Not able to login to 2K - shuts down & reboots

[sirlance]

This is weird. I have a W2k Pro laptop that doesn't allow me to login. The OS gets to the point where it asks me to press CTRL, ALT, DEL to login. After doing so, it hangs for 5 minutes or so, then reboots. I've tried rebooting to safe mode, safe mode with Command prompt, and safe mode with networking without success.

Any ideas?? I'm puzzeled.

 

[morpheu5]

Have you or anyone else logged into the laptop previously or is it a new build ? If login has been successful before are there any recent hardware / software additions ?

 

[sirlance]

Its not a new build. It was working fine before it started happening. I'm thinking the profile is corrupt, but not sure. And if it is, don't know how I can recover from it.

 

[morpheu5]

You mention that you think it is a profile issue so does it hang when you have entered your username / password ? If it hangs at CTRL, ALT, DEL it sounds like an OS issue. I'm confused as well - if it is the second option you could be resorting to using the repair option on the W2K installation disk. Not turning out to be a great day ...

 

[pbxman]

Couple things off the top of my head..

try safe mode, then last known good configuration. Can you get in?

Is it on a network? Disable the NIC if you can and try again.

hold down shift when it starts coming up to the CTRL+ALT+DEL. This will bypass many startup items.

Hard drive full?

can you login to the recovery console? pbxman
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[sirlance]

Thanks for all the posts so far...

I don't get the login, so my main thought was an OS issue. I'm just grabbing at anything now.

Safe mode and last known config doesn't work, but I didn't try the shift key. I'll try that. If that doesn't work, I'll back everything up and try the repair function on the CD.

I also didn't think about drive space, but its a fairly new. I'll check that too.

Recovery console? That's a little new for me. Can you expalin a little bit more.

Thanks all.

 

[pbxman]

Sure - boot to a Windows 2000 CDrom or floppies and let it load up. When it stops, select R to repair, and press c to use the recovery console. Press 1 to loginto the 1st Windows 2000 installation, then enter the local Administrator password.

Basically - im looking for whether your registry/sam is corrupt or not. If you can login as admin, then it's a startup service, NIC, or device driver that is causing the problem. Both can be removed outside of the OS from the recovery console or ERDCommander disks, etc. Best bet would be to just reinstall anyway because you can't be sure what happened. I'd think it was a mainboard driver not meant for that laptop specifically. Get all the drivers from the manufacturer's website. pbxman
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