w2kpro boot hang : then does hard reboot

[boutros]

hello,

i have my mother-in-laws 2kpro system that stopped booting last week with a blue screen stop error. chkdisk fixed some security descriptor problems, and i it has worked fine until today.

w2kpro splash screen appears, status bar fills up, and the disk continues to chatter for a few seconds then bammmm... hard reboot. everytime. No safe mode/or safe mode command prompt.

ran wd diag on the HD it returned error 0223, which it said it fixed. chkdsk then fixed errors. So i thought i might be good to go. But still the hard reboot at the same point in the boot process. I deleted an old iomega driver, iomdisk.sys that seemed to be causing problems and that didn't help. Could this be a driver problem? any logs i can check via recovery console? Bad hardware?

I sure would appreciate any help. I follow directions well and can even "rtfm" if necessary!

Thanks so much!
Boutros

 

[crjdriver]

From your post, I would think you have a failing hd since the wd and chkdsk both returned errors. If there is data on the disk you need / want, you can try to slave the disk to the system you are using now and copy what you want.

Once you have any data you need, I would try these options in the order given.

1 Do a repair install of win2k. This leaves all data and installed apps intact. Note you will need to do ALL updates after a repair install.

2 If you are unable to do a repair install, use the WD lifeguard disk to zero fill the drive. After the zero fill, run chkdsk /r. If it returns errors, replace the drive. If it does not return errors, then try a clean install of win2k.

 

[boutros]

hello crjdriver,

thanks for your extremely prompt response. Your first step is where i am headed now. there is data that i need to save and hopefully i can access that partition with no problem.

I tried the repair install earlier. If i recall when i first boot from the cd the first repair option is recovery console or repair process, not install. So i go ahead and continued with install choose partition with 2kpro on it and unlike XP i did not see the "repair" choice there. It said I could install to another dir, or continue and have the old winnt dir, and all files/my docs overwritten overwritten. Not sure where to go from here?, for repair install?

If this doesn't work then i will go to your step #2.

Thanks again

 

[crjdriver]

Win2k has a repair option as well. You choose install from the first menu. The next one will show any previous win2k installs and then give the option to repair.

If setup does not "See" any previous installs, then the repair option is not given. Read the menus carefully and see if it is there. If not, then there is no hope for a repair install. Hopefully you can slave the drive and copy whatever you need like contacts, financial records, etc.

 

[boutros]

hello,

i checked and there is no option to do repair install. If i go thru the repair process, it searches and doesn't find the install. ALhtough i know the winnt dir is there, as i have accessed the drive and backed up the data.

Also, i am able to access the system via recovery console. Are there and repair/diagnostic functions i can do from there. It really would be nice not to lose this partition???

thanks so much,
boutros

 

[crjdriver]

The commands you can run from the RC [that have to do with hd] would be.

1 chkdsk /r BTW if chkdsk again returns errors, I would at least zero fill the drive.
2 fixmbr
3 fixboot

I would not put too much time into trying to salvage the install. It only takes an hour or two to do a clean install and load basic apps like office, etc.

 

[boutros]

hello crjdriver,

thanks for all your help. I am headed for a fresh install if the drive itself is not bad.

thanks again for your prompt and thorough attention to my post/prob!

have a blessed day,
boutros

 

[crjdriver]

You are welcome.