Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.setup (More info?)

Here is an abridged thread for an install issue filed with MSDN.
The tracking number was “CST165910787ID�. Please reference your MSDN records for screenshots, product keys, etc not included with theis post.
If anyone from MS has an interest in fixing this problem our contact information should be found with the aforesaid traiking number.

Please note we did manage to reproduce the issue trying to install from an XP64 beta which does not give the “must boot from CD� pop-up. A Belarc report of the current (much more complex) configuration is appended to the end of the thread.

=============================

>it works fine for us.

Any hint as to what it worked fine on?
My setup is a dual Opteron, given how chintzy most large companies are
(even when they have $55B in cash), I would guess your validation was on a single non-Opteron AMD CPU/MB.

>Please try to install the product key again

Still fails with "Invalid Key".

I have stripped the machine to essentials and tried to "jiggle" the
configuration a little away from standard by selecting the time format
to be HH rather than H or HH for the timer format:

1) disabled the SATA and secondary IDE.
2) Booted & installed from a different DVD drive/manufacturer.
3) Flushed the previous C: & D: NTFS partitions
4) Swapped memory modules


I am left with 1 80GB Maxtor IDE drive with the 1st partition as a 3067
primary C: partition and a AOPEN DVD drive for boot.

There appears to be something serious wrong with the key validation for
this pre-release code in my environment. I suspect that there is an
uninitialized variable that now has a garbage value different from the
garbage values that are seen in other hardware environments, hence the
attempt to "jiggle" things so the stack might be left with compatible
garbage.

This setup is not significantly different from the thousands of other
machines we have custom built over the last 20 years.

Here are the details of what was purchased from newegg.com:

13-130-436 MB MSI|VIA K8T800 K8T Master2-FAR
14-135-137 VGA AOPEN|GF4 MX4000 128MB DDR 8X
19-103-389 CPU AMD|OPTERON 242 1.6 GHz (QTY 2)
20-221-012 DDRAM 512MB|GIGARAM 64X72 PC2700
27-129-140 DVD|AOPEN16X DVD-1648/AAP

It is running off an Antec Tru450 power supply, which should make no
difference.

The MB was highest rated Dual AMD board by Tom's Hardware. I have to
imagine there are others who are going to be using them to build W64
servers. We make our living selling just shy of leading edge custom
systems and would really like to get this straightened out before we
start putting these boxes on customer sites.

Is there any chance of escalating this to a real MS incident and bring
in some resources with specialized knowledge in key validation?

We don't mind interacting with people having technical expertise to pin
down the issue, installing checked builds etc. But it is getting
tiresome getting "try it again" requests and not getting what has been
requested twice (a different key, not that I have a great deal of
confidence it will solve the issue, but it would at least eliminate the
key as a source of the problem). We have been scratch building systems
since the mid seventies and written kernel based device drivers for DOS,
Windows 3.X, 95/98, NT, OS/2 etc. Admittedly those skills were a number
of years ago but we have a good grasp of what an experienced support
technician will need from us on this side and are eager to fix the
problem, just connect us with one.

