W2k Pro Boots to a Blank Screen

  • Thread starter Thread starter Richard
  • Start date Start date
R

Richard

I'm using Windows 2000 and it's all of a sudden started to boot up to
a blank screen every time - it's worked fine for months before now.
The initial hardware detection works ok and when it should switch to
the normal loading windows screen it just stays blank and hangs.

Today I've setup my PC on a LAN for the first time and it started to
happen from that point. It got onto the LAN ok initially and
everything worked fine - I then tried loading Unreal Tournament (which
loaded fine). The next thing I know, the machine's rebooting itself
automatically and it went to the blank screen!

I've tried connecting another monitor, but that had the same problem.
I've tried removed the ethernet card as well, but to no avail. I've
also made bootdisks from my W2K CD and gone through repair attempts,
etc but still the same thing happens. I'm at a loss at to what to do
now - the last thing I've done is get into recovery console and
repaired the boot sector (fixboot) and its still the same
unfortunately. The warnings from fixmbr kind of put me off trying that
out. ANY help would be appreciated! I'm very reluctant to reformat as
I'll lose a lot of data which I foolishly didn't backup!

TIA
Richard
 
Check that explorer.exe is the default shell to start. Look at the Reg_Sz
string value of;
"Shell"="Explorer.exe"
found at
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Else these may help you.


No Desktop or Blank Desktop After Logging On to Windows 2000 (Q256194)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q256194

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q292/1/75.ASP

What an In-Place Windows 2000 Upgrade Changes and What It Does Not Change
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q306952
 
Thanks Dave - not sure how I can check the registry though as I can't
get into Windows at all. Recovery console is the best access I seem to
be able to get to the machine. I've also tried the upgrade as
suggested in the KB link below however it didn't detect a previous
installation! Current strategy is to install w2k on another hard
drive, then put mine in as a slave on that machine and see if I can at
least save off the files I need before reformatting my own one. Oh,
what joy!

Dave Patrick said:
Check that explorer.exe is the default shell to start. Look at the Reg_Sz
string value of;
"Shell"="Explorer.exe"
found at
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Else these may help you.


No Desktop or Blank Desktop After Logging On to Windows 2000 (Q256194)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q256194

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q292/1/75.ASP

What an In-Place Windows 2000 Upgrade Changes and What It Does Not Change
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q306952


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows NT/2000 Operating Systems]

Richard said:
I'm using Windows 2000 and it's all of a sudden started to boot up to
a blank screen every time - it's worked fine for months before now.
The initial hardware detection works ok and when it should switch to
the normal loading windows screen it just stays blank and hangs.

Today I've setup my PC on a LAN for the first time and it started to
happen from that point. It got onto the LAN ok initially and
everything worked fine - I then tried loading Unreal Tournament (which
loaded fine). The next thing I know, the machine's rebooting itself
automatically and it went to the blank screen!

I've tried connecting another monitor, but that had the same problem.
I've tried removed the ethernet card as well, but to no avail. I've
also made bootdisks from my W2K CD and gone through repair attempts,
etc but still the same thing happens. I'm at a loss at to what to do
now - the last thing I've done is get into recovery console and
repaired the boot sector (fixboot) and its still the same
unfortunately. The warnings from fixmbr kind of put me off trying that
out. ANY help would be appreciated! I'm very reluctant to reformat as
I'll lose a lot of data which I foolishly didn't backup!

TIA
Richard
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Two things to try:

1. Run Chkdsk /R from the Recovery Console.
2. Follow the steps in article 119467 How to Create a Bootable Disk for an
NTFS or FAT Partition ()ttp://support.microsoft.com/?id=119467) to create a
boot disk and see if the computer will boot. If it does, check Disk
Management and make sure your C drive is set as Active.

Kevin McNiel, MCSE/MCSA
Platform Server Setup Group

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Please reply to the Group only, This address cannot receive incoming
messages.


Dave Patrick said:
I thought you were indicating the OS was starting. This article may help.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q155/0/53.asp

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows NT/2000 Operating Systems]

Richard said:
Thanks Dave - not sure how I can check the registry though as I can't
get into Windows at all. Recovery console is the best access I seem to
be able to get to the machine. I've also tried the upgrade as
suggested in the KB link below however it didn't detect a previous
installation! Current strategy is to install w2k on another hard
drive, then put mine in as a slave on that machine and see if I can at
least save off the files I need before reformatting my own one. Oh,
what joy!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks, I will give those a try. I've now got Win2K on another had
disk working ok. When I setup the problem one as a slave, windows
begins to load but before it completes a DOS type screen comes up and
runs CHKDSK for me, saying:

"One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency....CHKDSK is
verifying files (stage 1 of 3)"

It then goes through files segments saying for the majority of them:

"File record segment ### is unreadable"

It doesn't sound good to me. It was taking a long time so I gave up,
but may let it start up again before I head out to work! I tried
cancelling the check and it eventually (after a LONG wait) got into
windows, but everything was going extremely slowly. It seemed to be
accessing the good drive for 10 seconds, then switching over and
chugging through the problem one for 2-3 minutes before giving the
good drive another 10 seconds of action!

Other than letting CHKDSK complete I really can't think of anything
else and obviously don't know what it'll say - there are no messages
saying its fixing any of the unreadable segments or anything...

Kevin McNiel said:
Two things to try:

1. Run Chkdsk /R from the Recovery Console.
2. Follow the steps in article 119467 How to Create a Bootable Disk for an
NTFS or FAT Partition ()ttp://support.microsoft.com/?id=119467) to create a
boot disk and see if the computer will boot. If it does, check Disk
Management and make sure your C drive is set as Active.

Kevin McNiel, MCSE/MCSA
Platform Server Setup Group

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Please reply to the Group only, This address cannot receive incoming
messages.


Dave Patrick said:
I thought you were indicating the OS was starting. This article may help.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q155/0/53.asp

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows NT/2000 Operating Systems]

Richard said:
Thanks Dave - not sure how I can check the registry though as I can't
get into Windows at all. Recovery console is the best access I seem to
be able to get to the machine. I've also tried the upgrade as
suggested in the KB link below however it didn't detect a previous
installation! Current strategy is to install w2k on another hard
drive, then put mine in as a slave on that machine and see if I can at
least save off the files I need before reformatting my own one. Oh,
what joy!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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