I am trying to recover from a Stop Message 0x7b on Windows 2000 Pro.
Using another computer (running XP) I downloaded the "Win 2000 Pro" Boot disk software to the A: drive from SysChat.
Clicking the downloaded file icon to open I see a command line box with the question "Please specify the floppy drive to copy the images to: ".
However pressing "a" (or any key) the dialogue box closes. A FDM file (an outlook form apparently) appears in the A: folder but the expected boot-files are not extracted.
Any ideas on what's adrift, or is there another download that has been used successfully?
The downloaded zip file is attached.
Thanks in advance,
Bruce

Attached Files

Windows 2000 Pro Boot Disk.zip (32.4 KB, 185 views)

The file you attached works just fine....

you need a zip program such as winzip or (I use) 7zip to extract the files.

First you will need 4 floppy disks to copy the files to when ready.

Download the program and save it to desktop.
create a new folder on your desktop and name it 2000 boot disk
Now right click on the downloaded file and choose to open with (7zip is named if you use it) the zip program you use. choose to extract files and in the window browse to the desktop folder 2000 boot disk and select ok.
In the folder will be the "make disk" program icon....double click it and follow the directions. There must be one of the 4 floppy disks inserted in the floppy drive when you do this!

Hi,
I've followed your suggestions but have basically the same result as before.
First I obtianed 7Zip and installed it. Then I copied the Windows 2000 Oro Boot download tot the desktop. (Tis is all on the XP machine as before).
Created folder 2000 Boot disk on the deskpot.
Right clicked the download file, hovered on 7zip and selected Open from its action list.
Browsed to the 2000 Boot Disk folder and clicked OK.
Opened the 2000 Boot Disk folder and saw win2kpro_makebt32 but no other files or icons.
Clicked on win2kpro_makebt32, which opened the command box as before, witht eh question "which floppy drive do you want to extract to". Pressed "a".
The command box closed. Opened the a: drive but no files there, and no new files in the 2000 Boot Disk folder either.
This is a slight change from yesterday when a FDM file appeared.
To invetigate further I opened the win2kpro_makebt32 file with 7zip and saw 4 files inside it (.data, .debug, .rsc, text) but no executable.
Is there another program I need to create the disks or could it ba a control panel setting that's stoppong the process?

If I'm following you , you clicked on the win2kpro_makebt32 from within the 7zip program?
If that's correct you missed a step.
You need to choose extract files. Then run it from the new folder it creates.

Also in windows explorer (my computer) make sure it is seeing the floppy drive as A:\

Thanks to Squirrelmoose’s and Lurkswithin’s suggestions I realised that the win2kpro_makebt32.exe was probably sending back error messages but I did not see these because the DOS command box was closing immediately.

Therefore I opened a DOS commend prompt box, navigated to the “2000 Boot Disk” directory on the desktop and ran win2kpro_makebt32.exe.
When the program asked for “Please specify the floppy drive to copy the images to :” I pressed “a”. The following messages appeared in the DOS command box:

CANNOT FIND FILE: CDBOOT1.IMG
CANNOT FIND FILE: CDBOOT2.IMG
CANNOT FIND FILE: CDBOOT3.IMG
CANNOT FIND FILE: CDBOOT4.IMG

Using 7Zip to look at the files inside win2kpro_makebt32.exe shows files named:
1. .data
2. .degug0
3. .rsc
4. an unnamed text file, apparently of parameters.

To check that the error was not due to the external diskette drive I ran “DIR a:”. The disk span and the screen confirmed there was a diskette with no files on it.

In the Microsoft Knowledge Base the only entry found for CDBOOT.IMG referred to creating boot disks for a virtual Windows 2000 machine on an Apple Mac.

I am trying to create the boot disks on a Dell Insperon, running XP, with internal CD drive and external diskette. There are no files named CDBOOT1.IMG on the Dell’s C: drive.

It seems that another tool is needed to create the diskette files and creat a bootable disk. Any ideas?

does it have to be a floppy or will CD work for you!

Hi "LurksWithin",
Good question!
The computer that I'm trying to recover is a 2001 "vintage" Sony Vaio which has an external discette and CD device. I've tried booting the machine with both plugged-in and it does check for each before trying to load Windows 2000.
I had assumed that discettes were needed because:
1. Searching Microsoft Support pages suggested that Win2K would only boot from discette and not CD.
2. The boot disk-creation program from SysChat specifically asked for doskettes. (By the way the Windows 200 boot dosk program on the Microsoft website has the same name as that from SysChat and has the same rror situation).
3. I've no information on where the Vaio will look for an alternative boot device so assumed it woud only be a diskette because of its "vintage".

So - is there a way of using a Boot-CD that you know of?
Thanks for your interest in this "challenge".
Best wishes, Bruce

This is from another site and I copied everyone so i know they work!

Windows 2000 Boot Disk Download | AllBootDisks - Providing Free Boot Disks from MS-DOS to Windows XP.

Under which files do i download.....choose the automatic.Boot Disk

Download all 4 disk files to your desktop!

When downloaded ...open the files and you will be prompted to install a floppy....follow the promps for all 4 downloads....besure to label each floppy in the correct order!

Hi Lurkswithin,
Thanks for your suggested alternative source for boot disks.
Unfortunately the results were very similar to previously.
I saved each of the four files to my desktop.
THen I plugged in the extranal discette for the Dell laptop which I'm using for this job.

Then clicked on the file icen for disk 1 to open and run it.

Results after clicking on file icon on dektop and then clicking on "run":
1. Message "Thanks for using AllbootDisks.com" - click OK
2. Mesage "Insert floppy disk to write" - click OK
3. Message "Current image format is not supported by the disk drive" - click OK
4. Message "Do you want to retry" - click OK
5. Previous sequence repeated.

This results sugests there is some issues with my discette drive or the formatting of the floppy disks in it.

Hi,
After thinking about the error message reported in my last post, I tried formatting the discettes again on the the Dell laptop I'm using.
I opened a discette utility menu with a right click on the 3 1/2 discette drive in My Computer. Clicking on Format opened a dialogue box giving some options. None of the option boxes appeared to do anything when clicked.
I then clicked on the Start and then on OK button in the next dialogue box, which should have started the format operation. The system did not perform a format, and did not it give an error message.
I've tried this with two different external discete drives so coming to the conclusion that a operating system program is missing - which may have been the source of the problem originally reported with th Win2K boot disk program downloaded from SysChat.