Windows 2000 Pro. Cycling Boot over and over...

[N3ATS]

One of my coworkers has a problem with his computer down here on the trip.

He is running a older Dell Laptop with Windows 2K Pro. When he tries to boot up, the PC just cycles the boot process over and over again. As soon as the pale blue desktop screen begins to load, the PC reboots. I disabled "silent boot" and everything appears normal.

It will boot just fine in Safe Mode.

I checked the BIOS settings, boot order, physical connections of the RAM sticks, everything I could think of.

Does anyone have any idea what is causing this?

[ad4mg]

One of my coworkers has a problem with his computer down here on the trip.

He is running a older Dell Laptop with Windows 2K Pro. When he tries to boot up, the PC just cycles the boot process over and over again. As soon as the pale blue desktop screen begins to load, the PC reboots. I disabled "silent boot" and everything appears normal.

It will boot just fine in Safe Mode.

I checked the BIOS settings, boot order, physical connections of the RAM sticks, everything I could think of.

Does anyone have any idea what is causing this?

Try this Microsoft fix:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174630

It may just be set to auto re-boot on a system error. This will at least give you a chance to chase down the error, if it works. It may be caused by a virus ... there were a couple that caused this behavior, although I haven't seen them in a while!

[M0GLO]

Check the drivers too, they will do that if the disk sector goes bad under them.

Also do as suggested above, without the Blue Screen diag code you will never know what is happening.
When you get the screen post the error code and dll being loaded.

[N3ATS]

He doesn't get the BSOD (if that's the blue screen you're talking about). I did check all the drivers in the device manager, no issues that I could see.

I will try what you guys suggested this evening and let you know how we made out.

Thanks!!!

[M0GLO]

Also try stepping through the driver loads one by one at startup (I think there is an option still for that but I haven't had to do that for years) to see which one reboots it.

If the option does not exist any more in the boot screen go to safe mode and disable all the hardware drivers and boot, enable one then reboot. Repeat until you get the one doing it.

And as suggested, scan for virus's since a couple used to do that around 1998.

[K8YS]

as a Microsoft rep told me, Windows 2000 sucks, but not as bad as Window 98.

I have encountered this inconvience inthe past. I do not know what caused it, it fixed its self.

You need to boot in safe mode, no networking.
After it recovers, go to the event viewer, clear ALL the records, you may want to save them for future reference.
Reboot normally, if it reboots, great, if not, reboot in safe mode again, go to the event viewer and see what errors you get.

event viewer... START>Programs>Administrative tools>event viewer

I think that network issues is what normally cases my problems, I run a native NT network, but still have brain farts, but not as many as I did with Win2Kserver, I am now running Win2K3server

[N3ATS]

After 2 more hours of fighting this thing, I gave up. We're gonna reload 2K when we get back home. F it.

[K8YS]

After 2 more hours of fighting this thing, I gave up. We're gonna reload 2K when we get back home. F it.

yep, that works too.

I would suggest that you install into a different folder, this will aloow you to go back to the orginal and resurrect some programs that do not register with the new load. THEN, later, after you are happy, delete the old folder.

[kd6nig]

Just make sure you didn't have any hardware come loose before you do that. Its doubtful, but a quick check before you start reinstalling.

I've had people who didn't put cards in correctly (seat them completely) and during boot they suddenly appear and the OS panics.

I doubt this is the problem, but its a quick check.

You could also have had a memory chip that went bad and is causing the same thing.

I'd go with the reinstall first, but if that doesn't work, that may be what you're looking at.....

[N3ATS]

Well my buddy bought a new laptop and gave me this one for nothing. It's an older Dell Inspiron 7500. 500 MHz, with 256 of RAM.

I blew it out and just put XP Home on it and it runs great. Just two concerns I have found.

USB is 1.0, and one of the hinges for the screen is broken (read the metal snapped).

Other than that it works great! It's a nice FREE addition to my someday ham shack.

I have a 19" wide screen LCD monitor I can use with it. I will just take the screen off of it!

[kc2orw]

Well my buddy bought a new laptop and gave me this one for nothing. It's an older Dell Inspiron 7500. 500 MHz, with 256 of RAM.

I blew it out and just put XP Home on it and it runs great. Just two concerns I have found.

USB is 1.0, and one of the hinges for the screen is broken (read the metal snapped).

Other than that it works great! It's a nice FREE addition to my someday ham shack.

I have a 19" wide screen LCD monitor I can use with it. I will just take the screen off of it!

Nothing fixes windows, or any farged up system, like a nice clean install...

I always store my files, documents, sourcecode, etc on a separate partition... That way when I replace the system partition I don't have to lose my data...
I always used Ghost for windows but there are other products that will do the same or similar.

[al2i]

I always used Ghost for windows but there are other products that will do the same or similar.

I used Ghost heavily for cloning/restoring my systems up until a year or so ago. Now I use Acronis.

[kc2orw]

I always used Ghost for windows but there are other products that will do the same or similar.

I used Ghost heavily for cloning/restoring my systems up until a year or so ago. Now I use Acronis.

Yeah I used Acronis a while back in a shop that didn't use Ghost, I think it was JP Morgan/Chase. I haven't touched it since then as Ghost is so commonly found in most places. Ghost isn't better but there is always a copy laying around some place :lol: I am just talking about the command line version...