Interesting Problem

Strygun · 2003-05-13, 12:34 PM

I'm getting the weirdest thing happening with this old comp of mine. I recently built a new one and gave my old one to my brother. I of course formatted it and then reinstalled Win2kPro and booted it up. It got to the desktop, but I had to shut down because it was time to sleep. I booted it up the next morning, and it freezes at bootup. The part where there's a white screen with the windows logo and the moving bar. The bar gets all the way to the finish, but the other moving bar (the blueish one) stops moving. So I just restarted it. It happens again. And again. So then I say, well that sucks. So, I format the comp again and reinstall win2k. I boot it up. It doesn't even make it to the desktop this time. It just locks up on boot up. So then I go and get a startup disk from my win98 comp, put it in, changed the bios settings to boot from floppy and reboot. The comp bypasses the floppy and boots win2k (only to freeze at the same spot, again).

So, here it is in a nutshell: I have reformatted 4 times, deleted partitions, created partitions, tried a boot disk, etc etc. Nothing works!

NOTE: I CAN boot the comp into safe mode (this choice is before the boot up screen), but I can't do anything from safemode that is useful.

If you have ANY ideas, please let me know. I have a deadline to fix this comp for my bro...

OmnipotentKiwi · 2003-05-13, 12:37 PM

Try a different OS would be a start.
Are you sure all the drivers are instaled?
Are you sure all the parts are good?

Daleon · 2003-05-13, 04:39 PM

A different OS won't matter. Especially if you can't even get it to boot from floppy. Make sure the smartboot or whatever is on, that checks for floppy. Reset your bios?

I've had similar problems, but not really sure what to tell you. It was always some bad hardware when it happened to me, but finding out what piece of the needle in the haystack. If your floppy is actually not working, try disconnecting the power to it and try and boot.

Try setting video mode down to like 640x480x256 and then reboot.

Is the lock up point its at now when booting to win2k the same point at which it was originally? Hard to tell, sounds like you say its eariler in the boot process. Which would be odd.

OmnipotentKiwi · 2003-05-13, 04:46 PM

The reason I say it may be an OS issue is because it occurs in and when installing Wink2k, a different OS may solve the problem.

Also, do you have the newest version of your bios flashed in?

NullPointe · 2003-05-13, 07:03 PM

Ive had similar problems in the past, and it came down to a failing harddrive.

-SigLess

Strygun · 2003-05-13, 08:55 PM

No, the bios is mega old, but I don't want to mess with it. It might actually be the soundcard. I put in a brand new soundcard (never been used before) before I installed Win2k the first time. I will take it out and try again.

Strygun · 2003-05-13, 10:21 PM

Ok, I just took out the sound card, reinstalled win2k, it does the same thing.

Originally posted by DaelonIs the lock up point its at now when booting to win2k the same point at which it was originally? Hard to tell, sounds like you say its eariler in the boot process. Which would be odd.

The freeze doing boot up has always been at the same place.

OmnipotentKiwi · 2003-05-13, 10:23 PM

Try a different OS.

CDL Full Otto · 2003-05-13, 10:54 PM

Reseat the video card. Or better yet pull it out and try another. If you can boot into safe mode most of the time it is the Video card (since you can get into safe mode then that means it resets the drivers for the video and kills the rest)

Another thing to try is to remove all cards but the video card (any built on cards should be disabled in the bios) This will help you find the problem.

Trouble shooting a computer is a matter of steps, take them one at a time, never make more than one change when testing.

Keep us posted

Otto

Daleon · 2003-05-14, 12:42 AM

He never said he had problems installing win2kpro. And if he's done it 3 times now if he had XP my guess is he would have tried it.

Also going into safemode is 'supposed' to reset your video to lowest settings. Not always, especially with win2kpro. When I first got a 9700 Pro last august and could never get it to work, going into safemode was not enough to bring video down. I had to go into properties and adjust them manually, and hit apply and it would come up and say its gonna do blah and blah.

Also if you can get into safemode, you should be able to get into device manager. Remove the video card if you have not and reboot. Without a error and just a lock on bootup, this is going to be a fun one to try and fix.

Zatrais · 2003-05-14, 04:45 AM

Try a different OS.

Sounds like win2k has some issues whit a piece of hardware to me.

Strygun · 2003-05-14, 08:20 AM

Well I've uh, *cough*actually installed this win2k on 3 or 4 computers around my house *cough* [/me watches for hamma to layeth the smacketh downeth.]

I'll keep trying, but it's not looking good!

Daleon · 2003-05-14, 09:23 AM

I seriously doubt its strictly related to Win2k. If it was, it would not have botted up the first time. Unless you can start swapping out hardware not sure what else you can do though except maybe try and find XP and try it.

Strygun · 2003-05-14, 12:35 PM

Well my new comp has winxp on it, it's what I installed. But won't the whole winxp activation thing block me installing it twice?

OmnipotentKiwi · 2003-05-14, 01:58 PM

Originally posted by Shogun
Well my new comp has winxp on it, it's what I installed. But won't the whole winxp activation thing block me installing it twice?

Yes. But there are cracks to stop it from activating. Don't ask me where though.

I'm telling you, it sounds like Win2k is not liking that hardware.