Windows 2000 Will Not Load

[monet1369]

Hello Everyone,

We have a user that has a laptop running Windows 2000. This morning they came in and the computer would not get past the loading windows press F8 to troubleshoot etc. screen. I called tech support for the computer to see if they could help but we could not get it past this screen. I have receited the harddrive, tried to reload windows, repair windows; The computer will not even boot up in safe mode. Any suggestions? The person said they have not changed any setting nor have they loaded any new software.
We also performed diagnostics on the harddrive with no problem.
Thanks,

Amy

 

[Wirdo]

will it let you load into the Last Known Good config? It should be one of the options when you hit f8.

 

[monet1369]

We tried loading the last known good config. and it would not let us load that either. The person had some things on their hardrive that they would rather not lose so I am trying to find a way to avoid losing the info. The laptop is under warranty, so they are sending out another harddrive, but the user wants the info save if possible.
Thanks!
Amy

 

[Wirdo]

Have you tried puting the harddrive into another laptop? Perhaps it is memory or a piece of harware stoping you from booting. If it was a pc it would be easy to get the data off the other drive simply slave it to another but with laptops that is allot more difficult.

 

[monet1369]

Unfortunately, the only other person with a lap top that the harddrive will work in is traveling and will not be back for a week, so at the moment trying the hardrive in another laptop in not an option.

 

[beerhunter2]

Boot from the Win2k CD, and install another copy of Win2k. It will create another system directory (ie. C:\Winnt.000). You should then be able to retrieve the users data.
Is it Happy Hour yet?

 

[d3crypt4]

Yup, Beer's hit the nail on the head - install a second instance into a different directory and grab the data that way.

Have you tried starting in boot logging mode? And if so, did it get hung up at the same place every time?