BleepingComputer.com: windows 2000 on Pentium II

Hello!
My niece wants me to repair an old Pentium II PC for her son to use for some kids-games. She told me only its a pentium II, and when she starts it, it asks a bootable floppy. She will bring the PC to my place these days so I can work on it. I have a bootable windows 2000 CD and after some reading, I decided, after I look in BIOS at the hardware, I will try to format the PC and install windows 2000. Now, I red somewhere that not all PC's support bootable CD's, some request floppy's.
My question is, where do I find the required bootable floppy (download/with use of the CD), can I do without (I don't have a floppydrive, so I should wearch a neighbour with one) and is windows 2000 a good choice for a Pentium II?
I will post as soon as I know the specifications.
Thank you!

This post has been edited by garmanma: 18 January 2009 - 09:55 AM

If you find the PII can't boot from CD, then you'll need to make a boot disk/boot disks. You can find images to create bootdisks on bootdisk.com, including a Windows 2000 4-disk setup.

Windows 2000 can run quite satisfactorily on a PII, but may not be the best choice for games - it's not really intended for them, and some older games can try tricks that the NT-based Win2000 regards as unacceptable, but Win98 for example will allow without fuss. In other words you might find some games won't work properly with Win2000.

If you go with Win2000, you should ensure it is updated to at least Service Pack 4 level, and if the system is to have an internet connection, install the subsequent Rollup and all later security patches. Never put a Win2000 computer on the internet with less than SP3.

After seeing the PC I opted for Windows 98 SE, it has only 16 mb ram. I am now making a boot-floppy for 98
SE because it does not recognize a bootable CD. Although, I dont know if it will work, it gives a disk-read error, wo maybe the harddisk is fried. However, my niece says someone messed up the software, so I will give it a try with a bootable floppy.

I believe this topic no longer belongs on this forum, but I don't know how to change it.

A better choice I think, the absolute minimum memory Win2000 will install with is 32M, and really needs at least 64M. Even 98SE can find 16M constricting, some games may run jerkily if Windows has to use the page file. If the read error persists though, the hard drive may not be usable as you say.

I'll ask if the powers that be agree the topic now belongs in a different forum.

This post has been edited by Platypus: 18 January 2009 - 08:27 AM

Okay, I installed it, but how....... I booted with a bootfloppydisk, after that it told me there was no cd-drive detected, also no harddrive, I fussed with cables, and so on, and after much the same I placed the harddisk in my own PC. Booted and it loaded an installed copy of Win 98 without problems (I hadnt seen that in a while....). So I figured the harddisk was allright. After a study of the motherboard (at the computershop they said it was fried), I saw that the guys there had plugged the cable for the harddisk in the connector for the cd-rom....... After that it worked like a charm. And I learned a lot about intern hardware....

elise025, on Jan 18 2009, 08:12 PM, said:

Hi elise.

You need to get into your BIOS/CMOS settings. When the computer starts up do you see any messsages on the screen that say Pres DEL for setup or F1 or another key combination? Now again depending on which BIOS you have on an Award BIOS its the second option down. Select it and press Enter. Move the cursor down with the cursor keys and look under Boot Sequence. Once its highlighted you can press F1 for help to show you all the settings available. ESC or F1 again will cancel help, just use the Page Up and Page Down keys to change the setting to something like A, C, SCSI. Press ESC again to go back the the main menu and select Exit and Save Settings. With the bootable floppy inserted with you can download from
http://www.bookdisk.com/. It it boots up from the floppy then you anc format the drive which will check for any errors.

The only way you can check if you hard drive is ok is to do a format then a full scandisk.

Now you install Win2k you need to go back into the BIOS and change the Boot Sequence again to boot from the CD Rom first then save your settings. With the Win2k CD inserted it should boot up and install.

As already suggested 16MB Ram is poor by any ones standard so I think your p*****g in the wind here. Even with Win98SE you are going to struggle. If its an old machine which it sounds like then you may have problems going the older speed Ram. Mine is an old machine but I first had 256MB when I used Win98SE. Last year I bought 2) 256MB, PC100 of eBay so I had 512MB. Just because someone says they have Ram the speed makes all the difference and don't think you can insert PC130 because they are faster, they won't work. A few weeks ago I stuck another 128MB in so I now have 639MB. Now you may read on a lot of windws forums that Win98SE does accept more than 512MB, well mine does and I can tell the difference.

H Keith, the topic title is a little unclear, as the topic was moved from the other forum. Elise is no longer trying to install Windows 2000, and has successfully set the system up with Win98.

Yes I got down to that bit later. The principle is still the same for booting from a floppy or CD Rom as both Win98SE and Win2k CD's are bootable.