The 4 startup disks

[UnrealChampion]

I have two computers, one is a gateway-pentium2-and has Windows 98 on it, my other is a dell-pentium3-and has Windows XP pro 2000 on it. The dell was an upgrade. Well, heres my situation. I was playing around with msconfig the other day on my dell, and i guess i unchecked something in the startup tab that i shouldnt have and now it will not start windows. When i try to start the computer, it goes to a dell screen, loading BIOS or whatever, then goes to a black screen and restarts itself. I have tried numerous things to try to fix it, and nothing has worked. Ive tried safe mode and every other option that is available when you push f8, and it still goes to a black screen then reboots. I was thinking that i might be able to put the hard drive onto my gateway, and access it from there and maybe change the config settings from there? Will this work or is there another alternative to it? I have thought of using the XP backup disks for the hard drive, but i do not have them. I got the dell from a university and got the software that was on it, without any backup disks. I would really appreciate your help if you have it.

[lmnobs]

Not sure I understand whether or not you can Boot to Safe Mode from your post but if you can do a system restore on it from there it may fix your problem. See here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/getstarted/ballew_03may19.mspx and some instructions for other built in tools for XP Pro are here http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmb_tol_jrch.asp

[UnrealChampion]

Safe mode will not work. I went to Last Known Good Configuration, and nothing happens. I cannot get to my desktop at all, at least not thrugh the f8 menu.

[UnrealChampion]

Hmmm ok, get this... Youll probabally think im really not the smartest here, thus, i have realized that the operating system is NOT XPpro its.. its.. 2000pro.

[lmnobs]

Well give us a bit to come up wih some other opts

[lmnobs]

Don't know if this will help but here is a link to Micro Squashes answer.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q256194

[lmnobs]

May have over looked something real simple like the Battery for the Bios may be bad and will cause these symptoms as well as sometimes a hardware prob like a soundcard or even memory. I would try a new battery especially if this is a Desk top confuser .
then if no go (unless everything is on board ) you can remove any addin cards like modem and sound ,usb ,and reboot if it boots then add the cards back in one at a time till it doesent boot

[UnrealChampion]

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...b;EN-US;Q256194

that isnt the problem, i cant even log into windows

As for the batter for the bios and the hardware is all good. I know what caused the problem, i just cant figure out how to reverse it. I could tell you what i did, but id use loose terminology, and im not sure if id get it all across.

Here it is, i may have said it earlier, but ill say it again.

I was cleaning my computer of viruses, and all that bad stuff, and i thought about using a trick that i used to use with my gateway, go to msconfig, go to startup and uncheck anything that looked suspicious to me(i dont remember what i unchecked). Well i did it and restarted, or tried to. It starts out with the usuall Dell screen with tbe blue lettering and it says its loading bios (theres a little white bar that fills up). When the bar fills up, it goes to a black screen (this was a regular thing when it woked good), but then it just rebooted, instead of loading windows, and letting me log in.

[lmnobs]

There has to be a way to recover from this unfortunately I am not real familiar with win 2k but you won't be able to log into Windows if the Battery is defunkt however there may be a solution yet just not in my knowledge . The morning will bring new Talent to this....Regards

[UnrealChampion]

thanks for your help so far

[UnrealChampion]

Hey, got a question. I have discovered that there is a set of 4 windows 2000 pro boot disks. My question is, if i use these, will this erase any information on my drive? Or will it simply just start windows (what im hoping for)?

This is what disks i got/how i got them: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/197063/EN-US/

[lmnobs]

Do you have the Windows 2000 Install CD???

[UnrealChampion]

Nope, thats the downside with getting the computer from a university, i didnt get any backup disks. Is there somewhere i could download it? Or will i have to buy it?

[lmnobs]

The link you posted will only let you make the disks it talks about if you Have the Cd, Nope you can't download one to my knowledge ,Yes you can Buy one but let us have some more info about what you get when you press F8 on strt-up Do you get anything if so What and please be specific. I merged these threads to keep us on the same subject so please post back here in this one...

[UnrealChampion]

a:\Mvc-001f.jpg

[UnrealChampion]

appearantly it didnt.. how do you post a pic on here?

[UnrealChampion]

Ok i think i got the pictures down... sorry bout making the other thread by the way. Uhh the first pic is the screen with the blue lettering i keep talking about (im gonna go through all the options i have) the second screen is what happens when i press f8, third is what happens when i select an option listed in the f8 menu.. notice it has the 1 option of running the operating system windows xp pro.. ill come back to this, fourth is a zoomed in picture of the same screen, fifth is the bottom of that screen.

[UnrealChampion]

sixth is what happens when i press enter. this screen pops up for a mere second and i just noticed when i took the pic it says something failed (this could be something!??!?!?!) and seventh would be a picture on the outside of my computer, where i got the idea it was windows 2000 pro. (im a little confused what my operating system in:-()

Edit by: ZeroTolerance.....this pic removed for your own protection....you should never post any OS cd keys on the net!

[UnrealChampion]

this is the f8 pic.. it didnt load it when i entered it into the attachments i guess

[vantim]

Well first things first. It was win2000 but now has been upgraded to winxp. It says ntdetect has failed. Unfortunately you need the windows Xp pro cd to run a repair on for this problem. It was coincidental that you were using msconfig. That is not what caused your problem. The problem is the ntdetect.com file is corrupted or missing. In order to fix this you must boot to the winxp pro cd rom and begin setup and choose the repair option. You do not want to use the win2000 diskettes that you have.

You should contact the university about obtaining the cd. It was illegal for them to sell you a computer with windows installed without supplying the cd. The only other option is to borrow one from somebody or buy it.

let us know what happens