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re: Windows 2000 Login Loop and Inaccessabile Boot Device BSOD Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 10:48 am Posted by C K (6908 messages posted) If the BIOS doesn't have an option to boot from a USB device, what is happening is that it is trying to boot from the HDD, not the USB drive. Without a floppy and CDROM, it gets very complicated to get Windows reinstalled or repaired. You will have to remove the HDD, and prep the HDD to at least boot to a command prompt after you have copied an Windows install CD to the HDD. Then you could run the installer for a clean install or a repiar install. You will also need to have a valid key for Windows (should be one on the machine). Either way, if you have data that needs to be saved, it would mean removing the HDD and connecting it somehow to another machine to save data and/or load an install CD to it, and that all depends on if the HDD hasn't failed. This means you will have to have an adaptor to connect the HDD to a desktop machine, or mount the drive in a USB encloser to copy/save the data, and copy an install CD, then prep the drive to boot to the command prompt. In any event, anything you do will be a little or a lot complicated depending on your level of expertise. As for the registry, it has to be mounted (it's not stored as a normal TXT file that can be edited), and we usually use a memory based Linux system that doesn't have to be loaded on a HDD to open it. That has a learning curve to it too. There may be other ways to mount and edit it, but that is the option I use. If you aren't comfortable doing any of this, then you will have to find someone experienced in such procedures to do it. Is there a restore partition on the HDD that can be accessed? Usually that was what the manufacturers would do when there was no USB boot option, CD ROM or floppy.. A manual for the machine might help in this situation if other/any options for restoring the machine are possible. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Windows 2000 Login Loop and Inaccessabile Boot Device BSOD Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 11:38 am Posted by Steve1254 (6 messages posted) I'm not sure the BIOS has a boot from USB option but I'll check tonight. I'm able to boot from the USB CD Rom and the booting from the Windows 2000 CD starts and loads all drivers but when it actually starts to load the Windows 2000 install is when I receive the BSOD. Do you have any ideas about how to resolve the load in loop since that's the really issue I'm having. I figure that if I do a repair from the recovery console, I can resolve the issue. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Windows 2000 Login Loop and Inaccessabile Boot Device BSOD Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 11:53 am Posted by C K (6908 messages posted) If it BSOD's at that part of the install, you have a hardware issue or failure, or a driver issue. First suspect would be the driver, then the hdd, then memory (as that is where the files are loaded first), and on a laptop, there can be a number of things such as, XP may not have the correct drivers, especially for the IDE controller. Laptops have many proprietary types of hardware that Windows will not have the drivers for. Therefore, you have to have or download the drivers for it, or use the manfacturers install/recovery procedures so that doesn't become an issue. Off hand, I would suspect that there is a driver, or HDD issue, last would be a memory or motherboard issue. If the CD ROM is loading the installer, than it sounds like the BIOS does have a boot from USB device and the initial loading of the install files is done with a legacy IDE driver, then when it attempts to reboot, the IDE driver is either wrong, or Windows didn't have an IDE driver for the chipset, and at that point it will BSOD with a code and a message. It may or may not reboot. If it just reboots, then you probably won't be able to see the error message. When you can, post the code and message if you can read it off the screen. That will help diagnose it possibly. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Windows 2000 Login Loop and Inaccessabile Boot Device BSOD Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 12:00 pm Posted by Steve1254 (6 messages posted) Another option would be if I can boot to a command prompt I may be able to resolve the login loop. Any idea how to boot to a command prompt without the windows 2000 CD? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Windows 2000 Login Loop and Inaccessabile Boot Device BSOD Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 12:06 pm Posted by Steve1254 (6 messages posted) I was able to connect the laptop to my home network and get an IP address. It only boots to the windows 2000 login and get stuck in the loop when logging on. I attempted to connect to the registry from another computer on the network but it's not connecting to the registry (either by IP or name). The working PC I'm using is part of a workgroup but the laptop is part of domain. Any ideas how I can get into the registry of the laptop using the working PC? [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows 2000 Discussion Forum