W2000 startup abort

[windy1]

NEC Powermate running W2000 start-up problem. Get as far as the W2000 screen but as the progress bar reaches the end, I hear the hard drive motor slowing and up comes "entering sleep mode" on the LCD display. Puter then attempts a restart and the whole cycle repeats.

I don't want to go down the system restore route as my last data backup was 3 wks ago (silly boy!)

Any ideas out there? Looks just like someone pulls the power cord as the desktop is about to come up. I waggled the ribbon cables on the HD and vacuumed out the dust and the puter worked fine last night.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

windy1,

First try to boot into Safe Mode. See if you can get Win2k to load fully.

If that does not work, then try a Repair with the Win2k CD.

If that does not work, then you can still try to install Win2k on top of itself.

Each of these can be done without destroying all your data.

Let us know what happens with the first two, do not attempt the third option without posting here first, since if it is not done right, all your data will be lost. (If you can get in with Safe Mode, then stop there, if not try the Repair.)

Take Care,

Richard

[windy1]

Richard

Many thanks for your advice. Couldn't boot in any safe or advanced modes so I removed the drive and installed it in another pc. Then ran the virus checker and found a number of corrupted files. All except one were repaired. On reinstalling the drive, the pc does not even get as far as before: it just puts up a mono screen and asks for a boot disk.

However, whilst the drive was in the other machine I was able to extract my data OK. I am resigned to doing a clean install of W2k.

windy1

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

windy1,

Since you were able to get your data off the Hard Drive, a fresh install is your best bet. :ok:

Take Care,

Richard