Setup Failure When Too Many Files Are On Drive C

• Microsoft Windows NT operating system version 3.1
• Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1

SYMPTOMS

The Windows NT Setup routine may not complete successfully when too many files are present in the root of a FAT-formatted drive C.

CAUSE

The FAT (File Allocation Table) format has a maximum limit to the number of files that may be present in the root directory. On most systems running MS- DOS version 6.x or earlier, this limit is 511 files.

Windows NT Setup needs to copy the files NTDETECT.COM, NTLDR, BOOT.INI, and possibly NTBOOTDD.SYS to the root of drive C. If there are too many files already in the root directory, these files are not copied. A message appears saying that the files were not copied and that Setup may not be able to complete, but there is no explanation of the specific reason for the failure and Setup proceeds until the system tries to boot into the graphical portion of Setup. At this stage, the system may be unbootable because the Windows NT boot sector is unable to find NTLDR. You cannot boot into Windows NT or the previous operating system and must boot from floppy disk to recover.

WORKAROUND

If the previous operating system was MS-DOS, you have two options at this stage:

• Boot an MS-DOS floppy disk and use SYS to make drive C bootable to MS- DOS. Then delete or move enough files from the root of drive C to allow for the creation of the above files and start the installation process anew. (It may also be necessary to remove any temporary directory created by the Setup process to provide enough total free disk space.)

  -or-

• Boot an MS-DOS floppy disk and then delete or move enough files from the root of drive C so that the required files may be manually put into place. This may require the manual creation of a BOOT.INI file and in the case of a SCSI boot drive, may require copying the appropriate SCSI mini-port driver to "NTBOOTDD.SYS." Therefore, if you are not familiar with these options, it is advised that you use the first option.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT and Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

More information is available in the following Knowledge Base Articles:

   ARTICLE ID:  Q173694
   TITLE     :  Err Msg: ERROR: Setup Was Unable to Install the Boot Loader