random hang on startup

[Guest]

Hardware:
Asus A7V133, Athlon 750, Maxtor 5200rpm, 40gig ATA100(tried maxtor 30gig before), Matrox G450, Adaptec SCSI 2904

I'm not sure, but I think the BIOS Version is 1005.
I will use triple boot and do already have the partitions, but no bootmgr yet. So at the moment w2k is the only system.
Had some Problems with the Installation of Linux, so I got me the latest Driver updates in April (also for W2k).
And here's the Problem i'm getting mad for weeks now:

Installed everything without any Problems. Next day, still everythin fine. Next day no reboot (hangs on "press F8 for advanced boot options..." and tells me it couldnt find the "system" file. So glad, i made an image before it just took me someminutes to reinstall everything. Chkdsk, everything OK.
Same problem every 3rd day more or less 🙁
Changed the Hard Disk...
Same thing
Yesterday it hung on the already graphical screen (of course with bluescreen), told me that he cant's find some software files, automatically rebooted and hung there in a loop 🙁((((
Can't help myself anymore and don't want to get the old image every 3 days.
Please help me!

 

[Guest]

Not sure if this is correct, but what partition do you have Windows 2000 installed on. Windows 2000 puts a Boot file on the primary partition (the one that the system boots from). So if you were to install, or format the primary partition even though windows 2000 is located on another partition then windows 2000 will not boot.

Hope this helps

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I bought a pentium once!
Everybody makes mistakes..

 

[Guest]

The Bootpartition is 40MB,fat16 active and the first on the drive, the System Partition is 5Gig, and the 4th on the Drive (NTFS)
So I think this is not the Problem.

 

[Guest]

Ok, here's some new Info!
Today this happened again, so i loaded the diskette version of partition magic. Checked the Disk and it tells me: Partition improperly dismounted
ok...seems to be really a problem with w2k. i installed sp2 yesterday, but no help.
i don't shut down by turning off the power or something. always use the "shut down"
what could this be???

 

[Guest]

Ok, now i found out somethin really strange!
I still got this Problem, already tried a FAT32 Partition, same thing, but(!!!):
When I always shut down my PC using the ATX-Power Button, there's no more problems. It works now for almost three weeks so it can't be luck. Yesterday my friend used the Windows "Shutdown" and the System didn't boot again...
Strange hu?
Does anybody know, where the difference between shutting down by ATX-Powwer off´or by "Windows shutting down" is?
Come on, you gotta help me!

 

[Guest]

You mention you tried to install Linux and has some problems. Linux puts something on the MBR (Master Boot Record). Formatting your hard drive will not remove it. Some of the linux files on the MBR will screw with any Micrsoft OS, regardless of what partition you have the OS's on. The only to fix this is to delete the MBR. Do that by typing fdisk MBR. Then format your hard drive and reinstall W2k, hope this helps. Yes you changes hard drives but you mentioned your were using images which will replicate the same problem to another hard drive. I'm not saying this is the problem, but seems like you've tried everything else.

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I bought a pentium once!
Everybody makes mistakes..