Windows 2000 Professional will not boot in normal or safe mode.

[Caesar77]

Hello,

I recently installed iTunes 7.3.2 for Windows 2000. After the setup
finished, it went to reboot the computer to complete the installation but the
computer wouldn't reboot. The Windows 2000 splash screen came up and the
status bar at the bottom of the screen gets to about 75% but will not go any
further. The little moving lines that flow across the splash screen continue
to flow, so I suppose it's not totally frozen, but the status bar will not
move beyond 75%.

After trying a normal boot several times, I then tried safe mode. After
pressing F8 during start up, I get the safe mode menu and select the "Safe
Mode" option, but just like with the Windows 2000 splash screen, the white
progress bar on the bottom of the black screen starts moving to the right but
then nothing happens - it will not boot into safe mode.

I was tempted to try the "Last known Good Configuration," but I didn't know
if I should or not. And now I'm scared to because after the computer wouldn't
boot, I had to take out one of the hard drives (the slave drive used for
extra storage) and put it in an old case just to use it to get online and ask
this question. So now if I try the last known good configuration, what if it
just wants to go back to before I took the slave drive out (and the computer
wouldn't boot)? I just don't know what to do, someone please help me.

I've never made an Emergency Repair Disk so that's not an option. Would I be
able to make/use an emergency disk from the computer I'm on now? My friend
suggested reinstalling the OS from the Windows 2000 CD on top the current OS
as a last resort but I don't know if that's the right thing to do or if it
will erase and the files I have on the drive - pictures, movies, documents,
etc. in folders on the desktop and in My Documents. You've probably heard
this a million times before, but my whole life is on there - someone please,
please help me.

I looked in the phone book for data recovery and there were a lot of people
listed. If you are not able to help me get things going again on my own, can
you suggest what I should look for in someone who does data recovery? How
successful are they usually, how much cost, what to look for, etc. I, of
course, would like to try everything possible myself before turning the
computer and drive over to a stranger. I know there are do it yourself
programs like SpinRite, but I don't know if stuff like that would work in my
situation.

My friend also said he heard of someone putting a bad Windows drive into a
Linux system and that they were able to browse the drive and copy off all of
their files, but he wasn't sure of the details. But I'll try anything. And I
promise I'll back up data often and take every possible step to never be in
this situation again, someone just please help. Thank you so much for any
help you can provide.

 

[Greg Russell]

I recently installed iTunes 7.3.2 for Windows 2000. After the setup
finished, it went to reboot the computer to complete the installation but the
computer wouldn't reboot....

After trying a normal boot several times, I then tried safe mode. ...
- it will not boot into safe mode.

I was tempted to try the "Last known Good Configuration," but I didn't know
if I should or not. And now I'm scared to because after the computer wouldn't
boot, I had to take out one of the hard drives (the slave drive used for
extra storage) and put it in an old case just to use it to get online and ask
this question. So now if I try the last known good configuration, what if it
just wants to go back to before I took the slave drive out (and the computer
wouldn't boot)?

The state where the machine "wouldn't boot" was NOT a good configuration, so
it wasn't tagged as such on the disk. "Last known good configuration" is the
option that you want to select.

I've never made an Emergency Repair Disk so that's not an option. Would I be
able to make/use an emergency disk from the computer I'm on now? My friend
suggested reinstalling the OS from the Windows 2000 CD on top the current OS
as a last resort but I don't know if that's the right thing to do or if it
will erase and the files I have on the drive - pictures, movies, documents,
etc. in folders on the desktop and in My Documents. You've probably heard
this a million times before, but my whole life is on there - someone please,
please help me.

Others can advise you better on the viability of such recovery techniques.

My friend also said he heard of someone putting a bad Windows drive into a
Linux system and that they were able to browse the drive and copy off all of
their files, but he wasn't sure of the details. But I'll try anything. ...

The best and easiest way to go about it would be to place the hard drive
into an external USB enclosure (they can be had quite cheaply) and plug the
USB into the Linux box ... it will probably be auto-mounted regardless of
whether it's an NTFS or FAT32 file system, and then you can use the
graphical browser that starts automatically to save your important files to
some local space on the Linux box, then un-mount the USB disk and replace
the drive into the win2000 box for a re-install, then back to the Linux box
to move your important files back.

That probably won't be necessary though, just use the "last known good
configuration". That's what it's there for.

 

[Dave Patrick]

It sounds like some hardware failure. You can try a parallel installation
but since you already have another machine to use for file recovery that is
probably the safest thing to do now.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/266465



--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Caesar77]

I was able to use the last known good configuration and get it going again.
Thank you so much for your help! I appreciate it!