DELL "starting windows 2000..." then jumps back to boot screen... help

I pre installed win 2000 on a hard drive for a friend (works fine in my
system). When I put it in his machine it gets past the dell boot screen and
on to the "starting windows 2000" screen. When the progress bar is full it
jumps back to the boot screen and goes through the same process untill I
switch it off. Please help.

Dell Optiplex G1 350 MBR+ Bios rev A03
128mb

"Cameron Rooke" <cameron.rooke@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:F2lDb.1246$aD4.289771@newsfep2-gui.server.ntli.net...
> I pre installed win 2000 on a hard drive for a friend (works fine in my
> system). When I put it in his machine it gets past the dell boot screen
and
> on to the "starting windows 2000" screen. When the progress bar is full it
> jumps back to the boot screen and goes through the same process untill I
> switch it off. Please help.
>
> Dell Optiplex G1 350 MBR+ Bios rev A03
> 128mb

While I've heard that you can swap hard drives among various Dell systems
without stability issues, I personally find that pulling a drive with
Windows from one computer and sticking it in another is a pretty easy way to
get whacky behavior from a computer.

My guess would be that it's trying to load a DLL/SYS file for hardware that
was on the original system but is not on the new system, and it doesn't
behave well in response. You *MIGHT* be able to rename the DLL/SYS file in
question such that the system cannot find it (it'll present an error message
but won't reboot) using the repair feature on the Win2K CDROM.
Unfortunately, you don't know which DLL to work on without seeing the blue
screen which seems to be gone before you even have a chance.

I had a similar problem with a CDR driver that went crazy when the CDR drive
died. I had to use a camera to catch the blue screen before it rebooted,
and then change the name on the file such that it wasn't loaded. It really
was a pain.

--
gorf

Windows needs to be installed on a harddrive using the motherboard that it
will be used with. Otherwise you get nasty Registry errors. You can't
'pre-install' it using another computer successfully.

--
DaveW



"Cameron Rooke" <cameron.rooke@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:F2lDb.1246$aD4.289771@newsfep2-gui.server.ntli.net...
> I pre installed win 2000 on a hard drive for a friend (works fine in my
> system). When I put it in his machine it gets past the dell boot screen
and
> on to the "starting windows 2000" screen. When the progress bar is full it
> jumps back to the boot screen and goes through the same process untill I
> switch it off. Please help.
>
> Dell Optiplex G1 350 MBR+ Bios rev A03
> 128mb
>
>

Unless it is an identical computer.

I hate trying to move a hard drive from one unidentical computer to another.
Sometimes, you can make it work, and others, not. I wouldn't recommend it.

"DaveW" <none@zero.org> wrote in message
news:2_rDb.563062$Fm2.527776@attbi_s04...
> Windows needs to be installed on a harddrive using the motherboard that it
> will be used with. Otherwise you get nasty Registry errors. You can't
> 'pre-install' it using another computer successfully.
>
> --
> DaveW
>
>
>
> "Cameron Rooke" <cameron.rooke@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:F2lDb.1246$aD4.289771@newsfep2-gui.server.ntli.net...
> > I pre installed win 2000 on a hard drive for a friend (works fine in my
> > system). When I put it in his machine it gets past the dell boot screen
> and
> > on to the "starting windows 2000" screen. When the progress bar is full
it
> > jumps back to the boot screen and goes through the same process untill I
> > switch it off. Please help.
> >
> > Dell Optiplex G1 350 MBR+ Bios rev A03
> > 128mb
> >
> >
>
>