I have a duel processor pentium III with win 2K. It reboots at the end of stepping through the squares at the bottom. Drive A is in the machine. Drive B is a duplicate of Drive A except for files created since I last copied the drive over. Drive B does the same thing. Reformatting and reinstalling win 2k gets the same results. I have tried swapping memory. Ideas please.

If formatting and re-installing Windows has the same problem, then it's definitely a hardware problem. Remove as much out of the PC as you can, e.g. sound card, multiple RAM modules, etc. Then try again. It'll probably still have the problem but at least you'll know that the parts that you took out work OK and it will have narrowed down the remaining components that might still be the cause of the problem.

I have a hunch that it's the graphics card as it doesn't load the drivers for that until quite late in the boot sequence. Of course, without a graphics card, you can't see much on the screen! Unless you have an on-board graphics port and a separate graphics card as well, in which case you could try plugging your monitor into the on-board one and then removing the separate graphics card. Failing that, try sourcing another.

Let us know how you get on