Replacing motherboard with Windows 2000?

[Kremlar]

I need to replace about 6 PCs' motherboards within the next few
days. I tried a couple today, and found that I'm getting an "Unaccessible
Boot Device" about 10-20 seconds into booting Windows 2000.

Doing a quick search on the net pulled up some info on this error.
It seems that Windows 2000 is losing communication with the disk
controller (error seems to make sense) because it is different than
the original motherboard's disk controller.

Booting into Safe Mode yields the same results. Only way to get
the PC back up seems to be a "Repair" reinstall of Windows 2000,
which still takes a considerable amount of time.

Anyone aware of a way around this??

Thanks!
Mike

 

[hans007]

no, i've tried

 

[obenton]

Using IDE33 on all?

 

[hans007]

no, i've tried

 

[Kremlar]

Existing motherboards are i815-based, replacements are i815E I believe.

Drives are UDMA/66 I believe..

Seems ridiculous to me..

 

[SilkySmooth]

I don't think this will work but it is worth a try. You can use the Sysprep utility to get Win2K to go thru a second stage install process. The hitch is that it does not work with different mass-storage device drivers between the target and the source. You can find relevant info at the following links.

http://www.winmag.com/columns/powerw2k/2001/04.htm#clone

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q216/9/15.ASP

Your second option is to get one working and image it. You can then rebuild that image on the other five computers.

Personally, if you can get all 6 PCs to reinstall in parallel and they are relatively close to one another then this is probably the easiest (and my prefered) option.