Win 2000 3.5 floppy

[Zerored]

sup alls. My friend just installed win2k advanced server, and after, he cant access his floppy. He gets this error message "a:\is not accessible, the network request isnot supported" and come to think of it, i had gotten it too a while back. Dev manager says everything is working properly and the drive and floppy are both working fine. Any hints/ideas?

[Tazinator]

Bad install. I had that similar thing happen to a friend of mine. He installed 2K and it all seemed to go well, then when he started, the Recycle Bin showed items in it and when he went to empty it, it returned the same error your friend is getting. Everything checked out okay in the device manager and whatnot. A clean installation fixed the issue.

Basically it happens when your installing 2K. Usually its caused by a bad file copy off the install CD. Probably due to a smudged or scratched CD, or the machine just could have mis-copied the file(s).

Basically your friend has two options; install SP2 or SP3 and see if that fixes the issue, if not, perform a clean re-installation of 2000.

Thats about all you can do. ;P

[Zerored]

thanx taz..i think it was a bad cd..cuz i used the same one on my..family pc and the same happened. ill get me another copy.

[wilnix]

OR

Get something worthwhile  

Wilnix

[Metgod]

hehe..

Well I'll play the devil's advocate here..

Personally, I think for servers that Windows is not the choice at all. Security is not the only isssue.. there's also stability (though as of  now my win2k box has been up for... about 52 days.. which of course isn't anything compared to Unix or Linux, et. al. )..

Honestly though, there are two versions of windows I like: Win 3.11 and Win2k. I absolutely despise Win9x (despite what others feel), NT (well, I know 2k is based off of it, but the interface is much much better in Win2k...), and definitely XP... (though I know some here like it...).


Anyhow, the way I look at it is: Unix, Linux or say, VMS (if tolerable and manageable in the given environment) for servers.. for clients.. well it could be unix or linux, et al, but Windows often is fine.. especially for the end user that doesn't care about things except to get work done. And you have to admit that (though I don't play computer games save for a specific MUD) some games that run on Windows are decent and a lot of people really enjoy them.. Do what you want/need for yourself.

I used to be so critical of Microsoft and their products.. and such. But the truth of the matter is that:

1 - I do use windows.. I use unix... so what ? Doesn't make me less skilled to use windows or more skilled to  use unix.. there's a balance and many people can use more than one. Period.
2 - The only things I hate about Microsoft are that they DENY flaws repeatedly and have to be smacked across the room many times before they even acknowledge that it exists. Anyone remember when cDc released BO and Microsoft said there was absolutely NO threat ? Same goes for MS's IE.. and many other stuff. Well that and the fact that they try to control things blindly, ignorantly and think they will save and protect the world.. which they never will.

I don't hate Windows completely except for the many flaws and holes.. But none the less I still use it. And I admit that. There is nothing wrong with it. And I don't hate Microsoft completely either. Nothing wrong there. I also think that often times that those who call people who use windows a lamer or something like that are those who started on Win9x and really their experience is pointing and clicking and nothing more.. Perhaps they are ashamed that they can't use anything else, or don't know a lot, so they attack others.. typical of a bully... It seems that kids often feel neglected or ignored or whatever so they try different approaches.. well, and a lot of them are unethical and so on...

Anyhow, that is my view...

Met

[Zerored]

well...to uneek...i got a Sagernotebook. Back yrs ago i think, you suggested it, i got one..so happy. Anyway, i ran win2k adv srv and got NO problems wit my 3.5 at all. Now, im going to check out freebsd and install it on there. if i get a digi cam, heh, ill show my lappy for all to see...unless you go to sagers site....so, yeah, it must have been a bad install.

[Metgod]

FreeBSD is cool, though I'd say OpenBSD is more stable and secure... but even then, there is actually an issue of mine with OpenBSD though... and I'll make a note so maybe I can bring it up later... bed time, really..

Met

[wilnix]

Use whatever fits your needs more. Just KNOW what that is first. How? read the documention, keying in on what your needs are....

Good Luck

Wilnix

[Metgod]

kind of reminds me of the issue on another post (I think the one about php and apache but am not sure)..

Nothing is perfect, and nothing will work best for everyone. You must use what is best for you. That may take time, it may take money... but what is better: using something that doesn't work for you, or something that works for you ? In the long run, the former will make things more frustrating, stressful, and will cost you more time, energy and money in the long run. That's how I see it...

Met

[Tazinator]

I have to give it up to MS for something. 2000 is much more solid then NT4 ever was and it rarely crashes, plus it reacts well to tweaking, however, when that bad boy crashes in rarity, it crashes damn hard.

After many hours of bringing 2000 machines back to life, i've learned that if you can do it without loosing data, just reinstall. Its a hell of a lot easier most of the time.

[Zerored]

About the floppy, i did not have that problem on my lappy at all. everything works fine. I told my friend to reinstall. Because i used the same disk.

[Metgod]

*agrees with Taz*

Win2k rarely crashes for sure. I have yet to see a BSOD either. I've had my machine up for a long time too and the only reason I really shut down is because the power went out at night. I had to get up and shut down and then turn off my UPS.

It is much more stable than NT..

personally I think the worst windows stability wise is ME.. though I'm not fond of 9x either :)

[godaigo]

My own little Win2k horror story occured last week. I got home and went to play the new copy of Civ III I had just picked up when I noticed that the machine had locked up. It was a death grip, I couldn't even get to the process list or anything so I restarted manually. Bad idea... Let just say that after I tried to restart from my lilo prompt everything went haywire. None of the restore options worked, and in the end I had to do a complete reformat and re-install on the partition. However, I did discover several good things out of this process. One that the separate data partition that I kept anything important on was untouched, and better yet Win2k had no problem accessing it after a fresh install. Auto recognized it and stuck the two old profiles into the new install. Also I found that lilo had no problems and seemed to be really stable even with all this going on. In some of the older versions I had found that I would have had to start from scratch on my whole hard drive. So I guess if you can look for the silver lining. Still I'll stick with my linux partition for the most part anyway. At least until I get my BSD box up and running!

[wilnix]

OUCH!!

Maybe dual booting isnt as cool as it seems to be? maybe try VMWARE instead?

good luck!

Wilnix

[TOWT]

"personally I think the worst windows stability wise is ME.. though I'm not fond of 9x either "

I couldn't have said that much better