Win2000 boots to blue login screen and hangs

[OldPCKen]

After I updated Windows 2000 with SP3, I went to Windows Update and downloaded about 19 updates. They installed successfully and I rebooted. The PC goes from the black screen to the white screen to the blue screen and then hangs. There is nothing on the screen - the small login box and settings box should have come up. I have an ABS PC, Pentium II 350MHz, 224MB SDRAM. My ERD does not repair the problem. Please guide me. Thanks.
OldPCKen

 

[beerhunter2]

When booting up, press the F8 key and select 'Last Known Good Configuration' from the list. If that doesn't work, select 'Safe Mode' while booting up.

If the first option works, great your off to the races.
If the first doesn't but the second does, then go into Add/Remove programs in the control panel and remove all the Windows Update (Pre SP4) patches, and then boot up normally.

Let me know if this helps.

 

[OldPCKen]

The "last known good configuration" gets me to the same blank blue screen and hangs. There is some flicker of disk activity every few seconds. Safe mode gets me a black screen with "safe mode" in the 4 corners and windows version in top center. I also get the same thing for "safe mode with command prompt". :-(

 

[beerhunter2]

Try a Win2K repair.

Change the Bootup device order in your CMOS to:
1) Drive A:
2) CDROM
3) Hard Drive

Insert you Windows 2000 CD, and reboot your computer. When it boots up, it will ask you to hit any key to boot from the CDROM device (hit any key to do this).

The Windows 2000 loading program should now start up. After it starts up, it will give you the option to Install Windows 2000 or Repair it. Select the Repair option. It will search to find all instances of Windows, and ask you which installation to repair. Select the one on the Windows 2000 partition (usually in the C:\WINNT directory).

Let the repair run, and hopefully when it's finished and you reboot everything works.

 

[OldPCKen]

I had already tried W2k repair. My ERD (emergency repair disk) did not repair the problem. I can probably get to the Recovery Console but I don't know what I can do from there.

 

[wolluf]

The only suggestion I can make is to run chkdsk from Recovery Console. Sounds like you may have to reinstall.

 

[gfincati]

I also found out the hard way not to install all of the Windows up-dates. Read the warnings from Microsoft and choose carefully. You will probably have to re-install Win2K. If you are lucky you will have a partition for the OS and a partition for the programs/data.
GF GF

 

[OldPCKen]

I did start to re-install but decided to install to Winnt50 instead of Winnt. After some research and replacing most if not all the EXE, SYS, COM, & DLL files in the SYSTEM32 and SYSTEM32\DRIVERS folders, I got my SP3 Win2000 back up and running. I think it will be good to have a spare operating system on hand in case of future problems. So, now I have an OEM version that I may update to SP1 or SP2. I'll keep it a step or 2 below the main OS. :-{)

 

[Rascii]

Just curious. Was one of those 19 updates you downloaded a video driver?

 

[OldPCKen]

No, most of the updates were "pre sp4", security, euro cvt, and IE 5.01 sp3. I think I will wait another month when SP4 is out of beta. I feel much safer with a backup OS.