After a lockup and power off reboot Win 2000 Pro now refuses to start. Everything runs smoothly until the end of the welcome screen (Windows is now starting up with the blue bar filling).
At the end of this, the computer freezes, no Ctrl-Alt-Del possible.
I believe that Win seeks for it's peripherals during this time, so what part is it missing that stops it from continuing? I've tried the repair-function of setup, but it also stalls while searching for "keyboard, mouse, etc.".
I'm still a little reluctant to reinstall, because I have quite a few items in my personal folders I'd like to keep and secondly I somehow suspect a hardware problem...

That does sound serious. The first thing to ask, and it might as well be me, is:

Have you tried starting in "Safe Mode"? Press F5 (or F8) as soon as the first sign of loading is seen.

You might be able to uninstall software or hardware that will get you back on the road.

Of course, should have mentioned :).

Yes, I have tried safe mode as well. Stops booting when first startup screen (B/W with white bar) has finished.

So no luck there.

Additionally, it might be good to add that no hadrware/software changes had been made which could have caused this behavior. Is there a new virus around that could have caused this? I do have a firewall & Antivirus, but you never know...

RC, I've got one machine at work with precisely those symptoms. It's now with the supplier to fix. I'll let you know what they report. Mind you, he'll probably fit a new power supply and reload the software as part 1 of the fix.

If your machine supports it I would suggest booting from the installation cd then going through a windows installation, this should offer to reinstall over your existing installation, however if it is a hardware problem it may just give up the ghost anyway.

If you feel confident enough you might try removing a bank or two of memory if you have more than one and seeing if that cures the problem.

Good luck.

FSD

I did boot from CD a few times, if only to try the repair-option. No help, the behavior remains.

The problem appearing at the same time during startup doesn't seem to be memory-related, does it? I'd think a memory-bug would make itself noticeable randomly.

I managed to get the computer started a couple of times, but only after waiting at above mentioned point for 10(!) minutes. Even then, some things like display tab, start if IE are veeeery sloooow...

Still confused... what on earth is it looking for 10 mins long???

Radar when it goes into windows have you looked in the event log to see if there are any issues reported in there.

This article may be of use troubleshooting windows 2000 boot problems (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315396)

I suggested memory more as a process that I would follow if I had similar problems, in the past faulty chips that I have found caused system freezes and slow boots hence the reason for my comment.

Suggest that when you can get it started you look at Task Manager and see if there is a memory leak.

Once found a Win2K that was almost locked solid with a saturated memory and it was "RIP Listener" service that had gone into Auto startup. Disabled it and all was OK.

RadarContact,

If you are getting a delay while looking for Keyboard and Mouse, try connecting both of them to the PS2 Ports. (It would really help knowing all the specs on the hardware in your computer.)

With the Boot CD, you can try Fixmbr in Recovery Console:

FIXMBR

fixmbr device name

Use this command to repair the master boot record (MBR) of the boot partition. In the command syntax, device name is an optional device name that specifies the device that needs a new MBR. Use this command if a virus has damaged the MBR and Windows cannot start.

WARNING: This command can damage your partition tables if a virus is present or a hardware problem exists. Using this command can result in inaccessible partitions. Microsoft recommends that you run antivirus software before you use this command.

You can obtain the device name from the output of the map command. If you do not specify a device name, the MBR of the boot device is repaired, for example:

fixmbr \device\harddisk2

If FIXMBR detects an invalid or non-standard partition table signature, FIXMBR prompts you for permission before rewriting the MBR. FIXMBR is supported only on x86-based computers.

If that does not work, you can do a repair of you operating system, it is an option you get when the CD looks for previous installs of your OS (a couple of screens after the option to use Recovery Console).

Take Care,

Richard

Thanks for all the advice!
A combination of FIXBOOT from the console, the repair function of the setup-CD and a very, very slow internet-update via the MS-homepage finally did the trick.

I still don't know what went wrong in the first place, though...:confused:

RadarContact,

The good news is you are up and running again.

Take Care,

Richard