Win2K boots to desktop then displays garbled blue screen?

My son's pc will no longer boot up. It goes through a system check like it was not shutdown properly, then after it checks all drives, it starts to boot normally, screen display is normal, it loads the desktop, then crashes to a blue screen with smeared white unreadable characters.
I am able to boot into safe mode!

Help.

Thanks,
Scott

 

more info: 900 mHz Celeron, 384 mb RAM, clean pc (Avast AV, Sygate FW, AdAware, Spybot and SpywareBlaster, etc.)

Thanks,
Scott

 

Press F8 during boot process to bring up the following options:

1. Safe Mode

2. Safe Mode with Networking

3. Safe Mode with Command prompt

4. Enable Boot Logging

5. Enable VGA Mode

6. Last Known Good Configuration

7. Debugging Mode

8. Boot Normally

Try Last Known Good Configuration, it enables the desktop to load the configuration that was stored when it was booted successfully last time. However, this option can’t take care of any hardware related problems.

Steve

 

Thanks.
I had actually already tried that, to no avail.
Why would it get past the login and desktop, load the taskbar, and then hang, going to the blurred blue screen (and sometimes catching the starup sound also hanging in an endless loop)?

Scott

 

Has he installed or uninstalled any software before this started? I know it might be hard to tell but does it look like a STOP error with numbers.

Also, just in case, do you have the Windows 2000 CD-ROM?

Steve

 

Thanks for replying.

The error is impossible to read. He tells me it has been doing this intermittently for a couple of weeks, but now it is totally dead.

Yes, I do have a real Win2K disc (not OEM), which is what was used to install on all my pcs.

I am running the Win2K repair process from the setup disc now, but I don't have a recovery disc, so I have to let it try to fix it by itself. I don't know what will happen.

Scott

 

Well, repair didn't help. Any ideas to avoid a reinstall?
Scott

 

Well, now it won'ty even boot into safe mode, just hangs at the black screen with the gray bar at the bottom that says 'starting windows' after the bar reaches 100%.

I guess I will have to reinstall, unless you have another idea.

Scott

 

My msitake: after waiting quite some time, it finally did boot into safe mode.

Any suggestions?

Scott

 

.

Hey Scott,

Sorry, wasn't here for your replies. Before recommending any other options, since a repair was unsuccessful, just a few more questions.

1. Ask your son/user what happened when this started and he was able to still use the computer, did he just wait for it to boot normally and it did?

2. Has he installed or reinstalled Roxio Easy-CD Creator? That can create a problem in the boot sequence that can't be fixed under the repair option.

Steve

 

Thanks for all the suggestions. It seemed hopeless, so I just reinstalled Win2K, which is just as well, since you can imagine what happens to a teen's pc over time (even with my training him about not downloading or installing anything).

Fortunately, I always set up my pcs with a seperate partition for the OS, and all my utilities and apps on others, so the worst part of it was downloading all the Win2K updates. I really should get a good ghost program and learn how to do that.

Scott

 

OK. I can't say I blame you, give him a fresh start and it sounds like your giving him good advice.

I just recently purchased Acronis True Image, I have only used it a couple of times so I'm still learning. It was recommended by several members here and I can always ask if I run into problems.

Good Luck.

Steve

 

As it turns out, after fixing his pc I decided to get him a new one, give his to my younger daughter, and give her's to my wife. Trickle down effect. His was only 900 mhz, and my 9-year-old daughter's was only a 550 (and she complains it's slow. That will keep my wife off of mine; she's pc poison anyway. She's wanted her own, but she has a DOS box she uses for an old legacy app for her job that will not run on a windows box in a DOS shell, so it would need to be rebooted every time she needed it. I will get a KVM switch, and now she will finally be able to switch between the internet and her work, which will come in handy as her work requires her to research on the internet, which is why she would use mine. Now everyone will be happier.