PC caught in boot loop

[almegaAkil]

I was trying to upgrade windows 2000 pro machine with service pack 3 and in the middle the machine restarted and was caught in a rebooting loop.

I removed the Hard disk to test in another PC and it booted...

I don't know what the problem is...

I replaced the cmos battery, switched ide cables (even though the bios is detecting the Hard drive), I even reseated all the cards...

Now the machine has industrial type hardware, where the CPU, RAM and basically everything except the pci/isa slots, are on a riser card on a board filled with pci and Isa slots...

Can you guys help me... I think my job is on the line here.....


Akil Mieres
Systems Admin

 

[jimbo4u]

Please check the following:
Amout of disk space available
Has Anti-Virus software been disabled

If you are able to boot the HD from another PC, try to install the SP from that PC.

Also, how are you doing the install, locally, over a network, from a CD ???

Preferred method locally.

 

[almegaAkil]

i've tried everything except installing sp3 using another PC...

what i want to verify is that nothing is wrong with the PC...

i had to do the installation with the disk in a nother PC...

i tried copying the i386 folder to the drive from in DOS and installing without the CD (which would usually work) but even that failed...

i took a hard drive from another pC and the same boot loop occurred...

i'll try installing SP3 from another PC...

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

"i took a hard drive from another pC and the same boot loop occurred..."?
you have got faulty hardware somewhere..(MB,RAM,any of other number of devices or cards)

 

[dakota81]

It's a long shot, but I've seen this once on a computer several years ago... The physical reset button on the case became stuck and caused a perpetual state of rebooting.

 

[Grenage]

You say it boots in a loop. How far does it get, what point does it reset ?

 

[Kocky]

I think you might have an IRQ problem or some DMA channel that is conflicting. Try removing all of the ISA and PCI cards from the system except your video card and then boot the pc. How far does it go ?

 

[bcastner]

Taking a working, installed drive from another machine is unlikely to work unless the hardware is exactly the same in every respect. Otherwise the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL.dll) of the installed OS on the disk will lead to a boot failure.

I will make a guess here. I think in fiddling with the BIOS, or in replacing the CMOS battery, or whatever, you changed the advanced power setting. The HAL is looking for either a Standard PC, or a uni-model APCI setting on the troublesome box.

If in BIOS advanced power management (or whatever it is called in your BIOS) is disabled, enable it. If it is enabled, disable it. Try booting again.

Or do a maintance or in-place upgrade of the OS. Which is where I would have started.

 

[almegaAkil]

I can't check individual peripherals 'cause everything is integrated...

It's not your average PC the motherboard is a riser card on a board that is filled with pci/isa slots...

i don't think it's a stuck reset button...it's not operational...

i'll look into the IRQ DMA conflict... and get back to you

as it stands i'm ruling out all OS-relatd possibilities since the drive boots up fully in another PC...

and in this PC it stops after the blac "starting windows" splash screen with the status bar

 

[Grenage]

We had this here too on Win2k machines when the status bar reached about 95% it jammed.

The only way we got around it was to disable on-board sound, install windows, then enable it again. This was on a read-built Asus machine so it's probably not related but worth a shot.

 

[GDent]

I had this same type problem and found a bad memory chip.

 

[almegaAkil]

the status bar isn't jamming...

it's restarting instead of going on to the next screen...

i don't know what the hell it could be but i'm trying everything you guys are suggesting

thanks for the help
you guys are great!!!!!

 

[almegaAkil]

the status bar isn't jamming...

it's restarting instead of going on to the next screen...

i don't know what the hell it could be but i'm trying everything you guys are suggesting

thanks for the help
you guys are great!!!!!



Akil Mieres
A+ Inet+ MCSE+I MCP

 

[wpatters]

Take out all the memory and swap with another machine. I had a similar problem and found that 2 of the 4 chips were bad. Didn't show up in the bring ups either. If you have another pc to test with then do the swap thing and keep notes as to what goes where. Have you tried to reload windows and then when it asks for a fresh or repair choose repair so you don't write over your register? I'd also try loading SP2 instead of 3....there are a few bugs still in 3.

 

[Grenage]

Aye, if the stuff you have is inboard, try disabling it and see if it makes a difference.

 

[almegaAkil]

the system starts ok if I install windows 98...

i'm thinking it's a compatibility issue

it was running 2k pro fine before this happened though