Booting problems On windows 2k Professional. Please advice. 6

[Mark505]

Good day all, first and foremost i do really appreciate this site and its efforts to help others / one another.

Anyway, my problem started a couple of days ago. I have a compac pentium 2 computer.with windows 2000 profesional oper system. when i press the power button so as to start up, the compac screen comes on, then a messsage ' press any key to view option rom messages '. It then starts to boot, after the win 2k screen start up window is done, a blue screen appears and the comp shuts down and statrts the boot process again. I have tried to boot on all possible options using the f8 key, but problem still continues. I really dont know what happened or what i can do to have it running again.
Any suggestions? Thanks.

Mark505.

 

[SJohnson4611]

So it will not boot up in safe mode?

Scott Johnson

 

[Mark505]

I tried all the options after pressing F8...none of them seem to work. It still does the same thing on all modes apart from Debugging mode. After it boots, ( debugging mode ) it freezes on a blue screen and their is no activity.




Mark505.

 

[bcastner]

What message is on the blue screen?

Also, did this message appear at startup previously: " press any key to view option rom messages" ? It might be worthwhile seeing what ROM is complaining and about what.

 

[Mark505]

The Blue screen has no message. it just stays blue with no activity at all. The " press any key to view option rom messages " didnt appear before this problem. I noticed it when the problem occured. I cannot get any command prompts to do anything. Just as i described earlier, start comp, it tries to boot, then after start up, it shuts off and restarts. As it starts, thats how i can get onto the f8keys and try using options on there.

Mark505.

 

[SYAR2003]

Sounds to me that the partition table for disk 0 is
gone bad.

 

[Mark505]

Can anything be done?

Mark505.

 

[SYAR2003]

Download a diskette image
Here is some good alternatives

http://www.oldstuff.myagora.net/powerload/bootdisk.htm

Make one of the custom ones that reads ntfs
e.g this one ( down on the page)
MS-DOS 7.10 Bootdisk with NTFS Disk Read & File Recovery Utility ~ Will read a NTFS Partition and transfer files to a FAT16 or FAT32 Partition .

Boot the pc with it and see if you can get into c:

 

[franklin97355]

First try booting with a dos disk to see if you can get to a stable point. If that works you can get some utilities to test the memory and the HD. ROMs are on the nic, video, HD and motherboard (among others) make sure all your hardware is working by removing or replacing it one at a time. Let us know what you find.

 

[Mark505]

Thanks for the info. I will try to do this tonite. Will update 12/11.

Mark505.

 

[BenyG]

I have had a similar problem before. Were you installing anything in particular before the problem occured?

The fact that the computer hangs very early in boot up does not specifically indicate the HD has gone bad.

What are these option ROM messages you speak of?

You stated that it takes logner for the system to crash when you do a warm reset. This could be a symptom that PSU is dying but on the other hand it might not always be making your PC always crash at exactly that same time and would produce much more random errors. Nevertheless if your other scans check out run prime95 with a System Health monitor and see if any of the Voltages drop. Pay special attention to Vcore.

If you cannot get Windows running then try a temp install on another HD.

Hope this helps,


Ben

"To our surprise we have not been able to locate even
one scientific study on the proved harmful effects of addiction"
Dr George H Stephenson, speaking about Heroin at the University of British Columbia, 1956

 

[zay]

I know this may seem weird but..

Does the computer make any beeping sounds while or during the booting process?

 

[SYAR2003]

The windows 2000 boot picture is shown.
And the boot progress bar in the bottom .
And then it crash .
So harddisk works , that means bios test pass .
Its some windows thing , or corruption in the file
system , boot files not found.

Thats how i interprets the symptoms.

(bad shutdown , after a freeze or hung app maybe )

 

[Mark505]

Hi all, just wanna let you know that i did try booting with the dos disk taht i downloaded...(msdos7.10 ntfs ) but it cannot boot from the disk...its has an error message saying that that is an invalid disk, and to replace it ...

As per earler concern, i wasnt trying to install anything when this occured. i just shut down normally and then problem ocurred.

Yes their is a wierd beeping sound from the comp once i start it up.. makes the sound and then starts the booting process.

Mark505.

 

[BenyG]

That is a little strange. Beeps from the mobo seems to push towards the hardware being the culprit.

What is the number and maker of you motherboard?

With this information you can look up what the beeps mean.


Ben

"To our surprise we have not been able to locate even
one scientific study on the proved harmful effects of addiction"
Dr George H Stephenson, speaking about Heroin at the University of British Columbia, 1956

 

[Mark505]

Ok...im thinking of reinstalling the whole w2k again. Problenm is i cannot even get to bios settings or anything even a dos promt. Plse advicve on what i need to do so as to cleen up, and statr it all over again like a new comp or how i can erace everything and reinstall. Plse keep in mind the problem of not getting to any prompts.
Thanks.


Mark505.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Firstly try F10 when the blinking cursor jumps to the top right of screen to enter BIOS

Let me direct you to here,
thread615-726788
and more specifically here

http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-02-06.htm#1

concerning compaq's/HP's and hidden partitions and System Rom BIOS maybe sitting in hidden patition on HDD, along with Utilities....
good luck

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[lordeos]

Hello,

Try booting from the windows2000 cd-rom and run the emergency repair. If you are lucky he will find the error. Wich doesnt mean he can fix it ... but still you know whats going on.

Sometimes i have a similar problem ... when the winlogon.exe from windows 2000 gets corrupted ... this causes him to reboot and gives a blue screen.

Greetz,

 

[Hyperspeed]

Sounds like you may have lost your bios settings. (Possibly your CMOS battery is dead). Win2K often won't boot if the hardware settings change. The usual way to get into the Compaq bios is to press the F10 key when there is a flashing white rectangle in the top righthand corner of the screen

 

[Mark505]

Hello all and i really do appreciate your feedback on this issue. Wanted to update on what has been going on.Just for more info on the comp..its a compaq deskpro ep/sb series, pentium ( R ) 3 processor 500 mhz, speed is 500/100 mhz, cache is 32/512, memory 256 mb, system rom 686T2 and system board 01, and system date is 08/06/99.

I still tried to start it up but with no progress. Yesterday, i started it up on safe mode and it kind of tried to statrt up...it noticed a kind of dos screen wit win 2k background on it. It did all chekups, and all semed to be ok, it also checked the c:, but once it was ready to start up,it shut off again. I then tried to boot with safe mode with network promt and it did give me all checkups on a dos sceen, it then shuts off and restarts.

Someone talked about the batery, and i wondered, is that ever changed, normally i dont see it chaged (batterey on the mother board )but does anyone have advice on this? or any clues with info provide? Thanks again.

Mark505.