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View Full Version : Win 2K stuck in loop at boot up..... HDD not found!!

groove_injector
January 10th, 2006, 06:31 AM
G'day everyone

I have a problem. When i turn on the computer it will go as far as the Win 2K start up 'page', before resetting. It is stuck in a continous loop and fails to start. I attempted several option by pressing F8, boot last good configuration, etc with the same results.

Its an old computer and I have recovery disks to return it to 'factory configuration' (Win 98 SE). It aborts the recovery saying

'Error - Hard Disk not found'

Recovery Aborted

If you have a a hard disk installed the cable may be loose or the disk may not be initialized........

C:/>

I have checked all the cables, changed the cables, even changed the HDD with 2 other ones..... same thing.

Can anyone help???

Thanks
bAdWaYz
January 10th, 2006, 03:12 PM
If you boot into the system BIOS does the BIOS see the hard drive at all? If the BIOS doesn't even pick up the hard drive then maybe you have a bad IDE chann on the mobo.
groove_injector
January 11th, 2006, 02:44 AM
how do you get to the BIOS with win 2K??
Nosrep
January 11th, 2006, 03:50 AM
Well, if you see the 2K screen, then probably not a bios problem. Was there an event that started this? Bad shutdown or power failure? You mentioned last good config, but how about safe mode? Or Safe Mode Command Prompt? If you can get there you can run a chkdsk...

-Dave
http://spyware.dugancom.com
http://www.ccallinfo.com
groove_injector
January 14th, 2006, 05:36 AM
It will go as far the win 2K screen with the progress bar at the bottom. When it reaches 100% it resets!! I dont know what caused the problem, it just happened. I tried all the options including safe mode.... no good.

I did have a simialar prob about a year and half ago when it was running 98SE. That time I used the the recovery disks to fix it. It is an old computer. 533Mhz celron.
Nosrep
January 14th, 2006, 02:45 PM
What format is the drive, NTFS or FAT? It looks like your restore disks give you a c: prompt. Can you run chkdsk or even scandisk from there on the drive? Can you see the drive at all? If you type DIR at that c: prompt, what do you get?

-Dave
http://spyware.dugancom.com
http://www.ccallinfo.com