[sarah78]

I am upgrading my windows 98 to 2000 professional but the set up won't complete. It installs for 20 minutes then stops and gives error messages (2147942406) before returning to the beginning. This happens over and over and the install never completes. I have files and emails on the computer that I wouldn't want to lose and stupidly didn't do a back up before I started this.

Is there any way of recovering these items.

[alex]

Firstly Sarah, as the install doesn't complete i'm assuming you can still boot 98. Why not just backup your files then?

Regarding upgrading, i'd advise against it as upgrades from 95/98 always seem to fall over for some reason and even if it does complete you'll more than likely be left with an unstable operating system with all the inherent corrupted files or remnants of corrupted files that made win 98.

I'd strongly advise just doing a clean install of 2000.

To perform a clean installation you can either boot the Win 2000 installation CD-Rom or the installation disks. The set of four install disks can be created from your Windows 2000 CD-Rom:

Change to the \bootdisk directory on the CD-Rom and execute makeboot.exe (from dos) or makebt32.exe (from 32 bit) and follow the prompts.

The setup checks your pc's hardware and will then install the setup and driver files. When the Windows 2000 Professional screen appears, press 'return/enter' to setup Win 2000.

You'll then see the 'accept/don't accept license agreement' screen, press F8 (i think) to continue with the installation.

When the Windows 2000 Professional setup screen appears, all the existing spaces are listed for each physical hdd.
For any partitions found use the arrow keys to select them and press D to delete an existing partition.
Once you've got the hdd partitioned (or not) press F3 to exit out of the setup.
Now just restart the pc.

ENSURE check on the MS website for any updates though, i would recommend the following but check yourself.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-2...FECD095
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx


(Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 SP 4)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?amp;displaylang=en&fam...id=B547

Lastly, don't forget to check the manufacturer's website's for the latest bios drivers/updates.

Hope this helps.

[sarah78]

Thank you for your help Alex, however, the Windows 98 does not seem to be booting, it returns to the 200 set up.

Am I doing something wrong?

[alex]

No, you're not, the upgrade didn't take, simple as.

You've choices though, if you have access to another pc you can install your internal drive in that and pull off the folders/files that way.

But as it stands you've no choice but to do a clean install of the OS, so you'll need to format the drive and install 2000.

[Dave Hybrid]

It really depends how important the data is to you.

If its very important and you cannot afford to lose it and don't have the facilities call a professional and get the data saved to CD/DVD.

Then come back and we will help you get 2000 installed.

Note*

If you can still post here without a working machine i guess you own another machine or at least access to one?

[sarah78]

Thanks for your help.

It has been suggested that I may be able to use the repair facility on the windows 2000 set up to complete the upgrade.

Is this also an option?

[Dave Hybrid]

Yes that is an option, however, i would still advise getting your data off first if it is important.