windows 2000 continuous restart loop after bios reset

[quackshack]

Hi.

This problem occured on an
aria pc (

http://www.aria.co.uk

)
amd k2 800mhz
motherboard manufactured by pc chips (model : m810)
running windows 2000 sp3
686 amibios AS21 -2541
pc serial number - 155233 (On a sticker on the outer case)

i needed to enable booting from a: drive, but didnt have the bios password, so..

I removed the cmos battery from the pc in order to reset the bios password, then i replaced the battery.

Now when the pc starts, it says 'starting windows 2000',
the white progress bar is then displayed, and then once this bar is complete, the pc restarts again. ad infinitum.

i have tried setting the bios to optimal and performance settings. This did not solve the problem.

The hard disk and cd rom detect ok

have tried using the 4 setup boot disks to perform an emergency repair which was unsuccessful.


any advice is appreciated

thanks

paul

 

[RogerTDJ]

Paul,

It sounds as if when you reset your bios, you enabled or disabled some hardware that was not enabled or was disabled before.

This is causing a problem on startup to where a call is being made which is rebooting your system.

Without knowing your full configuration (and even knowing it..!) I could only hazard the guess that it is related to one of 2 or 3 things.

1. Your hard drive settings are incorrect in the bios now. Thus when your drivers are loaded for the hard drive, it reboots.
2. You may have had your IRQ's and ports configured in the CMOS a certain way. There-by when you cleared the CMOS the IRQ's now take on automatic settings which cause conflicts and/or over-lap among devices. Thus when it attempts to start Windows a reboot occurs. I think the chance of this is particularly high, and may be caused by a video card IRQ considering that this is right before the graphical interface comes up. Your best check in this regard would be to put in a video card which does not use IRQ's (use f8 and safe mode if you do this). You may also want to try removing all cards except your video card and startup to see if you can start correctly (again, f8 and safe mode).

Regards,

Roger

 

[quackshack]

thanks for your reply roger

re:1
i have set the bios to auto detect the hard drive, are you saying that it is a possibility that the autodetect settings are wrong and i should try to find out what they should be and set them manually?

re:2
this sounds quite likely to me (as the only change i made to the machine was to remove and replace the battery)

the only card that is in the machine is the network card
(the rest are integrated into the motherboard)
so if it is an irq problem, am i correct in saying that simply removing this network card and then resetting the bios again will prove or disprove this?

 

[DMFANZ]

Have you tried last known good configuration?

Throught the F8 option whilst the startup bar is loading I have had a problem with continual reboot and whilst not the same circumstance as you, this resolved the reboot problem.

If the W2K startup bar is loading then your HDD sould be detected in the bios ok?

 

[quackshack]

thanks for your reply

yes ive tried the F8 option
with safe mode, last known good configuration debugging, and bootlogging

all of which result in the same problem

yes, your correct, the hard drive seems to be recognised fine in the bios

the hard drive seems to be working fine as when i boot up in safe mode with networking, i can see the pc acknowledging files being loaded

Mup.sys is the last file i can see loaded before the reset

 

[DMFANZ]

Have you also tried running the boot repair from the reapair console incase it is corrupt?

Failling that disable everything in the bios that is not needed to run the system and try the repair again

 

[wolluf]

You could run a repair reinstall - boot from 2k install CD, choose new install. It should find your installation and offer to repair it (type R) - accept this invitation. should leave data, settings & apps intact (looses windows updates).

PS. Your original post said needed to enable booting from A: drive, but didn't have bios password. So, presumably you couldn't actually boot into 2k either? So, how do you know it was working previously?

 

[quackshack]

DMFANZ (IS/IT--Manageme) May 8, 2003
>Have you also tried running the boot repair from the reapair console incase it is corrupt?

yes, i ran the boot repair
but i didnt run the master boot record repair option for fear of losing the data (which up

until that point hadnt been backed up)

>Failing that disable everything in the bios that is not needed to run the system and try
>the repair again

thanks, i will try this

 

[quackshack]

wolluf (TechnicalUser) May 8, 2003
>You could run a repair reinstall - boot from 2k install CD, choose new install. It should

>find your installation and offer to repair it (type R) - accept this invitation. should
>leave data, settings & apps intact (looses windows updates).

thankyou, i will try this if i have no luck repairing the boot sector

>PS. Your original post said needed to enable booting from A: drive, but didn't have bios
>password. So, presumably you couldn't actually boot into 2k either? So, how do you know it
>was working previously?

sorry, i didnt make myself clear, it was the bios setup password that was enabled, there was
no password to start up the machine from the hard disk. The previous administrator had
disabled the floppy drive/cd in the bios and set a password.

 

[wolluf]

Just a thought - is the bios virus protection now enabled? Might be worth disabling it if it is.

 

[crisc]

It sounds like you've tried all the boot repair tricks, and a continually rebooting PC sounds like a hardware problem (PS, mobo) anyways, IMO. Do you have access to a spare system? Try hoooking this HD up to a known-good PC and see if the problem persists...

 

[RogerTDJ]

With regards to putting the hard disk in another computer, don't bother unless you have one with an identical mainboard. However you might try swapping cases or powersupplies.

Back to the question of the hard disk. There are situations where if you had specific manual settings for you hard drive in cmos before setup (LBA mode or not..), then those settings are assumed by the drivers on boot up. Also consider the situation of a raid controller, if your raid controller is doing something different because of a bios reset then you will not be able to boot, I have had this problem in the past. If you have to have a particular driver loaded for your built-in IDE because of drive size or what-have-you.. different settings can cause reboots.

Also you have not eliminated the original question of IRQ settings. Yeah you might want to try removing the network card just to check. Turn off your video related options in the cmos.. like cache video bios, and shadow ram for video. I really believe you've got some incorrect cmos settings.

It is highly unlikely that your powersupply went bad right now right on the same day that you happened to reset your CMOS.

However you seemed to be addressing issues with your floppy / cd-rom drive, and I note that you are booting 4 floppies then switching to the cd-rom, this implies that it wasn't the boot-setting for the cd-rom that you were attempting to fix which implies there was a problem with your cd-rom(and floppy)...?

Try disconnecting the cd-rom drive and the floppy drive from power and from controllers and boot again. If you're able to boot then either your powersupply IS going bad or your floppy or cd-rom is doing something wrong.

Regards,

Roger

OR!! Otherwise just take it to the range the next time you go shooting.

 

[clones]

just buy another set of computer with a higher processor....