My Win2k machine goes through the the windows load screen but before it loads the desktop it flashes a blue screen with some sort of message and reboots. It does this constantly unless interrupted.

My machine is an Asus P4PE BP with Intel 2.4 cpu, Western digital 160 gig drive and and NVIDIA Quadra Pro video card. It also has a Win98 30 gig disk slave to the WD disk.

None of the F8 options work (when chosen the machine still reboots)
Booting from the CD give me two errors:
FTDISK.SYS is corrupted
I8042prt.sys is corrupted

Tried switching HD I/O cables - no luck
switched the memory from 2 sticks to one and tried both in slot one - no luck
Unplugged the network
Unplug the power supply, removed the memory and the CMOS battery, let machine sit and re-plugged everything - no luck

I also tried to boot from the Win98 HD and it will come up in safe mode only. Can't boot from the Win2K cd though. I get the following errors:
NTDLR is missing.

I just loaded up the entire Win2K system 2 weeks ago and upgraded to the SP4 patch and was loading various peripheral drivers when Outlook started acting weird so I turned the machine off. That's the last time I saw my desktop.

Also, I have switched the win2k from an older machine to this new one and I'm using a burned copy of my old Win2K disk ( which worked fine 2 weeks ago) Is there something about Win2K that doesn't allow this?

I would be happy to reload the entire Win2K system again if anyone could tell me how to do it. My disk is partitioned into 3 drives and only the operating system is on C: I'm trying to save all my digital photo's on the other drives so I don't want to wipe out the entire disk.

Tonight I plan to re-flash my bios just to make sure it isn't corrupted. I also have a CD with the latest Intel chipset drivers to load if I can figure out how to do that.

Thanks,

Mason

welcome to dal the online computer help forum i have done a google on the ntdlr is missing and have come up with this

it may not be any help to your problem but it does explain the actual error in depth so you may be able to work at the problem from a different angle;-

NTDL is missing is associated with the boot process. The usual message is Couldn’t find NTDLR Please insert another disk. In which case their might be a floppy in your disk drive, The file is missing or corrupt.

The boot process in which NTDLR is included follows:

NTLDR is loaded in part 5 of the boot process.

NTLDR is in part 6 of the boot process it has the following functions:

· Switches processor to flat 32-bit memory model. This supports 4 GB RAM

· Start a mini-file system to allow Windows NT to be loaded from a different file systems.

· Reads BOOT.INI and displays the contents as the operating choice list.

NTLDR loads NTDETECT.Com if Windows NT is selected in part 7 of the boot process.

NTLDR is in the 9 part of the boot process it carries out the following:

· Locates and loads the kernal, NTOSKNL.EXE, but does not initialise it.

· Next, the boot loader loads the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System from %systemroot%\System32\Config\System.

At this point, the boot loader creates the control set it will use to initialise the computer. The value in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Select subkey determines which control set in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System to use. The loader uses the control set identified by the default value, unless you are starting by using the Last Known Good Configuration. In this case, the value under LastKnownGood specifies the control set. Based on your selection and the value of the corresponding Select subkey, the loader determines which ControlSet00x to use. It sets the value of the Current in the Select subkey to the number of the control set it will use.
At this time, the boot loader scans all of the services in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es for device drivers with a Start value of 0x0, which indicates that they should be loaded but not initialised. Device drivers with these values are typically low-level hardware device drivers, such as hard disk device drivers. The Group value for each device driver determines the order in which the boot loader loads them. The Registry subkey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\ServiceGroupOrder defines the loading order.

or try these ideas aswell;-

Could be any one of a number of things, but, at a guess, I'd suggest the following

1. Cables and cards-make sure all cards are seated firmly in their slots and all internal cables are firmly in their slot

2. Memory-could be faulty, could just be not making the full connection-take out the stick (s) and re-seat. If you have 2 or more and re-seating doesn't fix it, take them out and try then one at a time on their own. If one of them causes the problem, there is your answer.


3-PSU-Personally, I think this may well be 'it', but try the others first. Try and get your hands on a new (or at least different-known good) PSU (preferrably of a higher wattage than you currently have). Depending on what you've got in your PC, you could be running it close to it's limits and if you've installed something new-that could be the catalyst for sending your current psu over the edge, or it could have developed a non- fatal flaw .

4-CPU-It could be that your PSU has developed a fault-hard to really test. You aren't overclocking are you?If so, drop it back to it's correct level. If you are running an Athlon XP processor, try going into the BIOS and bring the frequency the cpu works on down (i.e. if it's supposed to run on 166Mhz, drop to 133) .

I've currently got an issue with my PC which does exactly what you are describing-I know the fault is in my psu, but 'underclocking' does the trick until I can land a good psu at the right money.

could be other things too-like some dry joint somewhere which isn't making the connection from cold, but once it's started and re-started a few times, it heats up and expands far enough to make contact to keep you running.


hope this helps

please let me know how you get on and i can help you further

Originally Posted by spud

or try these ideas aswell;-

Could be any one of a number of things, but, at a guess, I'd suggest the following

1. Cables and cards-make sure all cards are seated firmly in their slots and all internal cables are firmly in their slot

2. Memory-could be faulty, could just be not making the full connection-take out the stick (s) and re-seat. If you have 2 or more and re-seating doesn't fix it, take them out and try then one at a time on their own. If one of them causes the problem, there is your answer.


3-PSU-Personally, I think this may well be 'it', but try the others first. Try and get your hands on a new (or at least different-known good) PSU (preferrably of a higher wattage than you currently have). Depending on what you've got in your PC, you could be running it close to it's limits and if you've installed something new-that could be the catalyst for sending your current psu over the edge, or it could have developed a non- fatal flaw .

4-CPU-It could be that your PSU has developed a fault-hard to really test. You aren't overclocking are you?If so, drop it back to it's correct level. If you are running an Athlon XP processor, try going into the BIOS and bring the frequency the cpu works on down (i.e. if it's supposed to run on 166Mhz, drop to 133) .

I've currently got an issue with my PC which does exactly what you are describing-I know the fault is in my psu, but 'underclocking' does the trick until I can land a good psu at the right money.

could be other things too-like some dry joint somewhere which isn't making the connection from cold, but once it's started and re-started a few times, it heats up and expands far enough to make contact to keep you running.


hope this helps

please let me know how you get on and i can help you further

Thanks Spud!

I've already tried 1 and 2(several times) with no luck

The power supply is new but I agree they can do weird things. I actually tried to up my voltage and that didn't work so now I'll try to decrease it. BTW I am not overclocking the CPU or memory and am using the auto config for the timing settings.