed, a notification was posted that drive D: was being checked then a further message that the Master File Table was corrupt and CHKDSK was aborted.

Immediate thought was that the hdd had failed but it passed the manufacturer's diagnostics. Drive D: was shown in the My Computer window but could not be accessed.

Reformatted the partition (used Disk Management) and continued using it until another reboot when the above problems repeated. No problems with C:

Installed a different hdd, partitioned/formatted - no problems with W2k install. Installed programs, rebooted, repeat of above error

Second thought was that the W2k cd was defective so used it to install on another pc without problems. Installed programs and rebooted several times without error.

Installed Win XP Home on the Deskpro using the original hdd which W2k picked as being defective, no errors.

Both the W2k and XP cd's are genuine with coa's.

Current thought is that there is 'something' in the Deskpro hardware which causes the problem with W2k.

Any ideas please?

This post has been edited by Valerie: 05 March 2008 - 05:56 PM

[nitroshift]

What happens if you do a clean install of w2k and restart a few times with no other software installed?

[Valerie]

The MFT error is displayed and again D: is "seen" in bios and My Comp. C: performs perfectly.

BTW the error does not appear if the disk is not partitioned (other than C:)

[Valerie]

Oops - it's not hardware, 'tis software.

My error. When SP.4 finishes installing, the option to reboot 'now' or not reboot is shown. I have been opting not to reboot at that time and going on to install the hotfixes which were produced after SP.4 and rebooting when that was completed. Today I did reboot after SP.4 then installed the hotfixes and the problem with the MFT has not appeared.

So my conclusion is that a reboot is necessary after installing SP.4 regardless of the option not to reboot being available.

Thank you for your time.

V...