Win2k hangs at/after agp440.sys

[Trevoke]

To those of you who clicked on this, saying "aah, Microsoft has a tech note that helps with this!", I would like to say, yes, yes they do. Using it has not solved the problem.

The computer has a SCSI card with two hard drives (no RAID or anything similar), but that hasn't been a source of problems. It's a Dell Precision 330, and I upgraded the BIOS to A09 without any obviously positive changes.


It started with a missing NTLDR. I fixed that problem, and now got to this issue, where Win2k does not boot fully. Attempting a "Safe Mode to Command Prompt" results in a list of drivers being loaded, and it hangs after loading agp440.sys.

Now, I have two questions. Besides "listsvc" in the recovery console, is there *anywhere* written the list of services in the order in which they are started ?

And finally : does anyone know how to solve this problem? The goal is, obviously, that I gain access to the Win2k GUI and all its wonderful, wonderful goodness..
(yes, I'm a Linux user! hehe)
Reinstalling Windows is not an option, as too many serial numbers and the such have been lost since the original installation, about five years ago. This needs to be 'fixed'.

Thanks for reading, thanks in advance for your help, and I hope I gave enough information.. Ask if I haven't!

-Haben sie fosforos?
-No tiengo caballero, but I have un briquet.

 

[wolluf]

You could try a repair reinstall - assuming you do have 2k key, and SCSI drivers on a floppy -

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;292175&Product=win2000

but I'd like to have better idea of where the problem's coming from first (repair reinstall has sorted installation 95% of the times I've used it - but occasionally it will not complete (luckily I did have backup) - for several reasons.

Its not obvious from above the order things happened (eg, did you upgrade bios, then get ntldr problem, or get problem and upgrade to try to fix it?). How did you fix ntldr problem?

I think there was at least one previous post about order services load (or it may have been XP forum) - but I can't recall anything about it. Could try search on this forum (and on XP one - forum779 - too)

 

[Trevoke]

The computer is a Dell.
When I first saw it, it had the NTLDR error. The computer is not mine, and I have no idea what caused that error to happen.
I upgraded BIOS, then finally installed Win2K on a separate hard drive to put a copy of NTLDR back on the SCSI drive that is C:.
After this, NTLDR was found, and we "moved on" to the other issue that my friend had, which wasn't mentioned to me at first, which was this. Not loading after agp440.sys

Your link says, Note that you might lose some of your customized settings for the system files. This is a problem because she didn't want to lose the registry.. But, in the end, she's decided to just buy a new hard drive and start fresh.

Just so you know, we had attempted a repair reinstall before and it hadn't fixed the NTLDR problem (but this was due to an issue with writing permissions, I believe). After that, it was 3am and I had to go to sleep; I don't know, sadly enough, if she reattempted a repair reinstall afterwards or not, and if it might have fixed the agp440.sys problem.

Thanks for the reply though

-Haben sie fosforos?
-No tiengo caballero, but I have un briquet.

 

[wolluf]

Just to say about - 'Note that you might lose some of your customized settings for the system files'

This is just a warning, you certainly don't lose the registry - the whole point of the procedure is that it keeps current settings, apps & data. But, if there is/was a problem with particular settings (eg, they were corrupted), it will likely set them to system default. It also sets default permissions on system files/folders, if I remember rightly (but most people won't have changed those anyway). All in all, in 95% of cases it gets you back as you were before problem (just need windows updates).

 

[wlfpackr]

Trevoke,

I had this same problem at work earlier this year. I really wish I could remember how I fixed it as I kept getting the same routine responses of "reload Windows", "follow this info from Microsoft.com", "check your memory" yadda yadda yadda.

Unfortunately I don't have an answer to your problem, but there IS a solution out there and I found it using a Google search. I scanned through a search quickly to try to find it again, but couldn't.

Good luck in your search though.

=================
There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that do not.

 

[Trevoke]

Alright, well, thanks to both of you; I'll live and learn. As I said, the problem was work-arounded (new word, whee...). If/when the problem arises again, I'll be better prepared. Thank you

-Haben sie fosforos?
-No tiengo caballero, but I have un briquet.