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Windows 2000 Pro will not boot

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9 replies

by zlitocook

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Big boss, pres. of the bank. He said Word was hanging would not start so he hit ctrl+alt+del to get to task manager. He tried to end task for word but the computer locked up. He said he waited a long time and tryed to turn off the laptop (a compaq armada) and it would not trun off. So he unpluged it and removed the battery and it shut off, muhaha. The fun starts, he said he got a few error messages but does not rememeber them and clicked ok to all of them. Now the laptop boots to invalad boot disk please insert boot disk. I tryed to go into the bios to see if it is finding the hard drive but some one before me put a bios password on. I tried to use the Win 2000 CD to load the recovery console but it says there is no Win 2000 system to recover or the hard drive needs to be formated. I booted to a Win98 floppy and can access the drive and see all the directorys on the drive. I made the four floppys to make boot for Win 2000 pro but all the ways I tryed to recover the drive just show the CDROM drive for the restore. I am going to try Bartpe bootcd next, he has save all his important files to this drive and not the network. Mabie I will be a Walmart door guy next week:)

9 replies

by ozi eagle

Before doing anything I would suggest that you extract the important data from the HD, using the Win98 disk, then try restoring. This way if all fails at least the data will be safe.

by kuryous1

Hello there,
The only way to reset the BIOS password that I'm aware of for the Armada is to remove both power and the BIOS battery itself for several minutes in order to clear the password. This is a very lengthy process. You should be able to get into the BIOS then. Hope others can help you. Not that there's anything wrong with Wal-Mart....Goodluck!!

by wcp

1. Tell your boss to expect for the worst and hope for the best.

2. Backup data
Use floppies if you can. Or take out the HD and connect it to a Desktop computer using a laptop HD adaptor. Copy data to a folder, say Backup in the desktop HD.

3. HD diagnostic test
The symptoms you described suggest that the HD might have crashed. Do a diagnostic test. You can download the utility from the manufacturer?s website, except from Toshiba.
If the test failed, replace the HD.
If the test passed, the Windows crashed beyond repair (You said the Recovery Console did not see Windows). You may keep the HD.

4. Clean install Windows
You may need to take care of BIOS password before installing Windows.

5. Install all software
No brainer here.

6. Restore data
No brainer.

7. Set up Backup system for your BOSS
Install a CD-RW, DVD-RW, or external one touch HD and teach him how to backup. Or Set up to store data in the server instead.

by zlitocook

This is the way I ended up doing what I needed. I used Batpe to access the drive and move files to a network share. I then went to Compusa and bought a adapter with a usb 2.0 connector to attach the laptop computer to my desktop. Then used Ghost to copy the drive to mine and now can get to anything I need to. The reason I Ghosted the drive is the Bartpe disk has a program I loaded to check drives. And that one is on its last leggs. Walmart will have to wait for me for awhile:)

by i_s

Dear,

If you want to reset the bios passward you must shutdown the machine then remove the battery from the motherboar for few minutes then start your machine and WITHOUT BATTERY for few minutes then shutdown the machine and put the battery in the motherboard and start it to access into bios.
I suggest you to use this step in the first.
And if the problem still after this solution, You must take out the Hard Disk from the labtop and put it as a slave in another machine to take your backup then you can scan your Hard disk or format it if you need.

Note: you must take in your considration the format kind for the hard disk that you want to use it as a master when you start to take the backup.( NTFS format can see the FAT & NTFS format, but FAT format can see FAT only).

Good Luck.

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