Windows 2000 Boot Loop

[Wolfe]

This may be a motherboard issue, and if so someone please tell me.

While I consider myself to be a relative expert on installing, repairing, and etcetera... I'm to the point of ripping my hair out.

Wife's machine froze, then when booting it got stuck in a loop. It tries to bluescreen, but it's so fast that all I can read from it is the word 'corrupt' before it tries to boot itself again.

OS: Windows 2000
Mem: 1gig
Harddrive: 80gig

Things I've tried:

• All of the safe modes: Safe mode, Safe mode with networking, Safe mode with command prompt, safe mode with admin
• Loaded up the CD and tried a repair. It failed.
• Bootup and tried to get back into the CD, but it bypassed it saying that it couldn't find the startup files
• Created the four disk startup floppys on my machine, but hers wouldn't recognize them
• Bios change to ensure that it starts with CD, then Floppy, then Harddrive.

At this point, no matter what I do in the bios or the boot order, it will not find the necessary files to start from either the floppy, nor the CD. No safe mode will let me in. And there's the ambiguous 'corrupt' that I can read when it flashes the BSOD before rebooting again.

The BSOD flash comes after the dos 'loading windows bars' and the Windows loading bar is filled 100%.

I don't want to go bald.

What do I do now? I've run out of tricks. 

[ale52]

Have you tried a different data cable / try loading Windows on another hard drive?  If the problem follows you the it's probable a mb issue. 

Alan <>< 

[Wolfe]

That's a good idea, but not exactly feasible with my current computer supplies.

However, after talking to the wife about what she did and what not... I found out that her machine has been locking up on a consistent basis, and that she has to reset the clock whenever she reboots the machine. Considering the age of the motherboard, I opted to just replace the d*mn thing. Fortunately, Frys.com had a sale for a refurbished desktop. It has everything except a monitor. I ordered it not fifteen minutes ago and told the wife after the fact.

Thank the gods for a big tax return check, I say.

Plan on offloading her files after the new machine gets here. The only thing that I'm going to do to that new one is to reformat the harddrive to clean out the hoohah that comes preloaded. Clean Installs all around!

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.

[ale52]

Glad you posted back and let us know what happened.

Alan <><