W2K Frozen in Place

W

W. Watson

I built a PC for an elderly neighbor some months ago. When it is powered up
it stalls with the W2K displayed and the gauge about 1/2 way across its
span. I told him to leave it on overnight, but it's still in the same place.
Unfortunately, it was likely subjected to some unintentional rough house
treatment in recent weeks. It was probably turned on/off improperly, and
moved about a bit carelessly as he worked on fixing the bench area where it
is located. How do I get the machine unstuck? I recall something about
putting it in safety mode with F8 during the early start. Comments.
 
3

3c273

If it was bounced around, you may need to open it up and reseat the ram and
pci/other cards.
Louis
 
W

W. Watson

I seated the cards, and tried safe mode. In safe mode, it rolled through a
bunch of long paths. It stopped with the last two showing. One board was
noticeably lifted out of the slot. Memory slot seemed solid.

....\NDIS.sys
....\Mup.sys

I'm not familiar with all the debug and command line facilities, so that's
the scoop for the moment.
If it was bounced around, you may need to open it up and reseat the ram and
pci/other cards.
Louis
Click to expand...
 
3

3c273

It sounds like a hardware problem. If it were mine, I would pull everything
but the video card and the ram and see if it boots. If so, then start
replacing cards until you find the one that causes the hangup. If not, then
I'd try another video card.
Louis

W. Watson said:
I seated the cards, and tried safe mode. In safe mode, it rolled through a
bunch of long paths. It stopped with the last two showing. One board was
noticeably lifted out of the slot. Memory slot seemed solid.

...\NDIS.sys
...\Mup.sys

I'm not familiar with all the debug and command line facilities, so that's
the scoop for the moment.
Click to expand...
 
W

W. Watson

I'll try it tomorrow. Sounds reasonable.
It sounds like a hardware problem. If it were mine, I would pull everything
but the video card and the ram and see if it boots. If so, then start
replacing cards until you find the one that causes the hangup. If not, then
I'd try another video card.
Louis
Click to expand...
 
F

Frank Booth Snr

W. Watson said:
I'll try it tomorrow. Sounds reasonable.
Click to expand...
It's unlikely to do with hardware otherwise you wouldn't get as far as
the gauge display were that the case. It sounds like a corruption of
Win2k system files. Go to POST (F2 or Delete button on first few seconds
of bootup) and ensure that your hardware is being read correctly,
although it sounds that it probably is. If all is well do a re-install
of Win2k as you appear to have a corrupted version.
 
3

3c273

Hmmm, reinstall windows and and all apps or... check hardware first and
reinstall driver if necessary. Do you replace the engine in your car when
the fan belt goes?
Louis
 
F

Frank Booth Snr

3c273 said:
Hmmm, reinstall windows and and all apps or... check hardware first and
reinstall driver if necessary. Do you replace the engine in your car when
the fan belt goes?
Louis
Click to expand...

If you backed up your system state appertaining to your current number
of applications, then all you need to do is re-install Windows and then
restore the system state. If you go to your BIOS as suggested you can
see if any hardware isn't being recognised. Then if anything shows up,
try reinstalling that hardware again. If not, and it's a driver problem
you will need Windows up and running to install the driver anyway
 
Top