Win 2000 Pro won't start - The solution

[TheBeaver]

Over the past few months, I have had a problem with my installation of
Win2000Pro. I could have just reinstalled, but that seemed to be drastic as
it was a clean install when the problem happened. Eventually I found the
problem and a very easy solution. Luckily I was using a dual boot, keeping
my trusty win98 !!!
Seeing as I have asked about this previously in various forums and have seen
many other people with the same problems and all the "experts" seem to
ignore the problem because it hasn't happened to them so they don't know,
here is the solution...

Symptoms
=========
When you try to boot Win2000, it gets past both "Starting up windows" status
bars. It then does the scandisk bit (which you can skip)....and then...BOOM,
Win2000 instantly restarts ready to do it all agin.
Nothing makes a difference. Not even Safe Mode. In fact, you get the same
result no matter which way you boot.

Problem
=======
The "System" file is dead, burried itself and is pushing up mushrooms.

Solution
=======
Boot with Win98 and then...

1) Make a directory called /WINNT/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/TEMP
2) Move /WINNT/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/SYSTEM* /WINNT/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/TEMP
3) Copy /WINNT/REPAIR/SYSTEM* /WINNT/SYSTEM32/CONFIG

....then boot to Win2000 and it SHOULD work. If it doesn't, move the files
from TEMP back and try something else. If it does work, delete the TEMP
directory.

Michael Beaver
http://mimic.arcadeheaven.com

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Over the past few months, I have had a problem with my installation of
Win2000Pro. I could have just reinstalled, but that seemed to be drastic as
it was a clean install when the problem happened. Eventually I found the
problem and a very easy solution. Luckily I was using a dual boot, keeping
my trusty win98 !!!
Seeing as I have asked about this previously in various forums and have seen
many other people with the same problems and all the "experts" seem to
ignore the problem because it hasn't happened to them so they don't know,
here is the solution...

Symptoms
=========
When you try to boot Win2000, it gets past both "Starting up windows" status
bars. It then does the scandisk bit (which you can skip)....and then...BOOM,
Win2000 instantly restarts ready to do it all agin.
Nothing makes a difference. Not even Safe Mode. In fact, you get the same
result no matter which way you boot.

Problem
=======
The "System" file is dead, burried itself and is pushing up mushrooms.

Solution
=======
Boot with Win98 and then...

1) Make a directory called /WINNT/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/TEMP
2) Move /WINNT/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/SYSTEM* /WINNT/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/TEMP
3) Copy /WINNT/REPAIR/SYSTEM* /WINNT/SYSTEM32/CONFIG

...then boot to Win2000 and it SHOULD work. If it doesn't, move the files
from TEMP back and try something else. If it does work, delete the TEMP
directory.

Michael Beaver
http://mimic.arcadeheaven.com

This works well if you have created a recent ERD. As an alternative,
you could use c:\winnt\system32\config\system.alt. It is renewed
automatically by the system. And if your system partition is NTFS
(which is inaccessible to Win98) then you must use the Repair
Console to do the job.