2frustrated
Technical User
I hope someone can help me with this.
I've been having a weird problem with Windows 2000 during the last 3 days. Even though I'm trying to save as much as possible from my hard drive, I'm facing a loss of some relatively important information, and a full reformatting and reinstallation of the OS, so any advise that can help me avoid this, or at least help stop this happenning in the future, will be greatly appreciated.
A little background info: I'm running Windows 2000 Professional on a Pentium 4, 1700MHz (overclocked to 1800MHz), Intel motherboard, ATI All-In-Wonder 128 Pro graphics card. This system has been working just fine for about 5 months. Two days ago, after my monitor went into the power-saving mode, I couldn't turn it back on - neither by moving the mouse, nor by pressing any of the keys. The only option I had was resart the computer. After a restart, the computer went through a POST routine, the Loader (the bar at the bottom of the screen showing progress), the splash screen with the Windows 2000 Professional logo, the little window with blue squares filling from left to right showing the loading process - and then... just when it was about time for the system to completely load and show me the log-in window, the screen went black and the system froze. Another restart didn't help - same thing. Restarting in the safe mode didn't help - it went just a tiny little bit further, switching to the colored desktop instead of a black screen, with a window saying "loading windows", or something like that, and a bar changing its color from white to blue to indicate that some process is in progress, but this process lasts forever and the system doesn't load anyway. I've tried to recover the system from setup - didn't help. I've tried reinstalling the whole OS in the same folder, over the existing one - after 2-3 restarts, it gets to the same problem.
I have noticed (although it may be a pure coincidence) that this crash usually occurs when I try to change from default (640 x 480 x 16) screen resolution to something higher, installing the original ATI drivers. The system has to restart after the video drivers are installed, and after such a restart I get this black screen again. I doubt the drivers are corrupted, since they are on an official CD, and I've used them all those 5 months with no problem. Another thing I don't understand - if it's a matter of a corrupt file, or something - why then a new installation of the OS, which supposedly should overwrite hypothetically corrupt old versions of the files, doesn't solve the problem? I'm now trying to back up whatever I need on a CD-R, after a new OS installation - that's the only thing I can do with 640 x 480 x 16 resolution without losing my mind, but, again, I think I'm facing a complete reformatting of the HD and a new installation of the OS.
It maybe that the video driver is not the problem, since it works fine in the default post-installation mode, and even allows me to change to 800 x 600 x 16 resolution (but I don't see anything higher in the option window - I thought that higher resolutions should be available even if I don't install ATI video drivers, since Windows should detect my hardware and install Microsoft's video driver at least initially, to support at least 1024 x 768 resolution - am I wrong?)
Anyway, this is a really weird problem and I really don't know whether this is a hardware or a software problem or a combination of both. I personally doubt that this is a hardware problem, since in that case the problem won't go away after a reinstallation of the system. A software problem, on the other hand, should have been solved by overwriting old files during reinstallation, which, again, is not the case - I'm completely lost.
I'm sorry if the question has already appeared in any of the threads (I couldn't find the answer here)- in this case I would appreciate a link to such a thread.
Thanks in advance
I've been having a weird problem with Windows 2000 during the last 3 days. Even though I'm trying to save as much as possible from my hard drive, I'm facing a loss of some relatively important information, and a full reformatting and reinstallation of the OS, so any advise that can help me avoid this, or at least help stop this happenning in the future, will be greatly appreciated.
A little background info: I'm running Windows 2000 Professional on a Pentium 4, 1700MHz (overclocked to 1800MHz), Intel motherboard, ATI All-In-Wonder 128 Pro graphics card. This system has been working just fine for about 5 months. Two days ago, after my monitor went into the power-saving mode, I couldn't turn it back on - neither by moving the mouse, nor by pressing any of the keys. The only option I had was resart the computer. After a restart, the computer went through a POST routine, the Loader (the bar at the bottom of the screen showing progress), the splash screen with the Windows 2000 Professional logo, the little window with blue squares filling from left to right showing the loading process - and then... just when it was about time for the system to completely load and show me the log-in window, the screen went black and the system froze. Another restart didn't help - same thing. Restarting in the safe mode didn't help - it went just a tiny little bit further, switching to the colored desktop instead of a black screen, with a window saying "loading windows", or something like that, and a bar changing its color from white to blue to indicate that some process is in progress, but this process lasts forever and the system doesn't load anyway. I've tried to recover the system from setup - didn't help. I've tried reinstalling the whole OS in the same folder, over the existing one - after 2-3 restarts, it gets to the same problem.
I have noticed (although it may be a pure coincidence) that this crash usually occurs when I try to change from default (640 x 480 x 16) screen resolution to something higher, installing the original ATI drivers. The system has to restart after the video drivers are installed, and after such a restart I get this black screen again. I doubt the drivers are corrupted, since they are on an official CD, and I've used them all those 5 months with no problem. Another thing I don't understand - if it's a matter of a corrupt file, or something - why then a new installation of the OS, which supposedly should overwrite hypothetically corrupt old versions of the files, doesn't solve the problem? I'm now trying to back up whatever I need on a CD-R, after a new OS installation - that's the only thing I can do with 640 x 480 x 16 resolution without losing my mind, but, again, I think I'm facing a complete reformatting of the HD and a new installation of the OS.
It maybe that the video driver is not the problem, since it works fine in the default post-installation mode, and even allows me to change to 800 x 600 x 16 resolution (but I don't see anything higher in the option window - I thought that higher resolutions should be available even if I don't install ATI video drivers, since Windows should detect my hardware and install Microsoft's video driver at least initially, to support at least 1024 x 768 resolution - am I wrong?)
Anyway, this is a really weird problem and I really don't know whether this is a hardware or a software problem or a combination of both. I personally doubt that this is a hardware problem, since in that case the problem won't go away after a reinstallation of the system. A software problem, on the other hand, should have been solved by overwriting old files during reinstallation, which, again, is not the case - I'm completely lost.
I'm sorry if the question has already appeared in any of the threads (I couldn't find the answer here)- in this case I would appreciate a link to such a thread.
Thanks in advance