Everytime I try and install Windows 2000 Pro, I get a Disk I/O error 00083 what does this mean??????? I have a P3 500 256 megs of ram I815 chipset and a Qauntum 10 gig hard drive.

Thanks, falcon26

If you have two 128 Megs Ram chips, one of them is defective, for example its gold overlay is flaked. Remove it and install with the other chip; if you boot fine that will establish the source of this problem.

If you have one 256 Megs chip, try to borrow another memory stick. Memory verification software is also available:

http://www.tweakfiles.com/memory/

There is another possibility.

Your problem may lie with the hard disk, Ata 66 or 100 controller or SCSI bios.

If Windows 2000 installs its startup files (Ntdetect.com, NTLDR, Boot.ini, etc.) on a partition with more than 1024 cylinders, or accessed only through Ata 66 or Ata 100, it cannot find them at the time of booting the Graphic User interface.

You get "A disk read error has occurred."

It cannot find them because the Int-13 extension in not active and it needs it to be able to read the hard disk.

Also Ata 66 and Ata 100 plus controllers drivers are desactivated by default in Windows 2000 at startup and it cannor read the hard disk.

Solution: check your SCSI BIOS and activate INT-13 extensions calls; or install with the hard disk on standard primary controller.

Optimally use "Partition Magic 5.0" and re-partition the whole disk. Otherwise use fdisk to the same effect. You may choose fat up to 2 gig, Fat 32 up to 32 gig or NTFS.

we solved this in his other post.... turned out to be a bad partition