Best Regards,
Bob


MSDN Online wrote:
>
> We did a test installation with the Product key in question
> and it works fine for us. Please try to install the product
> key again and let us know if you continue to have problems.
>
>
>
> MSDN
> http://msdn.microsoft.com
>
>
>> --- Original Message ---
>> Sent: Wed Jun 30 15:53:22 PDT 2004
>> Subject: RE: CST165910787ID - Microsoft.Com ContactUS
>>
>> This is being installed an a MSI K8T motherboard dual opteron system.
>>
>> WXP is in the 1st 2.5GB partition and W2003 server 64 prerelease is
>> being installed to the second 3.5GB partition on a 80GB Maxtor drive.
>>
>> We have successfully installed WXP Pro, WXP64 beta and
>> Novell/Suse 9.1
>> for 64 bit architectures. Suse ran for 48 hours with Folding@Home
>> console processes running on each processor keeping them hot at 98%
>> utilization. It seems unlikely to be a hardware, hardware
>> compatibility or 32/64 width issue.
>>
>>
>>> Try extracting the ISO Image to a Local Hard Drive...
>>
>> No can do. Tried installing it from the WXP partition and it popped a
>> "You must install from CD" message.
>> We really don't have the time or inclination to lab up a
>> PXE/RIS install
>> server, which probably would fail similarly anyways.
>>
>>> Also, please send us a Screenshot of the Error message
>>
>> Attached is a digital picture. As the install is forced from
>> CD rom and
>> is going to a physical partition rather than a virtual
>> machine I do not
>> know of any way to get a conventional "Print Screen" capture.
>> Hopefully it should be sufficiently clear for your needs.
>>
>>
>> Is there any possibility of getting a different key as originally
>> requested before we struggle with trying to identify
>> something obscure
>> being wrong?
>>
>> Would trying to install the checked/debug build provide some kind of
>> debugging detail about exactly what in the key validation is failing?
>>
>> Let us know what we can do from here to get this installed.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Bob
>>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 11:30 AM
>>> Subject: RE: CST165910787ID - Microsoft.Com ContactUS
>>>
>>> We checked the Product Key that you gave and it looks fine on our
>>> end.
>>>
>>> This is a valid 64-bit Product Key for Windows Server 2003 Edition.
>>>
>>> Try extracting the ISO Image to a Local Hard Drive and
>>> install it from that Location, to check if there is a problem with
>>> the CD that you burned.
>>>
>>> Also, please send us a Screenshot of the Error message that
>>> you are receiving.
>>>
>>> --- Original Message ---
>>> Sent: Mon Jun 28 08:21:00 PDT 2004
>>>
>>> URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/support/downloads/
>>> DOM:msdnd LANG:English (United States)
>>> LOC:US
>>> Subject: W2003 Ent 64 License key invalid
>>> Comment: Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (64 bit)
>>> [Product Key redacted] This key comes back invalid.
>>> srv03sp1_usa_1069_amd64fre_ads.iso was downloaded on two
>>> different occaisions 6 June and 27 June and Burned on two
>>> different blank discs.
>>> Both installs report product key invalid.
>>> Could a new/valid product key be posted to our MSDN
>>> Subscription Product Keys on the MSDN website?

========= Belarc report ==================

Computer Name: Ilwhlwxphor (in WORKGROUP)
Profile Date: Thursday, July 15, 2004 7:05:43 PM
Advisor Version: 6.1f

Windows XP Professional (build 2600)
MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD K8T Master2-FAR
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
1.60 gigahertz AMD Opteron (2 installed)
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Board: MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-9130 100
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 11/26/2003
163.36 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
158.40 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

AOPEN DVD1648/AAP [CD-ROM drive]
SONY DVD RW DRU-510A [CD-ROM drive]

IBM-DTLA-307075 [Hard drive] (76.86 GB) -- drive 1
Maxtor 6Y080L0 [Hard drive] (81.96 GB) -- drive 0, s/n Y2M8EXZE, rev YAR41BW0, SMART Status: Healthy
WDIGTL WDE4550 ULTRA2 SCSI Disk Device (4.55 GB) -- drive 2 512 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' has 512 MB
Slot 'A1' is Empty
Slot 'A2' is Empty
Slot 'A3' is Empty

Local Drive Volumes

c: (on drive 2) 4.54 GB 2.70 GB free
d: (on drive 0) 2.83 GB 1.12 GB free
e: (on drive 1) 6.44 GB 5.78 GB free
g: (on drive 0) 2.84 GB 2.82 GB free
h: (on drive 0) 2.84 GB 2.82 GB free
i: (on drive 0) 73.45 GB 73.30 GB free
j: (on drive 1) 70.42 GB 69.86 GB free

Controllers Display
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]
VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
Bus Adapters
LSI Logic 53C875/53C876 Device
LSI Logic 53C875/53C876 Device
VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller

Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet
Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
PS/2 Compatible Mouse
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub